TreeHugger News: Green Alcatraz, Cool Cob and Toxic Companies
by Leonora Oppenheim, London, UK 
on 06.12.06
This week TreeHugger News brings you something dirty, something clean, and a whole lot of green in between, starting with a look at the Toxic 100 list of the largest corporate polluters. But before you jump to any quick conclusions, we’ll let you know what Toxic 100 company also made the list of Global 100 of the most Sustainable Corporations in the world. In cleaner, less confusing news - the infamous former federal prison Alcatraz gets greener, British schools move towards carbon neutrality, and kids in California celebrate cob – reviving a traditional building technique to craft modern benches.
For those who would like to delve deeper into the subjects on this week’s TH News you can check out some related articles buried in our archives. To save you some time and effort this week we’ve brought a few of them up to the surface for you. For cob lovers you can read about prize winning Cobtun House and How to make your own mud oven. The business brains can look at our posts on the Global 100 and Sustainable Enterprise. For those of you interested in life behind bars you check out more on Alcatraz and poo powered prisons – that should keep you busy!
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Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Green Glossary: Ingeo
- Build a Greenhouse without Going Broke
- Green Glossary: Bagasse
- Green Glossary: Lyocell
- Can You Recycle Teflon Cookware?
- Perfect Your Cleaning Technique with Tips from Mrs. Meyer's
The reason that ratings based on release of toxics is confusing is that for some substances hazard is under-estimated, while for some it is over-estimated (or irrationally and unreasonably freared), and for a third group hazard is not adequately understood. Fixing the latter situation is why the European Union has embarked on the REACH program. Once hazard is adequately understood, one must know the exposures fully, another weakness for many substances. The only wonder is why people are not more confused.