EarthTalk Q&A Archive: Environmental FAQs & Sustainable Living Tips

Clean and green wind energy is the new darling of alternative energy developers, and the U.S. industry has been surging the past three years, especially as developers take advantage of government incentives—in the form of the so-called Production Tax Credit (PTC)—for erecting turbines and connecting them to the grid.

Thanks in part to pressure from non-profits like Greenpeace International—which has published quarterly versions of its landmark “Guide to Greener Electronics” since 2006—computer makers now understand that consumers care about the environmental footprints of the products they use.

Kids” shoes are a quickly expanding market and companies with a green perspective are now jumping into the race with mini versions of everything from flip-flops to slippers to heeled dress shoes. While green kids” shoes from makers like Simple, which offers organic cotton EcoSneaks with car tire soles

Whether wildlife officials in a given region consider a dead beached whale a biohazard or not is local decision, but nevertheless experts agree that only trained professionals should go anywhere near a dead wild animal to prevent the spread of bacterial infection alone

The husband-and-wife team of town planners Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk are typically credited as the founders of new urbanism, a style of community design that embraces mixed use (commercial and residential) development in pedestrian-friendly and green space-rich neighborhoods—much like the old neighborhoods many baby-boomers remember before suburban sprawl made us all slaves to our cars.

Several decades ago a fish-centric diet was considered to be not only healthy but also environmentally friendly. But today those of us who eat a lot of fish may not be doing ourselves or the environment any favor. The two major concerns are overfishing and pollution.

Some 500 new varieties of so-called energy drinks have been introduced in recent years. Most contain excessive amounts of sugar and caffeine and are far from healthy.© aquarelle, courtesy Flickr

So-called long-term fire retardants—those usually dropped from airplanes over forest fires—are comprised of water mixed with a slurry of chemicals, thickeners and corrosion inhibitors designed to prevent plants on the ground from igniting,

Just because that old shirt you used to love is too threadbare to wear anymore doesn’t mean it has to end up in a landfill. “Consumers don’t understand that there’s a place for their old clothing even if something is missing a button or torn,” says Jana Hawley, a professor of textile and apparel management at the University of Missouri-Columbia. “Ninety-nine percent of used textiles are recyclable.”