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Monthly Archive
Nothing HEHE about the HEHE initiative
Different countries have different responses and initiatives to respond to the global rise of fuel costs. Here in the U.S., we drill more. In Bhutan, they walk more.
The new initiative by Dr. Lyonpo Pema Gyamtsho, a Bhutanese agriculture minister, is called "No Vehicle Day." It's meant to raise awareness as well as fight rising fuel cost and the increase in carbon emission.
Starting this week, every Tuesday will be the "No Vehicle Day" for all employees of the agricultural ministry. The theme, "Helping our Environment, Health and Economy (HEHE)" according to this article is "aimed at reducing air and noise pollution, vehicular traffic, increasing public space, improving physical health and reducing costs to the national exchequer."
The minister not only initiated the action, but was also the first one to take it. Now, isn't that a lovely thought -- a politician that cares enough to actually do something about it. Maybe, it was a photo opportunity for him, as it usually is for most of the U.S. politicians. That, I don't know. But I respect the idea that something like this should be done once a week, in comparison to the U.S. where most of the similar actions happen once a year.
Staff welcomed the move. Besides the environmental and economic advantages, this program also has social benefits, as it promotes social relationships. Way to go Bhutanese leaders!
California Assembly approves ban on Teflon chemical in food packaging
The California State Assembly has adopted first-in-the-nation
legislation to ban a toxic Teflon chemical linked to a number of serious health problems, including cancer, from use in food packaging.
Senate Bill 1313, by Sen. Ellen Corbett of San Leandro, sponsored by EWG, passed the Assembly Wednesday afternoon by a vote of 42 to 22 - one more than needed for passage. (The "yes" total may
grow as more votes are rounded up later today.) The bill now heads back to the state Senate, which already passed an earlier version, for concurrence, and then on to Gov. Schwarzeneger's desk. If he signs it, it will ban, beginning in 2010, the chemical PFOA from fast-food wrappers, pizza boxes, beverage containers and other food packaging.
"This is a great victory for public health and the people of California," said EWG Senior Analyst Renee Sharp. "This bill puts teeth in the voluntary PFOA phase-out deal brokered by the Bush EPA," which won't take effect until 2015. "The federal government's toothless approach to banning a known carcinogen does not ensure that people will be protected from these chemicals," said Sharp.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers PFOA a likely human carcinogen known to induce testicular and mammary cancers in animals. Two studies conducted by professors at UCLA and Johns Hopkins and published in leading journals last year have linked PFOA exposure among the general population to low birth weight. Perfluorinated chemicals, including PFOA, are also associated with altered male reproductive hormones, and effects on the liver, thyroid gland, and immune system.
Unlike other pollutants, which break down in the environment eventually, PFOA and other PFCs don't, according to EPA. Every molecule that is produced today will be around forever, continually redistributing throughout the environment. As a result, it is in the bloodstream of virtually every person in the country - including children still in the womb.
The bill was targeted for defeat by DuPont and other chemical companies, who threw an army of lobbyists against it. A coalition of environmentalists, consumer organizations and labor unions pushed it over the top. Schwarzenegger has not said if he will sign it.
Choosing the family toothpaste: How hard can it be?
Brush twice a day. Floss. Hit the dentist every year or so for a battery-powered cleaning and a once-over and voila, dental health. Pretty straightforward, huh? Not so fast, it turns out. Just finding a toothpaste this summer for the four people in my family proved to be a time-consuming affair with a bump or two in the road. Makes cleaning your 1 year-old's teeth with a wet washcloth seem e-a-s-y.
Why so complicated? I wish I could just say fluoride, 'cause let's face it, that's complicated enough. But no. Then there's the other ingredients. The ones you can't pronounce. The ones that should be safe because they're in your toothpaste. But these days, who knows?
Fluoride. Now this one can be a bit confusing and at times controversial if it’s in your community water supply. But since we’re just talking toothpaste, it’s simpler: avoid toothpaste with fluoride until your child is around 6 years old - when she's less likely to swallow it. There are plenty of fluoride-free options on the shelves.
The myriad other ingredients. Now here's where I head straight to our Skin Deep database because - shhh, don't tell anyone - I really don't want to spend the time or bandwidth to master the various ingredients and their health effects. Got other things to do, thanks. Plus, once you toss the box, conveniently the ingredients aren't listed on the tube. Those industry marketing folks are really slick.
So this whole project began when my son was gifted two HUGE boxes of Kid's Sparkle Fun Flavor Crest. Which he of course l-o-v-e-s. So much so that when informed of my plan to convert it into a household cleanser he hid it. It is still in hiding, in fact. Such is the power of added 'flavor' and blue dye no. 1 (or blue 1, as the label reads; note the convenient absence of the word dye). To soften the blow, I allowed him a trip to the grocery store to pick out a tasty toothpaste that met my standards.
He agreed and off we went, after a quick investigation in the kids' toothpaste section of Skin Deep, where I was only able to gather some key but very useful facts since both kids were climbing on me (my favorite way to do research - you?):
- Our current toothpaste rated far too high on the hazard scale for my liking (why brush my teeth with something moderately hazardous when I don't have to?).
- Don't pick a brand, pick a specific product, because hazard ratings differ across brands.
- Not all bad sounding ingredients are actually bad. Some of the ones I was certain would hit 10 were 0s, 1s and 2s. Pleasant surprise. Also goes to show how tricky it can be to decipher a label these days.
- Don't be fooled by a 'natural' brand, since in my searching one natural brand earned a higher hazard score than the non-natural one. Now there's a whole other conversation about green labeling!
So our bathroom cabinet now holds not one, not two, but three separate tubes of toothpaste (hazard ratings 2, 2 and 3). Low on a 10-point scale, but not hazard free. And none of them cheap, mind you. So, just like when I searched high and low for BPA-free sippy cups earlier this summer, my toothpaste journey has ended with an eye toward something simpler and cheaper – making my own. And I am not a make-your-own mama. Just ask my husband. But it has an appeal, doesn’t it? I could have made at least three healthier tubes worth in the time it took me to land those three commercial tubes in our house, you know?
Photo by Phil Scoville.
Book review: “Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children"
The 20th century will undoubtedly be remembered in history as the century of chemistry. Don’t we all remember “Better Living Through Chemistry?” And now as we stand on the banks of polluted rivers, drink water laced with synthetic chemicals, radioactivity, and psychoactive drugs, and stare with disbelief at the statistics of childhood diseases, we cannot but cry out: “How did we get here?”
It all started so well. . . Mankind (yes, it was man-kind then) found ways to kill mosquitoes and all the other little crawling critters, fly to the moon, make water-proof clothing, and load food with preservatives so that it would last forever on the shelves. Yet the story seem to have ended in little glory or little happiness – except for the companies who produced all these chemicals – and enjoyed unprecedented wealth. Profits for some, poison for others.
The health consequences, deadly fallout from 20th century chemical manufacturing, is the theme of the just published book Poisoned Profits: The Toxic Assault on Our Children, authored by renowned journalists Alice and Philip Shabecoff. The book is an essential read – a call to action that presents, incisively and sharply, the state of the evidence. As the authors write, “We have cast our book as a crime story… what is happening to our children as a result of toxic substances in the environment is criminal.”
The book gives voice to families deeply affected by the toxic chemicals dumped into the environment and gives the due share of acknowledgement – or scathing criticism – to the good, the bad, and the ugly, those who fight on the side of the people and those who do everything to protect the profits of the chemical manufacturers. But the real gift of the book is to also point to a sense of hope, much needed for all of us as we are fighting the uphill battle against toxic chemicals.
As the authors write, “We can obtain justice for our children!” because of our values, because of who we are and because of our love and care for our children.
The United States is a fortunate nation. We possess a spacious and beautiful land… Most of us enjoy relatively good health and increasing life spans…. If America cannot take care of its children, who can? And many of the values we espouse—respect for sanctity of life, our responsibility as stewards of God’s creation, the centrality of the family, caring for the rights and needs of the vulnerable, the duty of service to the community—would seem to dictate that we give the highest priority to nurturing life and providing our children with an unpoisoned environment.
Yet, to arrive to this level of protection for our children, much work is needed—starting with a change on a personal, family level and going all the way up to the change in policies and legislation that will defend the health of people rather than corporations. We can do it! But we better start now.
Adios, au revoir, auf Wiedersehen. . .
Hey loyal Enviroblog readers,
This is my last week at EWG. I'll be around all week, and after that I'm leaving the blog in very capable hands, so don't you worry -- you'll still get quality environmental health news and tips on a regular basis. It's been a pleasure navigating the rough waters of toxics and human health with you, and I hope you've learned a thing or two. I know I have!
I'll be spending the next several months managing a gallery here in DC and writing a whole lot, and then it's off to the next adventure: a farm apprenticeship! Feel free to drop me a line if you'd like to stay in touch.
Photo by yours truly.
Just science?
Greetings from California detours north of the border this week to answer criticisms of EWG by a Canadian newspaper columnist. His newspaper has (so far) refused to print the response below, so we're publishing it here.
Recently, Ottawa Citizen columnist Dan Gardner took aim at “chemical paranoia.” His target was Enviromental Working Group’s Shopper’s Guide, which lists supermarket fruits and vegetables highest and lowest in pesticide residues, based on 43,000 samples tested by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Gardner charged that EWG is promoting “chemophobia” by needlessly alarming consumers about trace amounts of pesticides on produce. To support his view, he interviewed Dr. Joe Schwarcz of McGill University in Toronto – syndicated columnist, CBC TV personality and director of the university’s Office for Science and Society, which its website says is dedicated to “demystifying science for the public [and] the media.”
Unlike activist groups that “talk a lot about what the science says, but have their own interests," Gardner wrote, Schwarcz “delivers science unfiltered. No politics or ideology. Just science." Schwarcz declared EWG’s guide meaningless, irrelevant, and said the amounts of pesticide on produce are too small to worry about: "Where is the information that the level of pesticide contamination that they're talking about has any relevance to humans?”
But when it comes to questions of pesticide safety, Schwarcz has a clear conflict of interest.
The Office for Science and Society has been funded in part by the Council for Biotechnology Information. The Council is an agricultural industry front group whose members are Monsanto, DuPont, Dow AgroSciences, Bayer CropScience, Syngenta and BASF – all companies with a vested interest in discrediting information about the health risks of pesticides. Archived web pages for the Office of Science and Society list the industry group as a supporter from 2003 until October 2007; now the website acknowledges only funding from “private parties.”
Maybe Schwarcz didn’t feel he had to disclose his ties to the pesticide industry, but Gardner could have dug it up in an hour of online research. Judging from some of his other assertions, maybe Gardner’s not that familiar with the Internet.
He blasted EWG’s produce rankings as deceptive comparisons that don’t quantify pesticide levels: “How much pesticide residue was found on onions? How much on peaches? That's what's critical.”
In fact, that information is readily available on the Shopper’s Guide website.
With two mouse clicks, you can learn that the average amount of all pesticides the FDA found on peaches is about 1.1 parts per million. The average amount found on onions is less than 0.001 parts per million, meaning peaches typically have at least 1,100 times more pesticide residue than onions. What’s more, the FDA found that almost 9 out of 10 peaches had residues of two or more pesticides, while less than 1 out of 100 onions had any at all.
Gardner made another blunder by relying on outdated science. He cited the 16th Century physician Paracelsus: “The poison is in the dose.”
Just because many things are more harmful in large doses doesn’t mean everything is safe in small doses. In recent decades, scientists have found that very small doses of some chemicals can cause greater harm, especially to growing kids, than larger doses on adults. Many prescription medicines, including the asthma inhaler Albuterol and the contraceptive Nuvaring, are active in the bloodstream at a few parts per billion or less. They carry warning labels; a pesticide-laden peach does not.
EWG’s Shopper’s Guide makes no claims that aren’t supported by independent, peer-reviewed research linking pesticides to cancer, reproductive harm and other health problems. We believe organic produce is the healthiest choice, but organic is not always available. By consistently choosing foods that are lowest in pesticide residues over those that are highest, consumers can reduce their pesticide intake by up to 90 percent.
Consumers have a right to this information. With it, they can make informed choices about what they put in their bodies. If the choice is between avoiding toxic pesticides or taking the word of a scientist funded by the pesticide industry, that’s hardly paranoia.
Toxic fragrance in the air
Many Enviroblog readers are familiar with the health concerns of undisclosed chemicals that hide under the pseudonym “fragrance” in everyday products—everything from cosmetics to cleaning supplies, not to mention laundry detergents and all those tree-shaped air fresheners. From asthma attacks to potential risk for hormonal disruption, we know that artificial perfumes are frequently nothing but a headache, quite literally so.
But isn’t it important to know what chemicals are sneaking into our homes unannounced? Up to now, all that consumers could do was wring their hands and studiously avoid anything with the word “fragrance” on the label, especially since FDA has not bothered to establish any laws governing the production of scented products. FDA does not even require a disclosure of chemicals included in fragrance additives.
Now, thanks to the work of a dedicated scientist at the University of Washington, Dr. Anne Steinemann, the facts are coming in.
An article now in press in the journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review analyzed chemicals that off-gassed from six consumer products: three different types of air fresheners, cloth drier sheets, fabric softener, and laundry detergent.
Among these scented products, 98 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were identified, no doubt contributing to overall indoor levels of VOCs 2 to 5 times higher than outdoor levels. Five of the six products emitted one or more chemicals classified by the EPA as Hazardous Air Pollutants (acetaldehyde, chloromethane, and the carcinogen 1,4-dioxane).
What can individual people do to minimize their exposure to these toxic chemicals? As before, the best strategy is to avoid products containing fragrance. And, in a bigger picture perspective, we need to keep up the pressure on the government and on manufacturers to require complete disclosure of all chemical ingredients in consumer products, especially products that are daily used at home.
Photo by Zen.
New here? Looking for more?
Welcome to Enviroblog!
Whether you clicked through from your email to read Lisa's back-to-school guide, or you're coming in from Treehugger (where we're one of their Greens of the Week), we've got something here for everyone. Like what you see? You can subscribe by RSS or by email.
Into politics? Chemical industry lobbyists downed two bills that would protect Californians from BPA in their baby bottles and PFCs in their fast food -- leaving Wal-Mart and Burger King to protect your health. But don't worry, the fight isn't over!
Got kids? In many cases, formula-fed infants are exposed to a lot more BPA from the formula itself than from the bottle, and that ticks us off. Plus, BPA advice and the answers to your questions.
Like science? Good! We do too. We're not so sure the FDA does, though.
Ask EWG. We've got a whole archive of your questions answered by our team of scientists and media experts. You can find out what fragrance is, find a safer water bottle, learn about mineral makeup, and much more.
Photo by Cataldo1977.
Taking advantage of the disadvantaged
The relationship between Europe and Africa has always been an interesting one -- for centuries, the European colonial powers destroyed their African colonies by enslaving their people, crippling their economy and stealing their natural resources. Now, decades after achieving independence, many African countries are still not able to keep pace with most of European countries. And, you guessed it, European countries take advantage of that.
One of many cases happened two years ago in Côte d'Ivoire. A Dutch multinational company, Trafigura, dumped about 500 tons of waste, and it lead to at least 16 deaths and more than 100,000 other victims needing medical treatment.
The initial dump was going to happen in Amsterdam, but the company in charge of the location raised their prices when they determined that waste was much more toxic then they initially thought. So, instead of paying the higher price, Trafigura decided to "cut a deal" with a company formed just days before the deal was struck and save some money. Well, indeed they saved some money in the beginning. Recently, they paid 152 million euros to Côte d'Ivoire in compensation, so it wasn't that great of a deal for them anymore.
Is Trafigura the only one to blame here? Yes, they lied about the toxicity of their shipment, but they are absolutely not the only guilty ones. The Côte d'Ivoire company that accepted the waste is at least as guilty as they are, if not more. After all, they are the ones who illegally dumped the waste instead of processing it. In addition, the report by the Côte d'Ivoire government identified officials at the city's port and in several other government ministries that are in charge of monitoring the handling of waste, who allowed the chain of events to lead into dumping, despite the red flags they were seeing.
In the meantime, not enough is being done, according to this BBC article. People are still sick, and most of the sites are not decontaminated and continue to pose health hazards for the local community. The government does not have the technical capacity to do things faster and Trafigura doesn't much want to be involved.
This issue is a global one, it is not just in between Europe and Africa. Each year, the U.S. exports hundreds of thousands of tons of hazardous waste to other countries. The U.S. also exports between 50 percent and 80 percent of e-waste (used electronics) that end up in economically disadvantaged countries. Sometimes these items are recycled but more often then that, they are just dumped.
In addition, the U.S. has also refused to sign the Basel Convention, an international treaty designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, and to prevent transfer of toxic waste from developed to less developed countries.
So, Trafigura is not the only multinational company who sees Africa as an inexpensive alternative to the things that they would not be allowed to do in rest of the world. They just happened to get caught.
Back to school: Are we ready? Are we non-toxic?
Just yesterday the letter came from our new school. Excitement turned to panic as I read the list of required items to bring on the 1st day. The many purchases we must make between today and the first day got me thinking – about a lot of things (and I’ll do you the favor of skipping the school funding bit). Chief among them is how to choose and find environmentally healthy products (without making it a full-time job) and how to ensure that our son’s classroom is not toxic. And as any parent knows, talking with school teachers and administrators about on-site changes has its challenges and, frankly, has quieted even this say-anything advocate.
So I was pretty delighted when a quick trip around the green parent blogosphere simplified my job immensely. In hopes of spreading this wealth, check out these handy how-to’s and see if you, too, can make your back-to-school shopping a little less toxic this year:
Packing a lunch. I still haven’t recovered from the lead painted lunchboxes, and that was before I even had school-age kids. So this one ranks highest on my list – it transports food, after all. Safe Mama has great product tips for avoiding lead and PVC, the two most likely unsafe lunchbox materials. And check SF Kids for Lunch Box 101, you’ll be fully informed about what to avoid and what to get.
Backpacks. Plenty magazine’s Daily Green Bit tells us to avoid PVC and buy recycled while you’re at it – for a gold star. Reusing one you have is best, of course, unless it’s made with PVC (you’ll know it is if the materials include vinyl or the recycling symbol lists a 3, V, or PVC).
School supplies. The Green Parent has great tips for saving money, buying green, and not buying at all – along with a solid review of green art supplies. And, as always, Green Mom Finds has a solid list of suppliers, including The Green Office’s super-easy affordably priced green student kit.
In the classroom. Green & Clean Mom has some great tips for teachers to maintain a non-toxic classroom. And, strangely, our school asked us to bring hand sanitizer to share, so naturally we’ll bring some without triclosan.
You want it all? If you’re looking to go all-the-way green this school year, there are several everything guides to help you navigate the perils, like this one from the Center for Health and Environmental Justice, this other one from the Green Guide, or this super-thorough one from Nature Moms. There’s something for everyone, whether your thing is reducing waste, avoiding toxics, or ecoclothing.
No doubt I am missing something – rising kindergartners that we are. So please, add your tips for making back-to-school 2008 the least toxic yet. ‘Cause I just have this feeling that there’s more to this than meets the new kindergarten parent’s eye.
Elected officials MIA; Instead, Wal-Mart and Burger King protecting your health
Despite numerous health and consumer safety concerns, California lawmakers fell under the lobbying influence of the chemical industry and rejected the two bills that would ban chemicals from baby bottles, food containers and microwave popcorn bags.
The two measures, Senate Bill 1713 by Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, and Senate Bill 1313, by Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, would have banned two notoriously toxic chemicals PFOA, a key ingredient of Teflon, and BPA, from food containers and packaging, including infant sippie cups and baby bottles.
While numerous retailers, including Wal-Mart and Burger King, decided to remove products containing BPA and PFOA from their shelves and their food packaging respectively, numerous California legislators decided not to show up for the vote. It's true that the weather is very nice and going to the beach sounds pretty appealing, but I, the taxpayer, am outraged that the retail and fast food giants are taking the steps to protect the public, while the elected officials are not.
Corbett's bill, that would have banned the chemical PFOA from food packaging, which has been identified as a likely human carcinogen, fell five votes short of the 41 needed.
11 California legislators did not vote.
Migden's bill, that would ban the use of BPA for products used by children less than three years of age, died on a 27-to-31 vote, with 22 abstentions.
The vote was preceded by the recent eyebrow raising decision by the FDA that exposure to BPA from consumer products is safe for humans. The announcement came out on Friday, while the California vote was on Monday. The FDA, another governmental body financed by the taxpayer, has sided with special interest groups on this issue again.
So, rest assured that while your legislators are napping, the chemical industry is wide awake. They continue to invest millions in propaganda that argues that PFOA and BPA are safe. And sadly, those brain altering chemicals are working on California legislators!
There is no question PFOA and BPA are linked to health problems. Both bills, which were granted reconsideration, must be passed so that Californians are not exposed to these toxic chemicals. Then, we need federal action to protect all Americans.
FDA got it wrong. Here's why.
By now you may have heard about the Food and Drug Administration's draft assessment of bisphenol A, which says that the known endocrine disruptor poses no health risk.
They got it wrong. My colleagues put it much more judiciously when they wrote EWG Questions FDA Verdict on Plastic Chemical. They went on to list all the reasons why we question the report. I thought I'd parse that out a little bit for you here.
- The FDA review only examined studies that fed lab animals large amounts of BPA and looked for signs of obvious poisoning. Scientists believe that it's low levels of BPA, early on in brain development, that pose a risk for long-term damage. FDA relied on studies that completely miss the mark.
- Oh yeah, those studies FDA did look at? They were all funded by the chemical industry.
- The FDA review ignored more than 100 studies, including many funded by the government's own National Toxicology Program, that demonstrate that BPA is toxic at low levels.
- FDA claims that we'd have to get 2,000 times the amount of BPA we're now exposed to before we'd see any ill effects, but if they'd looked at the low-dose studies they'd see that low doses may be exactly where the danger is.
- On top of all that, FDA didn't even get infant exposure levels right. They underestimate BPA exposure for the smallest and hungriest babies, and they amount of BPA they assume babies are getting in formula is lower than what babies are probably actually getting.
I'm not sure why this is so complicated. It's a synthetic hormone. It's in our food. Why wouldn't the government want us to lower our exposure?
So, FDA is encouraging parents to continue exposing their children to BPA, even though safer alternatives exist. What do you think? Are you surprised, or is this business as usual for the government? Will you be switching back to BPA-laden baby bottles?
Top photo by Youkeo.
Enviroblog hosts: Carnival of the Green #141!
Hello and welcome to Carnival of the Green #141! Last week's edition was hosted by The Evangelical Ecologist. Next week, the Carnival makes its way over to LifeGoggles, so be sure to check it out. Want to know more about the Carnival and how to participate? Kara's got all the details.
New around here? Enviroblog focuses on our everyday exposures to toxic chemicals, and what we and the government can do to stop it. Enviroblog is a project of the non-profit Environmental Working Group. Check out the Ask EWG archives for lots of useful info. Like what you see? Get our RSS feed!
At 10,000 Birds, Charlie explains why India's vultures are virtually gone -- and why the livestock industry and their chemical treatments are to blame.
Tiffany at Nature Moms Blog has crafted a sample letter to explain to teacher why your child's school supplies may be different from the recommended ones.
Looking to Travel Green? Now you can start with your search for airline tickets. Every time you use Search Green Travel for airline tickets, hotels or car rentals, a donation is made to an environmental nonprofit -- just because you looked!
As part of an ongoing effort to protect a mangrove in Trinidad and Tobago from destruction, Juliet explains why it's worth protecting.
John at Rebuilding Eden wants you to get your own cart.
Not the Jet Set's authors tested a no-VOC paint. They write, "Companies are clamoring to climb on the green bandwagon. We decided to give one a try - see how it faired."
The Bonny Mess goes carless.
Beth at Fake Plastic Fish is ticked about BPA. She writes, "The American Chemistry Council is mailing out misleading information to Californians opposing the state's proposed ban on BPA in baby products. Let's do our part to help this campaign backfire!"
Think Styrofoam is more reliable than cardboard when it comes to shipping sensitive stuff like wine? American Winery tells us why we should think again.
At The Human Imprint, Louise Manning looks at the tenuous nature of the global food supply.
What's wrong with biodiversity? Marguerite writes, " Biodiversity loss is a huge problem, potentially even larger than climate change, and yet it is not getting much attention from the public and the media."
Lill has some ideas about getting around in a green way -- there's more to it than junking the SUV and buying a hybrid.
The Ester Republic comments on the Bush Admin's move to get rid of the scientific review process for the Endangered Species Act: "The Bush Administration has announced a new, back-door way around the required independent scientific review of species status under the Endangered Species Act: rather than indulge in all that scandalous redaction of the finished reports, just get rid of the review altogether!" The DC Birding Blog can't believe it either.
Talking about fighting global warming is one thing, but changing your family's habits can lead to real fights, confesses Lynn of OrganicMania.
Meanwhile, Meg at How to Make a Difference has some ideas about how to get outside with the kiddies.
The Digerati Life cautions against falling for the MPG illusion.
In a similar vein, Penny Nickel collects calculators to help you determine the true cost of driving.
And since we're talking about cars: at
Uh-oh. Sally K. writes, "In a remote state park with no cell phone service, we had a near-fatal encounter with hornets." How did it turn out? Check out Veggie Revolution to see how it turned out.
Victoria E. presents a behind-the-scenes look at Toggery Organic Designs with Kate D'Arcy, as well as Fashion and Earth's eco-friendly online shopping.
Still reading? Yes? Wow, way to persevere! Thanks for stopping by -- see you in the comments!
My quest for the perfect BPA-free sippy cup
You can probably imagine what it's like to work for EWG and be a parent. In a word: fraught. In two words: consumer paralysis.
Maybe it's just because I'm new here. In time, I'll (hopefully) recover and be able to walk down a store aisle without my 5-year old son saying, "Is that one of the bad toys, mama? What if Georgia (his 2-year old sister) puts it in her mouth?" Of course, for many, my husband included, consumer paralysis is a wonderful condition and he is glad to see I have it. All that said, my kids do need to drink liquids occasionally and their grubby hands aren't the solution. So, in my spare time (ha!), my quest for the perfect BPA-free sippy cup began.
If you're not up on Bisphenol-A yet, check out our cheatsheet or get the whole sordid story from our BPA web page. It's not pretty.
Let's just say a lot of common food and drink containers like baby bottles, formula cans, sippy cups, and tin cans (our entire pantry!) are leaching hormone disruptors right into me and the kids. The kids! Isn't one of my main jobs as a parent to keep them out of harm's way? To make sound choices on their behalf until they can (hopefully!) make their own? It's this kind of thing that makes that job so. much. harder. than it should be. I already have a job, thanks, I don't need another one researching every product I buy! What parent does?
So back to the quest. How'd it go? Long process, positive end result:
The process. We are lucky to have several local stores in Portland, Oregon, where I live, that sell only environmentally healthy baby products. So I visited them. And while they carried one type of BPA-free sippy cup, it was $15. Two kids = $30. And for playdates? Not too kind on the bank account. Plus, when you (inevitably) leave one of those at the local pool/park/bus, it hurts. Next stop, a trusted green mom blog for her BPA-free sippy cup product list. Several weeks later the stars aligned and I found myself alone in a grocery store with - here's the miracle - the list crumpled at the bottom of my purse. Yay! I actually felt organized, gazing at the colorful array of cups, armed with my list. Was there one brand from the list on the racks? Without a movie character? Nope. Internet shopping was starting to look good. Really good.
Buying It Online. The good news is that there are more and more online stores that do the work for you - screen out the bad stuff and sell you only the good stuff. How I love it when someone else does the work for me! So I happily ordered two sets of very reasonably priced Nubu cups from The Soft Landing. I also love Safe Mama's online store, but she didn't have these and they were exactly what I was after. And yes, we like them. Great colors. Plus, now all the lids match all the cups. Something my husband has requested for years - literally.
The End Result. So all in all a pretty happy ending. But the real end to this time-consuming affair, is that the perfect cup was in our basement, gathering dust, throughout my entire search. Another two words for you: jam jars. Cheap, durable, natural, not plastic. Ok, so they don't have lids. But our youngest is two, so it's high time to use a real cup anyway, right? And, if you don't have some little ones in your basement, you can always hit a garage sale or, if you gotta have new, buy them here and EWG will get some money. How great is that?
Children sifting the earth for gold
Gold mining is far from a golden industry. In fact, gold mining poses serious environmental and human rights concerns. Modern mining for gold is a massive operation which causes massive environmental damage with the potential for devastating the landscape for thousands of years. Research shows that the industry produces 79 tons of waste for every ounce of gold.
As if that weren't enough, human rights atrocities are very common in the gold rich regions. The deals that benefit local warlords and international gold companies often leave the deadly traces in the local community.
But that's not all, unfortunately. A recent investigation by the Associated Press finds thousands of child gold miners in West Africa, some as young as 4 years old.
These children work in mines with less than rich ore. Industrial, environmentally damaging mining takes care of the rich ore mining. Poor people and children take care of sifting the earth.
According to the AP investigation:
"The spike in gold prices during the past seven years has lured increasing numbers of poor people, including child recruits, to bush mines. The United Nations labor agency estimates that there are now 100,000 to 250,000 child gold miners in West Africa alone.They steer wheelbarrows of dirt over rutted paths. They pound the dirt with wooden posts for hours until it is as fine as flour. They wash the dirt in a large sieve-like box. Then they squat next to a plastic tub, pour mercury into their bare hands and rub it into the mud like a woman scrubbing laundry on rocks.
Mercury attracts gold like a magnet.
But it also attacks the brain and can cause tremors, speech impediments, retardation, kidney damage and blindness."
Next time when you think of buying something gold, think of those miners -- or rather, those kids. Since, if you own anything gold, there are big chances you are already connected to them.
Take two house plants and call me in the morning
My 18 year old sister called me not long ago and said, "So what's the deal with these plastic bottles?"
"Which plastic bottles, exactly?" I asked.
"The Nalgene ones -- is it true that they're bad?"
It seems I've become the go-to person for friends and family on all things toxic. I don't mind at all (I mean hey, it's nice to be treated like an expert), but I tend to get a little bogged down in the details.
"Well," I told my sister, "Your bottle is made of of a kind of plastic called polycarbonate, which contains a chemical called Bisphe--"
"Yeah yeah. Is it going to make me sick?"
"Well, not right away, but BPA is a hormone disruptor, which means--"
She cut me off again. "It'll give me cancer?"
"I take it you never read my blog," I laughed.
"It's too much!" She said. "Just tell me what to do."
Ahh. That again. It makes perfect sense, too. We're all busy people. and we don't have time for details on every subject that enters into our lives. It all boils down to one big question: what should I do?
Dr. Natalie Jeremijenko has taken that often overwhelming question and put it to a script that all of us will recognize: a trip to the doctor's office. But Jeremijenko isn't a medical doctor. She's an engineer and visual artist with a remarkable understanding of human nature.
In her NYU office, Jeremijenko holds clinics to discuss solutions to a problem many medical doctors ignore: environmental pollution. Her "impatients" leave with prescriptions for actual actions they can take to improve their immediate environments, from raising houseplants to attaching a "solar awning" to capture sunlight.
Dr. Jeremijenko is profiled by Amanda Schaffer in this New York Times article. Her philosophy is interesting, and well worth a read.
Oh, and yes, I told my sister to ditch her polycarbonate bottle in favor of one made from stainless steel or HDPE.
Photo by Living the American Dream.
Who wants candy? EU may ban suspect food additives
After a UK study, published late last year, drew convincing connections between certain food additives and hyperactivity in children, Britain's Food Standards Agency asked food companies to comply with a voluntary ban on those products.
Now, a newly-proposed rule in the European Union would require manufacturers who continue to use some of those additives to print a warning on their labels:
The requirement for labelling, which would warn consumers that products "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in children", emerged in negotiations between MEPs, the European commission and the council of ministers over a new structure for authorising additives, flavourings and enzymes in food. It has to be approved by ministers later in the year and firms will be given time to comply, probably until mid-2010.
By the time the rule goes into effect (that is, if it gets approved), most major food manufacturers* will already have gotten rid of the additives in question -- in part to comply with the UK's voluntary ban, but also because of consumer demand. The EU warning requirement would apply to imported foods as well, creating incentive for international food manufacturers to get rid of the additives altogether, and meaning that the US might see some residual benefit from the EU's move.
*Does anyone else think the phrase "food manufacturers" is altogether a little bit creepy?
Photo by PorcelainGirl.
California chemical wars, continued
A few weeks ago, I told you about the U.S. chemical industry's war to stop two California bills that would ban carcinogenic Teflon chemicals in food packaging and endocrine-disrupting chemicals in baby bottles. Heading into the final weeks of the legislative session, both bills, which are sponsored by Environmental Working Group, are still alive, and the industry is still throwing everything it's got at them. Over the weekend, more details emerged of the industry's campaign against the second bill, Senate Bill 1713, which would ban bisphenol A, or BPA, from baby bottles, sippy cups and food packaging for young children. The Orange County Register's Jennifer Muir reports:
A chemical industry-backed lobbying group has mounted a statewide campaign to convince Californians that a potentially dangerous compound found in baby products and canned goods is safe, and warns that if efforts to ban it are successful, "going to a grocery store may never be the same."State officials and scientists say the ads are misleading and designed to scare consumers into keeping products that could harm children on the market.
The campaign, paid for by industry trade group the American Chemistry Council, urges voters to voice opposition to a Senate bill that would outlaw the chemical, bisphenol A (BPA), in products made for young kids.
Dozens of independent scientific studies have suggested that the chemical could cause everything from cancer to reproductive and behavioral problems, although others have found products containing BPA to be safe.
Mailers and ads appearing in newspapers across the state depict an empty grocery cart in the desert and warn that if BPA is banned, canned food and beverages might be vulnerable to spoilage or contamination. Food products, the ads say, could disappear from grocery store shelves even though "rigorous scientific reviews" conclude the products are safe.
"Maybe that's why no other state in the country bans BPA," the ads say.
A spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, the industry's lobbying arm, told the Register he did not know how much the anti-1713 campaign has cost, but it included ads in the print and online editions of leading newspapers, direct mail, pre-recorded phone calls and radio ads.
But there are signs that this scorched-Earth campaign by the industry may backfire. Several legislative staffers told me last week they'd gotten calls from residents of their districts complaining about the deceptive nature of the ads. One Assembly member, Lois Wolk of Davis, issued a press release calling the campaign "toxic to the [political] process."
"When people call my office concerned, we tell them the whole story," said Wolk. "We tell them who paid for the mailer and what the bill is really about. Once they hear the facts, most change their position. And many are angry and annoyed at the Chemistry Council for misleading them."
The showdown on the Assembly floor is Tuesday. SB 1713 has already passed the Senate, so if it clears the Assembly, it goes to Gov. Schwarzenegger's desk, and no one is sure which way the Governator is leaning. The Associated Press's Samantha Young reports:
He signed legislation last year banning a common chemical known as phthalates in baby products and toys. But he told lawmakers at the time that a "product by product" ban was not the most effective way to craft state policy regarding potentially unsafe chemicals. . . . The Schwarzenegger administration created a "green chemistry" initiative in 2007 to study how California should regulate chemicals, an approach favored by industry and many scientists who say there should be a more complete vetting of consumer products.
We support a comprehensive approach to chemical reform too. But that shouldn't stop California from acting in the meantime to restrict chemicals that clearly are a hazard to public health.
Small fry: Better for the planet, better for your health
After The New York Times' Well Blog listed sardines as one of the 11 best foods you aren't eating, I went out and bought myself a can. I like eating fish occasionally, but I loathe preparing it myself -- and since my resident chef is off in New York State bein' a farmer for the season, I have had an unusually fishless summer.
So, I figured I'd give sardines a go. They get a bad rap (about as bad as anchovies), but according to Nutritionist Jonny Bowden they're "health food in a can."
"They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins."
On top of that, as Plenty magazine points out in an article about sustainable fish, sardines aren't subject to the rampant overfishing that has affected bigger species like tuna, sea bass and swordfish.
I have vivid memories of my 95 year old grandfather, still tied to his farm-work routine, sitting at the kitchen table at 5 in the morning with sardines and toast. It worked for him (clearly, since he lived well into his 90s!), but somehow fish and toast just didn't sound tasty to me. So I set off in search of a recipe to make sardines cool again.
So off I went to Chow.com, where the Chowhounders have solved countless culinary dilemmas for me over the past year. Some of them seemed a little down on sardines, which made me sad, but I did find this easy, tasty recipe.
"I've heated up some olive oil, put in some garlic and red hot pepper flakes. After the garlic is slightly browned, put in the sardines and some chopped tomatoes and saute. The sauteeing action will break up the sardines into bits. Add some par-boiled pasta (about 5 minutes before they're done) along with some pasta water to the pan. Cook until the pasta is done."
Delicious! And since I make that recipe weekly in the summer anyway (sans sardines, until now), it's a really easy way to add good fishy stuff to my diet without contributing to overfishing. My grandfather would be proud.
Photo: Sardine-avocado toast by In Praise of Sardines. See also: In Praise of Sardines, the blog.
Gas price relief: Location efficiency
This post is by EWG's media intern Sameem.
Right on the heels of gas price hype and a housing crisis, we’re finally being presented with legislation that at least acknowledges the need for a more thorough transit planning.
On July 15, Representative Blumenauer of Oregon introduced the Transportation and Housing Choices for Gas Price Relief Act of 2008 into the House. Despite lacking a snazzy name, the bill puts forward some big steps in getting federal attention to transit and planning issues around the country.
In the grand scheme of things, perhaps one of the most influential parts of the legislation is its support for “location-efficient” housing developments. As I mentioned in my last post, only 1 in 5 households in the US are transit accessible. In addition to expanding transit to existing developments, the bill aims to create, maintain, support, and grow communities around existing transit friendly areas. It proposes that mortgage lenders, namely Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, be given specific goals for granting mortgages to properties that are location-efficient. The bill also proposes more grants for developers who want to build affordable housing near transit.
So now you’ve got your fancy location-efficient residence, and you can hop on to transit and get anywhere you want, right? Probably not. To fill in the gaps in transit systems, or to avoid them all together, more and more commuters are looking to bicycles to get around these days. The bill seeks to spur this on by enticing potential cyclist and their employers with a modest increase in tax credits. Of course an increase in cycle traffic will call for a massive adjustment in road planning, for the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and motorists alike. This readjustment will call for more work and money.
And this is where the bill needs to shine most. In order for all these fancy pieces to fit together, this bill has the potential to reform the way federal money is spent on transportation. Instead of giving priority to highway construction, a reform in transportation spending should help localities.
We’ll keep our eyes on this bill as it makes its way through house committees and onward.
Photo by Striatic.
Does environmental conservation imply austerity?
This is a post by EWG research intern Curtis Maples, who's interested in engineering a sustainable future.
When I hear “conserve”, a chain of thoughts comes into my mind. Something like this:
“Conserve?! What?! Why?! This is AMERICA!”
“Well, what does ‘conserve’ mean anyway?”
Conserve = Use less
“Use less of what?”
Multiple Choice:
- A. Money
- B. Food
- C. Electricity
- D. Water
- E. All of the above
“Are you serious?”
Its so easy even a caveman can do it!
"So then, to conserve I have to use less and live like a caveman?"
While this chain of thought is obviously an exaggeration, according to popular opinion and in some cases history, this isn’t too far away from what comes to the minds of most Americans when they hear “conservation.” It therefore begs the question: does environmental conservation imply austerity?
Well thanks to the wonderful men and women of science and engineering spending countless happy hours in their cubicles and laboratories, environmental conservation most certainly does not always necessitate austerity. Although austerity is never really a bad thing, often times we live austere lifestyles out of necessity. But what if, with a little more engineering magic and a pinch of creativity, austerity can be rendered unnecessary while achieving the same goal?
There are a few architects and engineers who have done just that. The visionaries of Peabody Trust and the environmental magicians of Bill Dunster Architects, both of the United Kingdom, are saviors to everyone wanting to conserve without being cavemen.
Bill Dunster Architects and Peabody Trust teamed up to develop the Beddington Zero Energy Development project, also known as BedZED. BedZED is the first carbon and zero energy community. That’s right folks, community. You have to see this. It’s a sprawling complex of 100 homes, community facilities, and workspaces for about 100 people. BedZED has all of your favorites from the environmental goodie bag, from on-site renewable power combined with photovoltaics, to passive solar engineering. The homes feature heat exchangers, rooftop gardens, passive ventilation, sunrooms, composting technology and thermal mass insulation. They even provide a community carpooling service! The homes are actually very attractive aesthetically as well.
The project has been resoundingly successful, earning the designers many awards and the freedom to attend happy hours. Actually, these guys likely had the freedom to attend happy hour anyway, given that none of the technology they used is particularly high tech.
As a matter of fact, most of this technology is available “off-the-shelf” and was pioneered by the civilizations of antiquity. This is one of the few technologies that don’t require much research (So much for the government using “research” to cover up their lack of initiative). And these homes are not experiments, either -- these are actually homes that are up for sale, and environmentalists aren’t the only ones lining up to buy.
I just have to reiterate this: These homes emit zero, that’s “0”, net carbon and they use no electricity from the grid. Now keep in mind folks that in the United States and the EU, buildings use 40% of our total energy output. So now the question becomes, if there exists a way to significantly reduce our energy load, which would provide far more surplus energy than building a new plant of any kind, without decreasing quality of life, how come the U.S. isn’t diving in head first after it? Well that’s a question for another post.
Praying for an end to cancer?
Most people don't think of going to a place of religious worship as a time when they're exposing themselves to the danger. However, it really depends where you worship.
A recent study by a Thai doctor found that burning insence in shrines and temples fills the air with cancer-causing toxic chemicals. Dr Manoon Leechawengwong, who completed the study, found that those chemicals are as bad as traffic fumes and cigarette smoke.
Joss sticks are a type of incense used in many East Asian countries, often burned as an offering. It is believed that their smoke carries prayers to the deceased through its journey upward into the sky.
The two year study of temple workers found that the workers are exposed to a mix of chemicals from the smoke that put them on risk for numerous diseases, including several different cancers. The study also found some DNA changes.
One way to reduce the chemical exposure would be to put the sticks out right after use, instead of letting them burn down completely. This way, the ritual can be preserved, and the pollution is reduced.
Oil spill in the sky
It's been 9 months since the 901-foot container ship Cosco Busan hit the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and spilled 50,000 gallons of oil into the Bay. As you may recall, it wasn't just oil, but the tarlike sludge called bunker fuel. SF Bay suffered devastation whose effects will be around a long time – as we used to say in Greenpeace, you can't clean up an oil spill – but now the state of California has taken action against the harm to human health caused by bunker fuel every day – even when the ship doesn't crash.
Since bunker fuel is dirtier than oil, it burns dirtier – a lot dirtier. State scientists say 600 coastal Californians die every year from air pollution emitted by ships burning bunker fuel. So starting next year, ships coming within 24 nautical miles of our shores would have to burn low-sulfur diesel instead of bunker fuel. In the LA Times, Margo Jefferson reports that about 2,000 vessels would be affected each year, including container ships, oil tankers and cruise ships.
California "needs to act now," Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols said. "We've known for years that a large percentage of onshore pollution comes from activities in the water. Our ports need to expand and modernize, but the adjacent communities are not willing to tolerate the health risks."The rules could save 3,600 lives in coastal communities over the first six years through reduced respiratory illnesses and heart disease, including a potential 80% drop in cancer risk associated with ship pollutants, according to regulators.
Nichols called the shipping regulation "the single most significant rule the Air Resources Board has adopted in the last five years."
Because prevailing winds blow from west to east in California, ship exhaust accounts for about a fifth of cancer-causing soot particles and half of the sulfur oxides over land.
The remainder is emitted by diesel-powered trucks, construction equipment, locomotives, industrial engines and agricultural pumps, which are all to be subject to stricter regulation as the state seeks to slash the emission of planet-warming greenhouse gases and other pollutants.
The air board estimates that the new shipping rules will save Californians at least $6 billion a year in health-related expenses and will cost the shipping industry between $140 million and $360 million a year.
A typical cargo ship would pay about $30,000 more in fuel costs for each visit, or about $6 per container shipped from Asia to California. That amounts to 0.1 cent per pair of sneakers, the board noted.
California's new rule is a reminder that oil is a scourge on the planet at every stage of its production – from the wells drilled in formerly pristine wilderness areas, to refinery emissions, to vehicle exhaust. This is a law to prevent an oil spill in the sky.
An ounce of prevention is worth more than a granite countertop
So I was reading this New York Times article on radon off-gassing from granite countertops, and I was intrigued by this passage:
The E.P.A. recommends taking action if radon gas levels in the home exceeds 4 picocuries per liter of air (a measure of radioactive emission); about the same risk for cancer as smoking a half a pack of cigarettes per day.
Now, I'm not a smoker. In fact, I'm asthmatic, and people I love have been killed by smoking-related cancers. There's no doubt about it: I'm biased against cigarette smoking. So maybe it's unrealistic of me to think that if someone I loved was smoking -- even less than half a pack a day -- and all I had to do to get them to stop was take away the cigarettes. . . does this seem obvious to anyone else?
But maybe that confuses the issue. After all, there are complex politics around cigarettes, but I don't think many people would argue over their right to have radioactive granite countertops in their houses, when there are safer options (including safer granite options) available. Which is what Dr. David J. Brenner of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University was getting at when he said
“It makes sense. If you can choose another counter that doesn’t elevate your risk, however slightly, why wouldn’t you?”
And you know, I think that's true of most of the toxic exposures we talk about in this neck of the blogosphere. I'm always puzzled by the people who want to wait until there's conclusive evidence of extensive harm to human health before making changes to their lifestyles or the law. By then, the damage is already done. If we can prevent it from happening, shouldn't we?
Need to get your counter tested?
For radon testing, the Times recommends contacting the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists or ordering a kit from the EPA or your local indoor air environment office.
Photo by dotpolka.