Monsanto and its German new owner Bayer AG face more than 9,000 lawsuits in the U.S. brought by people suffering from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL) and who blame Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides (GBHs) for their diseases. Glyphosate/Roundup is an herbicide and herbicides are used to kill weeds.

Get ready. The State of Connecticut’s new ban on single-use plastic bags goes into effect August 1. It will place a tax of 10 cents on each single-use plastic bag.

Connecticut landscape architects came out against a bill that would have protected our smallest children from dangerous playgrounds. Proposed Bill 7003 this year would have establish a moratorium on the use of crumb rubber mulch being used as a surfacing material in municipal and public school playgrounds.  Why was this bill proposed and why was it important for the health of our smallest children?

The Connecticut legislators are paid a salary of $28,000.  The state provides $5,500 yearly to senators and $4,500 to representatives for expenses they don’t have to document. If Connecticut had kept the legislators’ salaries concurrent with the inflation rates, the legislators salaries would now be $35,500 — but they are not – they are still at $28,000.  The Connecticut salaries for legislators were low 13 years ago — and they are even lower in buying power now.  Over the past 13 years, inflation rates have totaled 27 percent,  meaning that the  salaries of $28,000 now have a real worth today of $20,500.

There is presently Bill 6516 before the Connecticut General Assembly that aims to prohibit the sale and distribution of children’s products containing flame-retardant chemicals. It is extremely important to get toxic flame retardants out of infant and children’s products. Environment and Human Health, Inc. (EHHI) believes that with this ban there should be an an exemption for children’s car seats.

The amount of plastic produced since 2010 is more than was produced during the whole last century. Packaging amounts for 40 percent of the plastic uses. Because plastics do not biodegrade easily, they fill up landfills and end up in our oceans.  In the ocean the plastic eventually breaks down into small particles where they can be taken up by fish and thus can enter the human food chain.

Wood smoke has become the new “second hand” smoke and it is making thousands of people sick across the country. The components of wood smoke are virtually the same as cigarette smoke and yet wood smoke is hardly regulated while cigarette smoke is highly regulated.