Disease-carrying microplastics in the air we breathe – Mongabay

Tire shop along the highway in India by Derek A Young ,CC BY-NC 2.0, via Flickr.

A new study from Indian megacities identifies inhalable microplastics as an emerging air pollutant. These micron-sized particles not only bypass barriers in the nose to reach the lungs but also carry pathogens that could find a host in human body and multiply…

Can the circular economy help the Caribbean win its war against waste? – Mongabay

On the way to the Playa Quehueche in Livingston, on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala (by Ken MacElwee CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED via Flickr).

For decades, a graveyard of corroding barrels has littered the seafloor just off the coast of Los Angeles. It was out of sight, out of mind — a not-so-secret secret that haunted the marine environment until a team of researchers came across them with an advanced underwater camera…Startling amounts of DDT near the barrels pointed to a little-known history of toxic pollution…but federal regulators recently determined that the manufacturer had not bothered with barrels. (Its acid waste was poured straight into the ocean instead.)…