‘Less than half of the 280 million metric tons of plastic produced each year ends up in the landfill. A fair bit of the rest ends up littering the landscape, blown by the wind or washed down streams and rivers into the sea.’

via Some plastics should be classified as hazardous, scientists say – latimes.com.

‘Scientists previously mapped huge floating trash patches in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, but now a husband-wife team researching plastic garbage in the Indian Ocean suggest a new and dire view. “The world’s oceans are covered with a thin plastic soup,” says Anna Cummins, cofounder of 5 Gyres Institute.’

via New garbage patch discovered in Indian Ocean – Yahoo! News.

‘…Chemical flame retardants have been on the market since the 1970s, and are used in everything from computers to upholstery, including nursing pillows, cribs, strollers and fleece baby carriers. In the past 10 years, there’s been an explosion of evidence that the most widely used kind, called PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), do more harm than good — especially when used in baby products, which have little chance of bursting into flames.’

via The poison crib: When protective chemicals harm – Children – Salon.com.

‘LOS ANGELES Reuters – Marine scientists from California are venturing this week to the middle of the North Pacific for a study of plastic debris accumulating across hundreds of miles km of open sea dubbed the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”‘

via Scientists study huge plastic patch in Pacific | Reuters.