Articles by Grist staff

And other words from readers

  Re: Better Living Through French Fries Dear Editor: This is a great story and I’m glad that more folks will be educated about biodiesel, but you missed an even better point. There is another alternative to processed biodiesel: straight vegetable oil. No need to add lye or methanol or anything else. Just filter and […]

Clothes Call

In yet another trend-setting environmental move by California, Gov. Gray Davis (D) signed into law this week a bill requiring old, inefficient washing machines to be replaced with water-efficient ones by 2007. New washers must now meet a standard of using 9.5 gallons of water to wash one cubic foot of laundry — well below […]

In the Drink

In other news from the Golden State, regulators in California are reviving a campaign to clean up perchlorate, a Cold War-era pollutant that has been showing up in drinking water supplies across the country. Since the 1950s, the substance has been used as an oxidizer in rockets, munitions, and fireworks. It was not considered particularly […]

Mushroom Cloud

“There are practically no cases of radioactive watermelons this year,” was the triumphant announcement of Andrei Buyanov, one of Moscow’s corps of atomic food inspectors. Unfortunately for Muscovites, there were plenty of other radioactive fruits and vegetables. Moscow is 415 miles from Chernobyl, where an atomic reactor blew up in 1986; food found in the […]