Features

David Ransom listens to the false notes being played by an orchestra of financial instruments. Top dodgers: Bono, Rupert Murdoch.

They’re in our homes and our workplace, in the air we breathe and in the food we eat. Wayne Ellwood argues that toxic chemicals are changing the nature of nature.

The facts about plastic

It’s a fashion statement and an environmental nightmare. Zoe Cormier examines one of the most successful marketing ploys ever – bottled water.

Things you can do to avoid toxic plastics. PLUS the Action / Campaign directory.

A history of plastic.

As oil supplies dwindle, the plastic industry is pinning its hopes on biomass. Not a great idea, reasons Jim Thomas.

The good ship Alguita sails an ocean choked with plastic. Blog by Anna Cummins.

Women desperately want toilets – but not as a health aid. Libby Plumb reports.

Unbelievably, people still exist whose task in life is shovelling shit, as Mari Marcel Thekaekara explains.

Toilets have been around since the days of Elizabeth I. Systems old and new.

Everything you ever wanted to know about toilets.

David Satterthwaite speaks out in praise of sewers, and Mayling Simpson-Hébert retaliates on behalf of pits.

Toilet champions are not so rare a breed as you’d think. Here are some distinguished exemplars.

2008 is the International Year of Sanitation. Or, asks Maggie Black, is it the International Year of Silence and Embarrassment?

To save Yasuní, the oil must stay in the ground.

Adam Ma’anit navigates the snakepits of global carbon trading in the context of Yasuní.

Calm the panic or delay the inevitable?

The five oil concession regions in Yasuní National Park

No-one said oil was clean. But Ecuador’s experience of extracting fossil fuels is about as bad as it gets, reports David Ransom.