Certification Setting

Disposable diapers made from plastic components are a godsend for parents but a nightmare for the planet. The idea for throwaway diapers  can be traced back to an anonymous nun working in the nursery of an Ohio hospital. Back in the mid-1950s, industrial historians say, she proposed that U.S. consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble invent a replacement for cloth diapers. She envisioned a time-saving, affordable, hygienic product to take the load off busy mothers. Since then, the disposable diaper industry has grown into an immense,  $65 billion-a-year monster. Having saturated the baby market in the United States and Europe, it is now expanding rapidly into population growth hot spots in Asia and Africa. But because disposable diapers are mostly made with  nonrecyclable polyethylene plastic , which breaks down over hundreds of years and contains toxic chemicals and  microplastics , the throwaway diaper born in the baby-boom years has l...

They'll make you rethink the things you throw away. You’ve heard that plastic is polluting the oceans — between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes enter marine ecosystems  every year . But does one plastic straw or cup really make a difference? Artist Benjamin Von Wong wants you to know that it does. Von Wong builds massive art installations out of discarded plastic trash, forcing viewers to re-examine their relationship to single-use items.  At the end of January, the artist built a piece called “ Strawpocalypse ,” a stunning pair of 10-foot-tall plastic waves, frozen mid-crash. Comprised of 168,000 plastic straws collected from several volunteer beach cleanups, the installation made its debut at the Estella Place shopping mall in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. BENJAMIN VON WONG Artist Benjamin Von Wong's “Strawpocalypse" was made from over 150,000 discarded plastic straws. Just  9% of global plastic  waste is recycled. Plastic straws are ...

And why Instagram isn't helping. Well-presented, shiny and uniformly sized apples, carrots and other fruits and vegetables are what we’ve come to expect in our local grocery store.   But it’s a perfection that does not always reflect the produce being grown on farms across the U.S., says Danielle Nierenberg, co-founder of the nongovernmental organization Food Tank. “Food grows in the soil and is dirty and comes in all shapes and sizes, yet we’ve been trained to believe that everything is pristine and perfect. It’s part of our culture now. The grocery aisles tell our eyes one thing and we don’t realize that there is nothing bad about misshapen or imperfect-looking food.” And many of us associate aesthetics with eating pleasure. “People think food that looks perfect tastes perfect, but that’s not the case. Ugly can be tasty and nutritious,” Nierenberg says. It all started with the spread of refrigeration technology in the 1980s that enabled fresh fruits and vegetable...

Former inmates are almost 10 times more likely to become homeless. ROBERT RAY/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A person walks into a shelter in Atlanta. Cities and counties including Atlanta are experimenting with creative ways to prevent homelessness among people who have been in jail or prison. By Teresa Wiltz For those who’ve been locked up in prison for years, finding a home on the outside can be rough. Parole restrictions may limit where former inmates can live. Public housing and housing vouchers may be off-limits, and many landlords are reluctant to rent to former offenders. The result, criminal justice experts say, is a housing crisis among the formerly incarcerated, particularly among those recently released from prison. The lack of affordable housing in many cities, and the resulting spike in overall homelessness, are exacerbating the problem. Former prison inmates are almost 10 times more likely to become homeless than the general population, acc...