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The Ocean Conservancy organizes an annual international coastal cleanup that takes place on the third Saturday of September. Based on their annual collective beachcombing, they publish an informative report called "A Rising Tide of Ocean Debris and What We Can Do About It."

The most frequent items found each year are cigarette butts, plastic bags and food wrappers or containers. This illustrates a huge problem. Cigarette butts and single-use packaging do not break down. Nor are they biodegrading in landfills. Plastic requires sunlight to break down and, if littered, it blows across the landscape, ends up in the rivers and bobs out to the ocean. Future generations could be dealing with a litter-strewn planet for centuries, if not longer. Read on…

In his piece, An Open Letter to the Eco-Mom, EcoHearth contributor Steven Kotler warned against the tendency of mothers—especially those whose ultimate goal is to make the planet safer—to go overboard in keeping their children safe. Well, I’m one of those eco-moms. Or at least I’m in recovery.

I have two children, born almost a decade apart. With my firstborn, I went to great lengths to guard him from un-eco evils. Initially those vices included television, toy weapons and junk food. Eventually they were expanded to video games, cigarettes, reckless friends and drugs. The more I tried to shelter my son from bodily and societal toxins, the riskier his behavior became. Read on…

Friends think I’m crazy to shop weekly at the farmers market. Organic food is widely available at many stores in my town, often at a lower price. On my meager income, surely I could get more for less if I weren’t such a, um, food snob. But shopping the farmers market is a festive, convivial experience where getting less and paying more is actually a better deal, for the consumer and the farmer. Read on...

Massey Energy’s coal-mine explosion and BP’s drilling-platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico—resulting in the biggest oil spill in history—underscore why we should quit our fossil-fuel addiction and urge lawmakers to pass an effective climate and energy bill. These are the same types of corporations bidding on the drilling leases off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts that were recently approved by the Obama administration. Their frenetic push to intensify efficiency while compromising worker and environmental safety is to blame for the needless deaths and devastation. But so are all of us who demand an inordinate share of fossil fuels. Read on…

My older siblings were products of the hippie era. Growing up, I was in awe of their rebellion against the establishment and their embrace of earthier ways. I never felt compelled myself to strongly oppose my parents; I was grateful for the opportunity to watch my brothers and sisters’ contentious transition into adulthood from the sidelines. There were a lot of us, so there was a lot for me to observe. Read on…