In Doing More with a Life, best-selling author Piasecki welcomes the reader into his home, revealing the heart-breaking early death of his father, and his deep respect and love for the women in his life, especially his mother, who devoted her life to her children, both foster and biological. He explores the life-shaping moments in his personal history and imagines what is to come next in a series of well-wrought vignettes.   Piasecki’s upbringing was laced with poverty and trauma. He began reading at an early age, seeking out the wisdom and relevance from the “magical clan of writers� who helped him strengthen his writing muscle and feed into his creative hunger.   Bruce’s journey to becoming a writer is spiritual and practical, as he discovers and uncovers what is truly valuable in a life. As well as being a writer, Piasecki is also an environmentalist, a speaker on climate and society, and AHC Group founder. He has also founded the family-endowed Creative Force Foundation.   Doing More with a Life can be read as biography, or inventive memoir, or even as magical realism. Piasecki leaves that choice up to his reader. Readers and followers of Piasecki’s expansive career in environmental and community issues will be deeply moved by his tales of loss and his determination to make himself—and his world—into something profoundly better.

The toxic legacy of Love Canal vividly brought the crisis in industrial waste disposal to public awareness across the United States and led to the passage of the Superfund legislation in 1980. To discover why disasters like Love Canal have occurred and whether they could have been averted with knowledge available to waste managers of the time, this book examines industrial waste disposal before the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.

Colten and Skinner build their study around three key questions. First, what was known before 1970 about the hazards of certain industrial wastes and their potential for causing public health problems? Second, what were the technical capabilities for treating or containing wastes during that time? And third, what factors other than technical knowledge guided the actions of waste managers before the enactment of explicit federal laws?

The authors find that significant information about the hazards of industrial wastes existed before 1970. Their explanations of why this knowledge did not prevent the toxic legacy now facing us will be essential reading for environmental historians and lawyers, public health personnel, and concerned citizens.