Roundup ... if you look beyond the lunatic fringe, you will find some happy users of Roundup in native landscapes and elsewhere, who are also not part of the corporate culture. Reasons: 1) it works; 2) it's site- and individual plant-specific - not absorbed through the roots; and 3) it degrades rapidly, especially in the soil, into things that are not toxic to plants or animals. All around, one of the safest herbicides in normal use, as long as you stay far enough away in space and time from water bodies. Roundup or its generics can be a useful part of converting a lawn to drought-tolerant plantings - quicker kill of the lawn than shading it out with mulch or plastic, and gets many of the other weeds too. But then, this is for the non-lunatic fringe.

As far as the ties are concerned, yes, there are rules these days because creosote *is* fairly nasty stuff. Modern ties tend not to use it any more - other preservatives are used, or concrete and don't worry about it. And yes, some users *have* gotten in trouble for creosoted pilings adn bulkheads, or for dumping materials, in waterways, and have been forced to replace them with new structures. There are still many creosoted pilings and structures around, but the deep pockets have been and will continue to be hit until it's all gone, and for the smaller pockets it's only a matter of time.