GreenerPenny

Risks of nonstick & water-stainproof "Teflon" chemicals

2012-01-29T13:45:00.000-08:00

Polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, or PFCs, used in nonstick,water/stain-repellant coatings such as Teflon, Gore-tex and Scotchgard, are found in cookware, clothing, and many other daily consumer products--as well as in our bodies. One especially worrisome PFC, known as perfluorooctanaoic acid (PFOA), is found in more than 99 percent of Americans, according to findings by the Centers for Disease Control.

Below is a summary of the science finding possible risks of PFCs, followed by how to choose PFC-free products.

RISKS OF PFCS

Weakening children's immune systems
A startling new study finds that children exposed to PFOA and PFOS may have weakened immune systems, making it more difficult for their bodies to fight off infection and disease. Researchers tested for the PFCs in the blood of 587 children in Scotland's Faroe Islands from pre-birth to age seven, and discovered that those exposed to the chemicals had built up lower levels of antibodies to tetanus/diphtheria vaccines, reducing their immunity by up to one-half. Lead researcher Philip Grandjean, MD, DSc, told the Harvard Gazette that PFCs may pose a greater threat to the body's immune systems than the very toxic chemicals known as dioxins, which are classified as "likely human carcinogens" by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). And, chillingly, he noted that American women and children have higher levels of PFCs in our bodies than the Faroe Islanders have. The study is in the January, 2012 Journal of the American Medical Association.

Learning deficits in children
Children with higher blood serum levels of PFCs also have higher odds of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), according to a 2010 study of 571 adolescents ages 12-15 published in Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP).
Infertility in Women
Women with higher levels of PFCs in their blood had a harder time getting pregnant, researchers at the UCLA School of Public Health reported in 2009.

Cancer?
EPA has not yet completed a risk assessment of PFOA, but the agency’s Scientific Advisory Board has said that PFOA cancer data were consistent with its guidelines for likely human carcinogens.

HOW ARE WE EXPOSED?
Food and food packaging
Researchers in the Harvard study think that the mother's and children's PFC exposures came mostly from consumption of fish, which is a staple in the islanders’ diet. PFCs are released in the environment during manufacture and accumulate in animals' bodies, rising in the food chain.
House dust and leaching
Two studies released in 2011, conducted in Catalonia, Spain and Vancouver, Canada. Like many other toxic chemicals, such as phthalates in PVC plastic, PFCs can leach/migrate out of fabric finishes and nonstick coatings as these surfaces erode and break down in light, heat, and wear and tear. The EPA refers to how PFOA, specifically, can be released by breakdown of coatings made with it.
CHOOSING PFC-FREE PRODUCTS
These findings underscore the importance of removing PFCs from manufacture, which is the source of contamination of our waterways and food. By stopping our purchase of products coated with these chemicals, such as nonstick cookware and rain/stain repellant clothing, bedding, upholstered furniture, carpeting, and even dental floss, we send a clear message to manufacturers, who respond to reduced demand.

Avoid nonstick-coated cookware
For what to choose, see my Green Cookware List. For how to safely use nonstick cookware to avoid "Teflon flu" and bird-killing fumes, click here.

Fabric finishes
For a rundown on fabric finishes to avoid in clothing, furnishings and bedding, with some greener bedding choices, see my Whole Living Econundrums blog.

Personal Care
Steer clear of Teflon nail polishes and curling irons; do keep flossing your teeth :), but try to use unwaxed rather than "Glide" type coated floss, EWG advises.

For more on "Lose It" toxic chemicals in daily products, and "Choose It" greener, healthier products and ingredients, check out my book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices. And do visit my home page for seasonal green living choices at GreenerPenny.com. Got an econundrum? Just ask me at GreenerPenny@gmail.com. I promise to reply.

Best green bouquets now

2012-01-29T11:22:00.001-08:00

Who's the fairest? The Valentine who picks certified fair-trade, organic or locally grown flowers. That's because conventionally grown blooms are so unfair: 70 percent of U.S. flowers are flown from abroad, where workers often do not receive fair wages and laws do not restrict the use of dangerous pesticides. A 2006 Harvard study found that children born to women working in the Ecuadorian flower industry had impaired brain development due to prenatal exposure to pesticides. So have a heart! Give your loved one better blooms and invest in safer conditions for workers, ecosystems and consumers alike.

Then there are the wasteful carbon emissions from all the fuel miles those flower shipments consume!

A big green bonus: Fair trade, organic bouquets are now priced competitively with regular ones! Here are some fair floral tips.

1. Buy Local

Talk to the flower farmers: Your best bet is a farmers' market. Buy local fresh or dried flowers from growers who, if not certified organic, can assure you that they don't use pesticides and treat workers fairly. Ask your florist shop for contact info for growers. Search your zip code for the nearest growers and farmers' markets at Local Harvest.

When shipping flowers, order through your local florist shop, and ask them to choose a shop in your recipient's zip code that sells locally grown blooms. That way, you support two locales!

2. Look for verified green/fair trade labels In a rush? Who isn't. Look no farther than your nearest Costco (hint, hint, Valentine!) See below.

*Certified Fair-Trade flowers are grown on farms that receive financial incentives for providing fair wages, safe, clean housing and workplaces, and protecting rainforests by farming sustainably.
*Certified USDA Organic flowers are grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers (a boon to farm community health as well as ecosystems).
Veriflora uses third-party certifier Scientific Certification Systems (SCS) to make sure that workers and natural resources are protected.
*Rainforest Alliance Certified follows Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) standards limiting pesticides and ensuring farm families health care and education.

Retailers

Costco sells gorgeous long-stemmed Rainforest Alliance certified roses in a tropical sunset's worth of shades, from yellow and orange to pink and red.

FTD offers Fair-Trade Certified roses and lilies in its Eco Flowers line.

One World Flowers sells fair trade bouquets at fair prices.

Organic Bouquet carries a great variety of flowers, all certified organic.

California Organic Flowers grow year-round domestic blooms, available through Local Harvest.

Texas growers Arnosky's Specialty Flowers. supply Central Market, Whole Foods and HEB (Texas' own grocery chain) with beautiful cut flowers grown with environmentally sensitive practices.

Want to add some organic, fair-trade chocolates to your sweet package? Use GreenerPenny's mobile-friendly Chocolate Shopping List.

More practical green, healthy solutions for your daily life, from food and water to cleaning, energy, cosmetics and more, can be found in my book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices. For more info and tips, see our home page, GreenerPenny.com!

Best bedside book: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

2011-10-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

Although summer officially ended last month, it hangs on for a little while yet in these golden autumn days. One Indian Summer, in the Vermont forest, my child found a newt red as flame--a long-forgotten moment that returned to mind as I read Elisabeth Tova Bailey's The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating. Early on in Bailey's struggle with a debilitating illness, a visiting friend, walking in the woods, sees a small brown snail, picks it up with some wild violets, and presents it to the bedwritten writer. The resulting memoir reminds us of how very much a small but thoughtful gift can mean. The book itself is such a gift to the reader. If you’ve been wanting to slow down and rediscover quiet, illuminated moments in your own life, look no farther than Bailey’s wonderful story about her long, confining illness and the busy, intrepid and, yes, audibly chewing creature that lifted her spirits by sustaining her connection to the forests and fields where she couldn’t wander anymore.

The diverting snail, which could hang upside down from a fern frond and, when Bailey watered the violets on her bedside table,“...would glide to the rim of the pot and look over, slowly waving its tentacles in apparent delight...”, kept her company during a very lonely time when, Bailey writes, “...my friends were golden threads randomly appearing in the monotonous fabric of my days.” Although she couldn’t move her body, Bailey’s imagination journeyed far and wide as she studied her snail.

She reads Darwin, who was fascinated by Molluska and the hitchiking propensities that enabled them to be carried by birds or logs across oceans. “Stuck to an autumn leaf, a snail may blow along in a storm, its magic carpet eventually landing in faraway terrain.” She learned, in confirmation of her own observations of her pet, that snails have brains, and romance, too. Gerald Durrell and others watched the mating of snails–some of which, like Cupid, literally shoot a dart into the flesh of a paramour. Bailey contributes to the literature: “Eventually I would learn that I may be the first person to have recorded observations of a snail tending its eggs.”

An illness can change a life for a long time, sometimes forever. For more than two decades, since she collapsed with a high fever on a visit to Switzerland, Bailey has been periodically laid low with a weakened immune system, pain and chronic fatigue. During the year spent with a snail and its progeny, considerable healing began, as so often happens when genuine interest in other beings frees us from feelings of isolation and depression.

Over time, Bailey wrote in an email, she has become sensitized to many synthetic chemicals, such as the pesticides that also harm amphibians and snails, and the phthalates that offgass from polyvinyl (PVC) plastic and have been linked to asthma and hormone disruption. She writes in her email of how chemicals offgassing from a PVC shower curtain produced a reaction--coughing, eye irritation, headaches, and collapse--that led to her hospitalization. Not content with removing her shower curtain, Bailey spoke with her state’s poison control center and, joining the Center for Health, Environment and Justice's campaign, convinced her local stores to stop selling the curtains, which were also treated with a toxic fungicide.

Thinking of other invalids and homebound people, Bailey writes in her book, “I felt a connection to all of them. We, too, were a colony of hermits.” Clearly, she feels and acts on a sense of responsibility to the planet and the rest of us, and it was her generosity of spirit that got me to finally reach for her book, which had received glowing reviews and a recommendation from my beloved aunt in Vermont.

As it happened, I turned to Bailey's book when I was recuperating from a blackout and fall, caused by a sudden mysterious fever, that had severely curtailed my normally active life. The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating helped me to recognize the resulting stillness as an opportunity. Bailey's warmth, wit and energy changed my life by reaffirming my connection to what matters most to me--friends, family, the natural world--and reminding me to spend much more time with them. I highly recommend this marvellous book.

You can hear the snail eating, and watch it go with the flow, at ElisabethTovaBailey.net.

Greener less toxic computers and computing tips

2011-08-22T13:26:00.000-07:00

A new computer for back to school. Do or don't? In tech purchasing, as in nearly everything these days, it's possible to spend your pennies more wisely for your sake and the planet's, now that companies are being vetted for energy efficiency and reduced pollutants. On the other hand, given the hazardous e-waste released by improper "recycling" (read, dumping) of 50-80% of our e-waste abroad, you might want to hold onto your old machine, upgrading its memory (and saving your money) for as long as possible.

If you really want or need to buy new, ask the company if they'll take your old machine for free recycling.
In a nutshell, here's what to look for new, and what to avoid:

Choose It: Energy Star computers with least toxic contents

Lose It: Computers that waste energy and contain hazardous chemicals

Did You Know? If all computers sold in the U.S. met the U.S. EPA Energy Star standards, we’d save about $2 billion in electricity each year, and reduce as many greenhouse gases as taking 2 million cars off the road.
Toxic brominated fire retardants (BFRs)can migrate out of computers [casings] into house dust, according to a 2004 Environmental Working Group study. Learn about other hazardous chemicals in computers from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

4 things to demand from a new green computer:

* It should be energy efficient/ Energy Star compliant.For lists of Energy Star desktops and laptops, click here.
* It should minimize the use of hazardous chemicals. The Environmental Working Group has a list of PDBE-free (toxic fire retardants) computers with links to manufacturers’ websites, while Greenpeace (below)also examines PVC, arsenic, lead and other toxic components.
* Its maker should have a responsible takeback/ recycling program
* The company should be significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
* The company should receive a high rating from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) and from Greenpeace's annual electronics guide (see below).

Here are the computer companies who scored among the top ten greenest in Greenpeace’s most recent, 2010 Guide to Greener Electronics.

1. Nokia
2. Sony Ericsson
3. Philips
4. HP
5. Samsung
6. Motorola, Panasonic and Sony in 3-way tie
9. Apple
10. Dell

For the details, see Greenpeace's rankings page.

If your student can wait till Xmas, or better yet, the post-Xmas sales, Greenpeace's new guide comes out in November 2011 and I'll keep you posted.

Old or New: Energy saving tips

Whether you keep chugging along with your old computer or buy a new one, you can always improve on its performance and your energy savings by smart usage.

*Use your machine's built-in power-saving features. To learn what they are, how to activate them, and calculate how much you would save, check out the EPA IT Calculator and other tools featured on the Climate Savers Computing website.

Turn off your computer and the power strip when it's not in use. See more tips from the EPA.

If you turn off your PC when it's not in use, you can save 188 kilograms of CO2 and 437 kilowatt hours (kwh)a year. Significant savings, with the average national cost of a kwh topping 12 cents in 2011.

Finding more products

Want more simple green living tips? Subscribe to my free monthly e- newsletter by emailing GreenerPenny@gmail.com. And, for Choose It/ Lose It lists with brand names in everything from cookware to cosmetics, see my book, Do One Green Thing. Thanks!

Green, Nontoxic Back to School Supplies, Lunch Kits 2011

2011-08-22T01:49:00.000-07:00

What I love most about back-to-school shopping is slipping some new green office supplies and lunch totables for myself into the cart. American families are expected to spend about $68 billion on back-to-school shopping this year, so green choices can help stimulate marketplace change. You’ll find lots of planet-friendly, personally healthier products below, plus ideas for lightening the impact on your wallet.

* “Shop” your closets and bins. Make it a treasure hunt for the kids, giving reward points applicable to new stuff on their wish list. Still-good pencils with worn-down erasers can be renewed with fun eraser caps such as IWAKO’s PVC-free dolphins and monkeys* .Sell old books at cash4books.
*Buy textbooks second-hand. Ask about used book sales at your school or library, or compare prices for titles at Bookfinder.com.
*Drive less. Sparing your car just 10 miles per week can cut your CO2 emissions by 340 pounds per year.Walk, bike, take public transport, combine shopping errands into one trip, and carpool to local stores.
*Roll orders into one. Order green supplies with other families in your neighborhood and have it sent in one shipment to one address.

Pencils and Pens

Pilot’s BeGreen pens are made with 89% PCR recycled plastic bottles, with recycled ink, and refillable.

Earth Zone pencils, which come with a recycled metal sharpener, Greenciles /,in 60 percent PCR packaging, and O’Bon’s wildlife-pattern pencils pencils are all made from recycled newspapers, not wood fresh from trees.
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For least toxic, VOC-free art supplies, markers and glues, choose water-based, washable items and look for the Arts & Creative Materials Institute (ACMI) seal. You’ll find it on Faber-Castelli Watercolor EcoPencils made from reforested wood.

Crayons and water-soluble glue made with soy wax, minerals and plant pigments are at Kidzone. And a reader recommends synthetic-free Clementine markers.

Paper

Choose products with the highest percentage of post-consumer-recycled (PCR) content you can find. On paper goods, look for Forest Stewardship Council or Rainforest Alliance Certified seals, availabe at Staples and other office stores.

Look for tree-free papers, such as New Leaf’s Farm Fiber Collection. Their 100% PCR banana paper is gorgeous

To hold green paper, Earthbinders are made from 96 percent post-consumer content.

One-stop-shops for recycled paper products, binders, staples, clips, pencils and pens:
The Ultimate Green Store
Staples Eco-Easy directory
Home Depot’s Green Pages

Backpacks: PVC-free, recycled fabric

Chico Bags’ RePete daypack is made from recycled plastics and aluminum.
Ecogear Palila backpack made from RPET (recycled soda bottles), as well as hemp and recycled
cotton ones, can be found at Pristine Planet.

Lunch and drink containers without BPA, Lead and Phthalates

Reuseit.com,includes a 16-oz. Thermos King insulated stainless food jar with spoon; also, organic cotton cloth or mesh sandwich/snack bags and cleanable wrapping mats.

Greenfeet.com’s back to school page features a frigoverre tempered glass sandwich box, PVC free plastic wrap and soy-wax sandwich bags.

Go Green Lunchbox kits come with a BPA-free covered bento tray, a stainless drink bottle that fits inside, a white board inside the lid for notes to your child, and an insulated, PVC-free bag to carry it all.

Our reader also highly recommends the nontoxic bento boxes, insulated covers and stainless food jars at Laptop Lunches.

For more products, see my lists of BPA-free food containers and drink bottles. For green, healthy product and action tips in every category of daily life, please heck out my home page, GreenerPenny.com, and my green living book, Do One Green Thing!

Thanks all of you for your input and suggestions--just add below to Comment section of this blog!

*Younger Sibling Safety Alert: Erasers, staples, paper clips and other small items are choking risks and should be kept out of the reach of children younger than three.

Mango & yogurt cake recipe

2011-08-13T20:38:00.000-07:00

This recipe is a tropical--and lighter--adaptation of the traditional pear or blackberry butter cakes I learned to bake in Brittany, France. Our mango tree had a bumper crop earlier this summer so we cut up and froze (see freezer photo, left) what we didn't eat fresh or give away. You can substitute any fruit you like, fresh or frozen! But remember to let fruit thaw before you add it!

INGREDIENTS (I use organic and local whenever possible)
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 and 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
3/4 cup turbinado (raw) sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1 and 1/2 cups diced fresh or frozen/thawed mango or other fruit, such as blackberries, blueberries, or a mix.
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, almonds or macadamia nuts (optional).

PROCEDURE: Let butter soften at room temp and beat with sugar till creamy. Add vanilla, beaten eggs, yogurt, blend well. Sift/blend flours and baking soda. Gradually add to butter mixture. Stir in fruit, nuts. Pour into 8 x 8 inch cake pan. Bake in 325 degree oven for 50-60 minutes until golden brown on top and fork inserted comes out clean.
Delicious with ice cream or more yogurt!

For more information about healthy eating choices and organic and other food, personal care and cleaning labels, please visit my home page and blogs at GreenerPenny.com, and, if you like, sign up for my free monthly (if that) e-newsletter of green living tips!

How to fix leaking toilets before your household savings go down the drain

2011-07-29T15:53:00.000-07:00

Never go on vacation without checking your toilets, first! We did, and boy, do we regret it! Did you know that the average American goes through 80-100 gallons of water per day, and our greatest use comes from flushing the toilet? And, a leaking toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water a day, according to the U.S. EPA . In our four-person household, we have three toilets, and two of them sprang leaks while we were gone!

We returned from a three-week vacation to gurgling toilets and a call from the Board of Water Supply–-they’d just read our meter and the dial was moving, which indicated a leak. Plus, our water consumption had spiked six times higher than normal.

I got that sinking feeling. Up until we left, our two toilets had shown an occasional tendency to keep trickling, post-flush, until we’d lifted the tank lid and adjusted the rubber flapper valve to stop water flowing out. Just before leaving, we checked to make sure the toilets weren’t running.

But things can happen while you’re gone. Plumbing is unpredictable and spontaneous flushes. Well-meaning family members who stopped by to check on things in our absence didn’t check the toilets after flushing. Leaks get worse, fast.

“Exactly how much higher was our water use?” I asked.

There was a pause as she checked, followed by a half-strangled cry: “Your average water use in each two-month billing cycle is 27,000 gallons, but this time, you used 176,00 gallons!”

If you have ever fallen flat from the top of the jungle gym and knocked out all your air, you will know how I felt. Twenty-seven thousand gallons was bad enough–-we’d been trying to conserve by taking shorter showers (second highest indoor water use), but we should have tackled the toilets first! Our plumbing had been leaking four gallons a minute, the water rep said.

I did the math. Indeed, four gallons a minute added up to over 170,000 gallons in just 30 days, and ours was a 60 day bill. “Er, does that mean my water bill will be seven times higher?” I asked.

The answer was yes. Hello to the $1,350 water bill! Goodbye, in one fell blow, to our painstakingly accumulated household savings! Worse, all that precious clean drinking water had gone down the toilet!

“You’re not alone, this happens all the time,” the water rep said. “We had an old toilet out back we never used. Turned out it was leaking for three weeks, and our water bill tripled!”

Misery doesn’t love company in this case. Americans use 410 billion gallons of water a day, according to The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century. In his compelling new book, Alex Prud’homme reports on water science and politics, with stories of people and neighborhoods faced with clean water shortages due to pollution, privatization, droughts and waste.

While industry and agriculture are the biggest culprits by far, an estimated trillion gallons of water are lost in U.S. home leaks every day. This, at a time when global clean drinking water supplies are shrinking due to industry, agriculture, urbanization, and drought and sea level rise linked to climate change, as Prud’homme reports in harrowing detail. “Borrowing from the notion of peak oil–a point at which the supply of oil is outstripped by human consumption--academics worry that the earth could be reaching a point of ‘peak water,” he warns.

I’m worried, too! But at least, now that we’ve fixed our leaks, I don’t have to worry about being such a huge part of the problem.

What You Can Do

*Be on the alert for trickles and drips.

If your toilet keeps flowing for longer than a minute after a flush, it means the flapper valve is not closing, so the tank never fills.

*Fix leaks right away. Here's how:

Step 1. Both our toilets had worn-out rubber flappers (see round red cap in photos, above) which no longer sealed the drain, so the tank kept filling...

Note the model number on inside wall of tank, go to hardware store and buy new flapper.

Step 2. One toilet also had a worn-out gasket inside the float. The result: The float didn’t rise with the water level, so the flapper, at the other end of the lever, never fully closed.

*Reduce tank capacity.

In our 1.6 gpf toilet, we moved the lever on the float down so that the tank only fills half full.

In the old 3.5 gpf tank, I set two filled glass quart bottles (a total half-gallon), which will save 4,000 gallons a year until we replace that toilet.
*Consider buying an efficient toilet.

If your toilet is older than 1992, it’s likely using 3.5 gallons per flush (gpf). Since 1995, the federal standard is 1.6 gpf.
An EPA-approved Water Sense toilet uses an average 1.24 gpf.

*When you go on vacation, shut the water off. The exception: If you've got a garden that needs watering. And note, if you turn off your household water valve but if you leave the electricity on, remember to turn off the hot water heater!

For more information:

*“Fix http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifYour Flow” tips from WholeLiving.com

*Calculate how much water your dripping faucet wastes.

*Simple water-saving tips: http://www.boardofwatersupply.com/cssweb/display.cfm?storyID=1222

For more on our water footprints and other green living and product tips, please see my book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices.

Visit my home page at GreenerPenny.com for seasonal info and to subscribe to my free monthly e-newsletter! Pass it on. Thanks!

How to chill with efficient a.c. in heat wave

2011-07-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

Horrible heat! Across the country, 132 million Americans are suffering heat advisory conditions. What to do to beat the heat? First, give yourself a break! Take it easy; it's important not to exert yourself, as our cat, aptly named Penguin, demonstrates on a cool tile floor. Second, don't make your air conditioner overexert. For efficiency's (and your budget's) sake, turn it off when you leave for more than a couple hours, and, if you leave the a.c. running, turn it up to at least 80 degrees until you come back. Pull shades and curtains, too, to keep out solar heat. When it's a record-breaking hundred-plus, 80 indoors is sweet relief, and you can always turn down the thermostat when you return.

But don't turn it down too far! The more power we burn, the more greenhouse gases we contribute to global warming, not to mention brown-outs and no a.c. for anyone. Plus, cooling is responsible for 17-22 percent of the average residential electricity bill . Every degree you go above 72 increases your savings by one to three percent, says the California Energy Commission. And, with every degree you lower it, cooling costs increase by about 7 percent. As Mayor Bloomberg, ever the cool head, advised New Yorkers this morning, keep your a.c. at about 79 degrees, the most efficient setting that still feels cool.

If you've got a programmable thermostat, set it to turn the a.c. on half an hour before you get home.

For more a.c. info, see my "Econundrums" column in the August issue of Whole Living Magazine, and this helpful summer energy slide show at wholeliving.com.

Please visit my home page at GreenerPenny.com for tips on green, nontoxic sunscreens and cosmetics, updates on the toxic plastic chemical BPA in drink bottle linings, and info on my book, Do One Green Thing. Sign up for my free monthly e-newsletter, and don't forget to ask me questions or comment on this blog!

How to D.I.Y. clean green shampoo

2011-07-14T23:04:00.000-07:00

DJR in Detroit asks: "Do you know of a make-it-yourself shampoo base?"

Answer: Good question. While there are many good green commercial shampoos on the market, made without synthetic fragrances that can harbor hormone-disrupting phthalates, nothing is purer and simpler than one you make yourself. As a short cut, I recommend starting with a pure, unscented liquid soap, such as Dr. Bronner's Baby Mild Liquid Soap, made with certified organic, fair trade botanical ingredients and no synthetic surfactants (foaming agents). That way, you can add the plant-based fragrance of your choice, or none at all (fragrances can be irritating, so do a patch test first).

Exception: If you want a rose, lavender or orange essential oil scent, Dr. Bronner's makes liquid soaps with these ingredients, so buy these for an even shorter short cut!

Caution: Although the essential oils will help preserve your shampoo, it won't last as long as off-the-shelf remedies, so use it up within a couple months. Should be easy to do!

Shampoo Recipe

One ounce Liquid soap
1/4 tsp vegetable oil (olive, coconut) to moisturize and deep cleansehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Three drops essential oil to give the fragrance you want.

Mix this base with eight ounces water & shake to make shampoo. Keep out of eyes.

For readymade shampoos, see my list.

Be sure to check out our home page, GreenerPenny.com , for seasonal green living tips, environmental health and product news. Sign up for our free monthly newsletter!

Top 10 Green Surfer Sunscreens

2011-05-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

Here’s Greenerpenny’s newly updated, Sun Products Short List of least-toxic, full-spectrum UV blockers for surfers and other water babies.
These mineral-based products block both UVA and UVB rays, and are free of those most toxic/ irritating synthetic sunscreen chemicals* that you don't want getting under your skin!*.

Alba Botanica Sun Mineral Kids/ Fragrance Free, SPF 30, Z, T,A, Nn
Aubrey Natural Sunscreens SPF 30,T,Z,LB
Aveeno Active Naturals Mineral Sunblock SPF 30, T,Z
Badger SPF 30 Sunscreen for Face & Body,Z, Nn,CO
Burt's Bees Sun Protecting Lip Balm, T,LB, great stick, fits in my surf shorts pocket for touch-ups to lips, nose, cheeks!
California Baby SPF 30 No Fragrance face stick or lotion, T, H,Nn
Jason http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifNatural Cosmetics Earth’s Best and Sunbrellas Organic Sunblock, Mineral Based/ Chemical Free SPF 30+, http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifT,Z, NC,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
John Masters Organics SPF 30 mineral sunscreen, T,Z, CO, Nn,
Miessence Reflect Outdoor Balm, Z, CO, Nn,
Nature’s Gate Mineral Sunblock/ Sport Block, SPF 20, T, Z

Runners-Up (effective, mostly green, but contain some chemicals of concern)

Blue Lizard (parabens)
Mustela SPF 50, T, Z, (parabens)
Shiseido Sun Protection Stick Foundation 35, Z, T,now paraben-free, but has“fragrance

Key:

T: Titanium Dioxide
Z: Zinc Oxide
CO: Contains certified organic ingredients
Nn: Non-nano, safer size particles > 100 nanometers
LB: Leaping Bunny certified, not animal tested

*No benzophenone-3 (oxybenzone/BP-3), homosalate, octinoxate, octyl-methoxycinnamate, octocrylene, padimate-O, parsol 1789/avobenzone, parabens, “fragrance”(phthalates)and 4-methyl-benzylidene camphor, all of which have been linked to allergic reactions, hormone disruption, reproductive harm to wildlife, damage to skin cell DNA, or the growth of cancer cells in lab tests.A particular baddie, BP-3, has been implicated in the feminization of male ocean fish and promoting disease in corals as well as hormone disruption in lab tests, and is widely present in the bodies of the American population.

For detailed information on sunblocks, a top cosmetics companies list, choose it/lose it charts and chemicals to avoid in all personal care products, http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifsee my new book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices

Check if your company has signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics:

**To avoid nano particles, look for sunblocks that contain micronized pahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrticles of at least 100 nanometers Titanium or Zinc Oxide, which are less likely to penetrate skin, per Environmental Working Group (EWG). For many more products (500 rated!), see EWG’s 2011 Sunscreen Report

Remember, UV avoidance is the best policy! Whenever possible, cover up with hats and long sleeves/ rash guards, and stay out of the sun, especially between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

For more seasonal green living and health tips, and to ask me questions, come to my web page, GreenerPenny.com; if you haven't already, please subscribe to GreenerPenny’s free monthly email newsletter on our home page.

12 big Earth Day Steps to save water & energy, protect species, eat healthy, protect habitats

2011-04-22T12:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Earth Day! 12 Tips Plus

This is the year I'll...catch rainwater in barrels to irrigate the garden. All I need is a hacksaw to shorten a downspout from the roof gutter, and a jolly big rainbarrel like this one, from my Whole Living Earth Day article, 12 Ways to Go Green This Year. Two big green impacts: I’ll save the average 1,300 gallons of drinking water splurged on a thirsty garden each season, and reduce stormwater runoff, which washes garbage, toxic chemicals and pathogens out to sea. Case in point: Last week, surfing after a heavy rain, I caught a virus and wound up in the emergency room! Another big plus: Reducing our water bill.

By now, you’ve probably made many small steps into good green habits, from recycling and reusing to choosing (or mixing your own )green cleaners. Are you ready to try a bigger green step this year? Check out Whole Living's slide show for the eleven other steps, from buying local seasonal produce (with a chart) to composting with a worm bin. We also provide how-to’s, and a readout of the relative effort and impact each step entails. You can also calculate your shrinking carbon footprint (step 2). Take your pick, and let us know how it goes!

Why I chose rainwater catchment for my big step this year: Last night, Earth Day eve, I was on a panel with marine biologist Crystal Sanders and Environmental Defense attorney Cynthia Koehler at the Aquarium of the Bay. The Aquarium is built on Pier 39 in San Francisco Bay, and the evening’s theme was how to protect this vast estuary and the fresh and ocean water systems that flow into and out of it. Crystal talked about how overfishing and pollution contribute to shocks such as the recent collapse of the herring populations in the Bay, and Cynthia, EDF’s political director for water issues, stressed the need to conserve fresh water so that more of it can be returned to important fish spawning and nursery grounds such as the San Francisco San Joaquin delta that feeds the SF Bay. The Bay, Cynthia pointed out, used to be the largest wild salmon fishery in California until all the rivers were dammed; EDF and others are seeking legislation to restore riverrine systems.

By reducing consumer demand for water and upping consumer demand for plant-based, nontoxic green products and sustainably sourced fish from healthy populations, we can help restore the cleanliness and productivity of our rivers, bays and seas.

What You Can Do

*xeriscaping in the garden with native drought-resistant plants
*buying produce from local and organic farms that protect waterways with buffer crops and sound ecological management policies
*fixing your water flow with EPA WaterSense fixtures, low-flush toilets, shorter showers, and rainwater catchment.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
*asking where seafood comes from and how it was caught, and choosing sustainable fish picks.
*choosing plant- not petroleum-based cleaning and personal care products.

Of particular urgency right now is supporting bills to ban the cruel practice of culling shark fins and throwing these endangered creatures back to die slow agonized deaths.

Some Recommended Products
Thanks to donations from green companies, all attendees were given examples of products that met my criteria for least-toxic ingredients and gentlest eco impact.

* Wild Planet sustainably sourced, low-mercury albacore tuna and other seafoods

* Dr. Bronner’s peppermint liquid soap (certified organic plant oils, certified fair trade); great for deterring ants & garden pests, too!

* Equal Exchange certified organic and fairly traded chocolate and tea

*Martha Stewart CLEAN Dish/Hand soap

*Endangered Wildlife organic lip balms, which also give 25% of profits to the Center for biological diversity

Last but never least, great green thanks to:

*Whole Living, which cosponsored the event, giving Earth Day issues to all plus very popular raffle prizes: “This is the Year I’ll...” t-shirts and seven year’s subscriptions
*Aquarium of the Bay and its team of cheerful, warm, lateworking staff for providing the space and free Aquarium tours (and stocking their gift shop with my green living book)

*Royal Hawaiian Seafood Co.
Whole Foods Markets and
Farallon Restaurant for providing sustainable seafood (ah, those Oregon rock shrimp!); cheese, crackers & veggies; and divine organic carrot and chocolate cakes, respectively.
EDF and Oceana for providing social networking support and expertise for this event and your great collaborative work in support of our precious seas.

Thank you one and all, and Happy Earth Year!

Reduce risk of antibiotic-resistant staph: Buy organic, grass-fed animal foods

2011-04-17T01:21:00.001-07:00

Meatless Monday sounds like a better idea than ever, following recent revelations about drug-resistant staphylococcus bacteria in our nation's meat and poultry. But even vegans can be sickened by poor food handling and cross-contamination. Forty-seven percent of 136 meat & poultry samples from 5 supermarkets nationwide contained staph, half of it resistant to antibiotics, in a study released April 15th. A principal source of the antibiotic resistance was the routine feeding of antibiotics to farm animals, researchers said.

Contamination of meat, poultry and eggs due to e.coli or salmonella is pretty common, as can ben seen on USDA's recall list. What's scary about the recent findings is the staggering 50 percent antibiotic-resistance figure. Staph can cause food poisoning, skin infections, blood poisoning and pneumonia. Treatment options are reduced when antibiotics don't kill the germs. The meat samples in the study included methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the hospital "super bug" responsible for many deaths.

What to Do?

1. Know where your food comes from. Buy local and/or certified organic, grass-fed animal products. In an article about how dangerous bacterial infections are on the rise, Consumer Reports recommends buying organic and grass fed animal products because they're free of antibiotic residues that can lead to the development of resistant bacteria.

See my updated blog listing "Choose It" vs. "Lose It" green humane animal labels.

Buy from a trusted local source who gives you assurances of sustainable practices and safe food handling. Once a week, my husband walks to the Kapiolani Community College Farmers' Market, a mile and a half from our Honolulu home, and buys local grass-fed meat from Chef Hardy Binscher, pictured above. The executive chef at Michel's, a bastion of fine farm-to-table Honolulu dining, Chef Hardy also grills fresh meat and sustainable fish burgers to order at his farmers' market booth. This week, it was shutome (Hawaii handline-caught swordfish, a Monterey Bay Aquarium "best choice")* papillote with Swiss chard!

2. Chill it. After buying, take meat, poultry, fish and dairy straight home and refrigerate at 40 degrees until ready to prepare. Bacteria grow rapidly in warm animal products.

3. Handle with care. Before and after preparing meat, fish and poultry, wash hands in hot, soapy water. Wash knives, cutting boards, countertops and sink with more hot, soapy water to prevent cross-contamination of other foods. Here are more safety tips.

4. Cook thoroughly. When in doubt, use a thermometer. For internal temps needed to kill pathogens in meat, fish and poultry, see FDA's food prep tip sheet.

For more information:

Keep Antibiotics Working

Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics

*note: Imported swordfish is a "worst choice," and U.S.-caught green ratings depends upon the method used. Always vet your fish at Seafood Watch.

For more green, healthy living news and tips, please sign up for our free monthy e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com and ask me questions there or in the comment section of this blog.

Green cleaning scorched pots & pans

2011-04-12T16:31:00.000-07:00

The Green Man recently scorched my favorite saucepan when his writing project heated up. The smell of something burning reminded him--too late--that he'd left something cooking on the stove. He found the stainless pan caked with burnt tomato sauce with the consistency of hardened lava; we took turns scraping and scrubbing with our green cleaning arsenal--green dish soap, baking soda, Bon Ami, white vinegar-- but only a trace of the gunk came off.

While making lemon glaze for lemon cakes the other day, I reached for the scorched pan, which was just the right size. The recipe called for half a cup of fresh-squeezed lemon juice mixed with half a cup of water, stirred until it boiled and then simmered for five more minutes. Because the black lava had been impossible to scrub off, I thought it had bonded to the pan.

I was wrong. As I stirred it with a wooden spoon, the bubbling lemon sauce took on a distinctly grey tinge. I decanted it into an omelet pan and kept stirring, hoping it wouldn't taste like iron filings. I left the blackened saucepan in the sink, filled with hot water and liquid soap. The lemon sauce tasted fine, soaked into the cakes.

Next morning, the Green Man found the pan in the sink, and exclaimed: "Hey! The black gunk has lifted off!" He swished it with a plastic scrubber, rinsed it out, and the pan was smooth, silvery stainless again.

I hope you never scorch a pot, but if it happens, you know what to do! To economize, I'd use just enough lemon juice and water to cover the bottom of the pot as it boils. Reduce heat, let simmer a couple minutes, then leave in sink overnight in soapy water.

Reject household cleaning products that don't list all ingredients

2011-04-06T02:05:00.000-07:00

Two cleaning challenges: I'm allergic to my pet, but I don't want to use a cleaning product that'll turn his favorite Persian rug into a toxic miasma!

"Any idea how bad a Swiffer wet jet is for me/the planet?" a Facebook friend asked the other day. Swiffer,I replied to her, is bad for the planet because the cleaning cloths are single-use disposables. That's basic waste. But a wet jet? I had to look it up.

I checked out the Wet Jet solution refill with Febreze lavender and vanilla. The ingredients: Cleaning agents (including solvents), perfume, water. First of all, solvents include some of the most toxic chemicals in use; "perfume" and "fragrance" are buzzwords for synthetic compounds that can contain toxic phthalates and other unhealthy chemicals, according to Environmental Working Group.

But without even knowing the specific ingredients, I could give my pal my opinion: If they're hiding something, don't buy the product. Given the spectrum of toxic, allergenic chemicals found in many conventional (and some so-called green) cleaning products, you owe it to your health to make an informed choice. Problem is, U.S. laws allow cleaning product manufacturers to conceal "trade secret" ingredients.

Earth Justice, Women's Voices for the Earth and Sierra Club filed suit against leading cleaning product manufacturers in New York State, seeking to compel full transparency regarding ingredients.

After the lawsuit was filed, SC Johnson, the maker of Drano, Fantastik and Glade, announced they were voluntarily listing all their ingredients on this website. But they still don't disclose everything! For instance, the ingredients list for Drano includes "proprietary surfactant blend." Sorry, they haven't come clean enough!

My FB pal said she was returning her wet jet to the store. The kicker was, she'd heard of pets being poisoned after licking the solution off their paws.

Cleaner Cleaning Products How-to's

When reading labels, use my list of cleaning product ingredients to avoid

Mix your own from common household ingredients, plant oils and white vinegar. Window cleaner recipe. Get eleven more d.i.y. cleaning recipes in my article in Natural Home Magazine.

For more green living tips, to enter free raffles for green product giveaways, and to subscribe to my free monthly e-newsletter, visit my home page, GreenerPenny.com. Post your comments/questions in the comment section of this blog, and I'll reply. Thanks!

Alex Postman, Eco-Editor and Heroine

2011-04-03T21:24:00.001-07:00

She walks her green talk, even on her rooftop!Alex Postman of Whole Living is the first editor-in-chief I've known who has climbed up on her roof and painted it white. Why? "The top floor, where our bedrooms are, is like a Turkish bath in summer," Alex says of her four-story Brooklyn brownstone, "and I hate sleeping in an air-conditioned room." A white roof can reduce your energy use--and your electric bills-- by 20% during hot, sunny weather.

And, for the editor of a publication that nurtures a feeling of community among readers, contributors and staff, how cool is it that Alex is not only cooling her house, but benefitting her neighbors, as well! "A white roof reduces the urban heat island effect for the entire neighborhood, says Alex Wilson, founding editor of Building Green magazine.

You can see Alex wielding the roller atop her four-story Brooklyn brownstone in the April Whole Living's Earth Day feature, "This is the Year I'll..." Full disclosure: I was the writer for the piece. But I have yet to paint my own asphalt roof white, which is one reason Alex is my eco-heroine: her hands-on example is a real inspiration!

For this issue, Alex had the idea to honor 10 eco-heroines with the magazine's first Whole Living Awards. Read about these wonderful women in the article "Planet Keepers." But what about the woman behind the scenes? Not only has Alex painted her roof white, but she, her family and neighbors cleaned trash from sidewalk dirt strips and planted new trees and other plants to beautify the block and provide more cooling shade.

Alex's concern for community also led her to coauthor, with her husband Andy Postman and Healthy Child, Healthy World's Christopher Gavigan,a book for parents on how to protect their children's environmental health. Plus, she challenges herself to go greener in her daily life, for example, giving up paper towels a year ago--no easy prospect for a mom of three young children. Alex shrugs these achievements off. Instead, she calls herself an Eco-crastinator in her editor's note this month.

I'm an eco-crastinator, myself, in so many ways, and this--the human, fallible, humorous side of going green--is yet another reason that Alex is one of my eco-heroines.

For more green, healthy living news and tips, please sign up for our free monthy e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com and ask me questions there or in the comment section of this blog! Thanks.

How to avoid GM food, and why it should be labelled

2011-04-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

GM foods have recently been making news, with two new GM crops, beet sugar and alfalfa,
getting the go-ahead from USDA, and fast-growing GM farmed salmon awaiting FDA approval . Already, 86 percent of all U.S. corn and 93 percent of soy are GM. On the bright side, Orchids at the Halekulani, a greenmarket gourmet restaurant in Honolulu, where I live, launched a GMO-free menu this month.

We want to know what we’re eating, and more than half of Americans polled have said they don’t want food that’s been genetically engineered (GE), popularly re ferred to as genetically modified (GM). What it means: biotechnicians insert genes from one organism into another, unrelated, organism with which it could not be naturally bred. Example: corn carrying the Bt bacteria gene, which secretes an insecticide. Yum!

But how to avoid GM food, when an estimated 60-70 percent of processed foods in grocery stores contain GE ingredients, but these are not required by law to be labelled (and so are not)?

There are three easy ways.

1. Choose food labeled USDA certified organic, which forbids GE.

2. Choose food labeled “Non GM” and dairy labeled “cows not given rBGH” (see “Why Avoid GMOs,” below)

3. Weed out processed foods from your diet and eat more fresh, seasonal whole foods–-one of the 12 top green goals in my “This is the Year I’ll...” article in the April Whole Living. With the exception of about 50% of Hawaiian papayas, there is no commercialized GM produce–yet.

Halekulani's Chef Vikram Garg, whom I met for a taste of his GMO-free menu, told me he sources non-GM foods by choosing organic, or foods from local farmers who provide him with written verification that their crops or animal products are GE-free. “Fresh, minimally processed,” is this chef’s rule of thumb. He expressed concern that “people are consuming so much processed food–I want to encourage people to eat simply.” He selects organic or all-grass-fed (not corn “finished”) animal products, since conventional animal feed is likely to contain GM corn, soy and, now, alfalfa–and dairy cows are given GE recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH).

Why Avoid GM Foods?

“Personally I’m not against anything GM,” Chef Vikram told me, “but if it’s in the plant you eat, it’s going in your body.”

Reasons you might not want GMOs in your body–or in our environment-- include:

Personal health: Synthetic recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbgh, also known as rbst),produced by splicing cattle and bacteria genes has higher levels of, insulin-like growth factor 1, linked to several cancers.

There is also concern that an increase in food allergies may be partly due to the spread of GE foods.

Protecting Genetic Diversity and Keeping Organic Organic:Contamination of organic crops and shrinking crop diversity due to GM pollen drift are very real risks.

Ethics: Vegetarians do not want to consume foods with animal genes inserted in them.

What matters most to Chef Vikram, he says, is the superior taste of the fresh, sustainably produced local foods that are the focus of his GMO-free menu. We eat a GMO-free, all-local salad arrives, composed of lightly grilled, mushrooms, plus hearts of palm, red onions, and watercress.“The main idea is that people not think that with GM-free you can’t have a dish that tastes like this,” Garg says. “On the contrary, you get the best of all these flavors.”

The entree is organic green lentil risotto, local tomatoes, and organic brown rice, seasoned with turmeric, cumin, salt and asafoetida. “It’s non-GM, but there are other healthy properties–it’s a wholesome, holistic dish,"Chef Vikram says. "Spices such as cumin have ayurvedic, anti-inflammatory properties, and asoefetida aids digestion," he adds.

This is pure comfort food, with a delicate, light texture and taste.“We call it kichidi, and this is my mom’s recipe; when I go home to India this is always my first dinner,” he says, noting that his parents raised him on a meat-free diet based on what’s fresh and seasonal in the market that day.
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RESOURCES

The Center for Food Safety’s excellent True Food Shopper’s Guide lists specific products to choose or avoid.

TAKE ACTION

Join the Organic Consumers Association campaign seeking required labeling of GE ingredients in food.

If you’re opposed to GE salmon, which may harm endangered wild Atlantic salmon by outcompeting them for food and other resources, let your Congressional representatives know.
Join a campaign asking major candy manufacturers not to use GE sugar beets.

These tips, and many others, come from my book, Do One Green Thing, and grow out of questions and suggestions from valued readers like you. For more green, healthy living news and tips, please sign up for our free monthy e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com and ask me questions there or in the comment section of this blog

BPA, pthalates, and the "safer" plastics conundrum

2011-04-02T19:41:00.001-07:00

The latest science shows that plastics are really, really bad news. For years, the conventional wisdom has been that while some bad plastics, such as polycarbonate (PC #7) release toxic chemicals, notably hormone-disrupting Bisphenol-A (BPA), other plastics are safer. Unfortunately, they may not be. Hormone-disrupting, estrogenically active (EA) chemicals were found to leach from all kinds of plastics, including those labeled BPA-free, in a study published by Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) in March. “In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than BPA-containing products,” wrote researchers, who tested 450 baby bottles, water bottles, plastic food containers and wraps bought from retailers including Wal-mart and Whole Foods. Seventy percent of the items released EA into solutions at room temperature, and 95% leached EA after stress tests simulating normaluse in dishwashers and microwaves.

Next, a small but significant study released in EHP online, found that BPA levels in urine samples taken from five SF Bay Area families–10 adults and 10 children–dropped by 66 percent over just three days when they stopped eating packaged food, including food from plastic packages and cans. Participants’ levels of DEHP phthalate, another hormone-disrupting chemical commonly found in flexible PVC plastic, dropped by 53-56 percent.

“All plastic should be labeled as hazardous waste," Captain Charles Moore,who discovered what is popularly known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch," told me recently in Honolulu, where he had come with many others to present research at a week-long UNEP/NOAA Marine Debris Conference. Moore's research voyages to the Great Pacific Gyres off Hawaii and Japan, and the waters between, show that the ocean is fast turning into a plastic plasma. Discarded plastic bottles, containers, toys, and fishing line are broken up into microscopic fragments, about plankton size. His Algalita Foundation's latest findings: Thirty-five percent of plankton-eating lantern fish, the bottom of the marine food chain, had plastic in their bellies.

This toxic plastic plasma will rise in the food chain and find its way into our bellies if we don’t stop contributing to it soon. “Everything eventually makes its way into the ocean,” Captain Moore says.

What to Do?

First, we’ve got to stop buying disposable items made of plastic, Moore says.

Second, we must recycle, rather than toss our old plastics in the trash. If your municipality only accepts bottles labeled #1 and #2 in curbside bins, type in “plastic” at Earth911.com to find a recycling/redemption drop-off center nearest you that takes #3, #6 and #7 plastics.

That said,if you sometimes need to store or carry foods in lightweight plastics, choose #1, #2, #4 and #5 and keep them away from high heat and abrasion. No microwaving or cleaning in dishwasher! See my lists of food and drink containers that are least toxic, according to the research that's been done so far.

We can reduce our body burden of toxic plastic chemicals, like the Bay Area families did, by eating mostly fresh, not processed foods, and avoiding plastic. Check out the SF Chronicle’s interviews with the researchers

Take Action

Finally, we can speak up and tell our political and community leaders to ban single-use plastics. Let's not let the plastics industry chill our speech! For example: Over the objections of researchers who were reporting their studies of plastics pollution and the ocean,the “P” word--“plastic"--was left out of all official publications and pronouncements, Dianna Cohen of Plastics Pollution Coalition told me. "Plastic was the elephant in the room," Cohen said. Instead, the euphemism “marine debris” was used throughout, even though, as Moore told me, “Almost all so-called ‘marine debris’ is plastic." Conference sponsors included Coca Cola and the American Chemistry Council (ACC), which has been pouring money into efforts to block bans on disposable plastic grocery bags nationwide.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Support ongoing research by Moore’s Algalita Foundation.

Help stop the use of single-use grocery bags in your community. Take the Plastics Pledge and learn more about Surfrider Foundation’s Rise Above Plastics campaign.

I hope to hear from you! My book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices, grew out of questions and suggestions from valued readers like you. For more green, healthy living news and tips, please sign up for our free monthy e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com and ask me questions there or in the comment section of this blog. I'll answer!

Green Cookware List

2011-02-17T07:44:00.000-08:00

What to do if you're concerned about perfluorochemicals (PFOA, PTFE)used to make nonstick coatings? Especially in light of recent human studies showing possible links to infertility in women and ADHD (attention deficity hyperactivity disorder) in adolescents ,If you're in the market for a new pan, I recommend the uncoated or alternative nonstick products below, excerpted from my book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices.

Cuisinart Green Gourmet
GreenPan
Le Creuset enamel (coated cast-iron for stovetop/ oven, and glazed clay for oven only)
Lodge traditional uncoated cast iron, once conditioned with oil, is quite nonstick; Lodge also makes enamel cast iron.
Martha Stewart enamel cookware
Mario Batali enamel cast iron at Crate & Barrel
Other safe, sound choices

Stainless steel (nonreactive, though not nonstick!)
Calphalon-type anodized aluminum, so long as it's not covered with nonstick Teflon-type coatings.

For Baking, not stovetop:
Pyrex glassware
Silicone, popular with many bakers, has not been shown to leach toxic chemicals, but it also hasn't been studied much in that regard. In the meantime, I personally find its softness can lead to spills of batter, and I'm leery of heating any plastic, period. Better than PTFE nonstick coatings? Based on what we know so far, yes!

If you’d rather not buy new:

Use what you’ve got with care. If your Teflon pans are unscratched and unscorched, there’s no reason to toss them. Continue to use and preserve them carefully with non-scratching wood, silicone or, yes, Teflon/Silverstone-type utensils. Never use them on high heat, above 500 degrees F. Never heat them when empty.
Look for indestructible cast-iron and uncoated stainless steel pots and pans at yard sales, flea markets, and secondhand stores.

For more info, see EWG's report on Teflon/Silverstone-type chemicals, and this previous GreenerPenny blog & helpful reader comments.

For more green, healthy living news and tips, sign up for our free monthy e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com and ask me questions there or in the comment section of this blog!

More Products for Phthalate- and Paraben-Free Personal Care and Indoor Air

2011-02-13T15:46:00.000-08:00

We Heart Green Cosmetics!

A couple quick new finds and tips for warming and freshening up these waning(but draining) days of winter...but first, don't forget to register for a giveaway of organic EndangeredWildlife lip balms on my home page, GreenerPenny.com!

Tropical Phthalate-Free Soaps and Air Fresheners

Yum, tuberose, pikake, all the scents we Hawaiians love to wear in flower leis, are now available in big bath bars of soap from Alora Ambiance, a small company founded by two sisters. I'm a convert to their essential oil diffusers, too, which use only plant essential oils in glass jars; natural reed stems lift the fragrance into bath or bedroom air.

For a great d.i.y. bathroom air freshener, the Feb issue of Whole Living Magazine recommends hanging a bouquet of dried herbs and flowers--shower steam diffuses their scent. On p. 56, there are great green tips for gentler home hair color brands without ammonia, plus how-to's.

Also see this month's feature on "Cozying Up" your winter home by Sarah Engler--insulated drapes, wool clogs,onion soup, pillows & throws. Energy-saving & snug.

Top Mineral Powder Makeups: Pat Don't Puff!

Let's face it, no makeup except maybe d.i.y. cornstarch is perfectly pure, but the following are definitely phthalate-and-paraben free and work great! Brush a bit on palm of hand and stroke on with fingers or cotton to keep loose particles from irritating lungs/eyes.

Bare Minerals by Bare Escentuals
Jane Iredale Mineral Makeup
Mineral Fusion
Physicians Formula Organic Wear

For a full list of purer personal care brands, and a great string of comments, see my Phthalate-and-Paraben Free blog. And check out the Filthy Fifteen Cosmetics Ingredients,specific looks at product categories, and more (for going green in every category of daily life) in my book, Do One Green Thing.

Sign up for our monthly free email newsletter, and email me questions, at my home page, GreenerPenny.com.

Top Nontoxic Products: Cosmetics, Dish & Laundry Soaps, Chocolates, Plastics

2011-01-21T12:07:00.001-08:00

The Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network has filed suit on behalf of endangered species threatened by pesticides worldwide. Endangered humpback and North American Right whales swim in the same waters we do, polluted by toxic pesticides after heavy rains. In addition to supporting non-profit groups like CBD, PAN, Oceana and Environmental Defense Fund, we can help keep toxic chemicals out of the environment and our bodies through simple attention to the products we choose.

Last week, as the author of Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices, I was on a panel discussing this topic at an “eco-salon” sponsored by Whole Living Magazine in the L.E.E.D.-certified green office of Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in San Francisco. See the video here! With the help of a very engaged audience, who asked lots of questions and also gave suggestions, we brainstormed what we could do at personal, community and political levels.

1. Buy and Use Nontoxic Alternatives

From a personal health standpoint, all agreed, the fastest way to reduce our chemical “body burden” is to avoid products that contain known toxics, such as water bottles and food containers made with polycarbonate (PC #7) plastic, which releases toxic Bisphenol-A (BPA), and toys, shower curtains and other products made of polyvinyl (PVC #3) plastic, which releases phthalates, hormone-disrupting chemicals linked to obesity in children as well as adults.

Choosing personal care products that are certified organic, or bear other third-party verified seals, per my GreenerPenny.com truly green cosmetic labels list. Endangered Wildlife Lip Balm is USDA certified organic, and, the company donates 25% of its profits to the Center for Biological Diversity, which is working to protect endangered right whales, jaguars, polar bears, and other wildlife (WFLB also gave lip balms to our eco-salon attendees.

Choosing organically grown food, such as the delectable chocolates and teas that fairly traded Equal Exchange Cooperative donated to our event, keeps toxic pesticides and fertilizers out of the environment as well as our bodies.

TOP GREEN PRODUCT PICKS
Get a fresh start in 2011 with GreenerPenny.com's Top Picks Shopping Guides. Click the links below for best green brands.

Food & Water Containers
Choose what's been proven safe–such as a stainless steel water bottle from this list (which also spells out safer plastics). For safer food containers, click here.

Top Green Dish Soaps

Top Green Lip Balms

Guilt-Free Green Chocolates

Top Green Laundry Detergents

2. Support Actions to Regulate

At the same time and in the long term, we need government regulation, a route pursued by EDF and fellow members of the I Am Not a Guinea Pig coalition , which seeks to ban toxic chemicals such as BPA through legislation. California has led the nation in banning the two most toxic flame retardants, as noted by one of my co-panelists, Debbie Raphael, toxics reduction/ green building program manager for the San Francisco Department of the Environment. And, following San Francisco’s and then California’s lead, Congress has banned phthalates in children's products.

3. Ask Companies to Stop Using Toxic Chemicals

Some companies seize the initiative to go green, such as Patagonia did in switching exclusively to certified organic cotton. In addition to using the power of our wallets by selecting green products, we can support the efforts of non-profit organizations such as EDF, which work with companies to stop putting toxic chemicals into products. Panelist Beth Trask, deputy director of EDF’s corporate partnerships program, spoke about working with Wal-mart to encourage its suppliers to eliminate known toxic chemicals. http://blogs.edf.org/innovation/2009/10/27/peeking-through-the-chemical-curtain-with-greenwercs/ EDF’s successes in the business front include getting McDonald’s to stop using styrofoam, and getting Starbucks to use post-consumer-recycled paper in its cups.

Shoppers are used to asking ourselves if we really need something. Can we afford it? We can apply the same question to risks of toxic chemical exposures. As Debbie Raphael advised, we should ask ourselvesL Is it necessary? Just because a product is for sale doesn’t mean it’s safe, obviously–and up to 80% of the synthetic chemicals on the marketplace have not been tested for safety, Rafael said. For 5 specific steps for avoiding toxic–and often fattening-- chemicals in everyday products, see my recent Whole Living blog.

Drop by our home page at GreenerPenny.com to win prizes, subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter, and Ask Mindy any questions! You can also ask and make suggestions in the Comment place below. Thanks!

Latest News on BPA and Tips for Avoiding Toxic (and Fattening) Chemicals

2011-01-11T08:57:00.000-08:00

Why is fat related to plastic chemicals? Turns out, BPA and other "obesogens" leach from plastics, cleaning products and cosmetics and find their way into our bodies through our food, water, air--and through our skins. These synthetic chemicals “mimic” the behavior of estrogen and other hormones and have also been linked to cancer and learning problems.

Products Containing BPA
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BPA, for example, is found in polycarbonate plastic (PC #7) sports and baby bottles, canned food linings, pizza boxes, cash register receipts and even dollar bills. Plastics and cans are believed to be our most common routes of exposure, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control,which found in the urine of nearly all 2,500 people the Centers tested in 2003-4. http://www.cdc.gov/exposurereport/BisphenolA_FactSheet.html.

The Bad on BPA: The latest science

Bisphenol-A (BPA),has been connected with higher incidence of diabetes and cardiovascular disease in humans in a 2008 study. In a 2010 study, mother mice exposed to higher levels of BPA were found to be heavier than those who were not, and to produce offspring who were more likely to be fat and pre-diabetic.

Human fertility also appears to be at risk from BPA exposures. In 2010, a study at University of San Francisco connected BPA with impaired egg quality in women. Researchers found that,as blood levels of BPA in women doubled, the number of eggs that could be fertilized declined by 50%. Other studies have linked BPA to reduced sperm counts http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39888170/ns/health-mens_health/and other fertility problems in humans.

Perhaps most alarming is BPA’s potential to harm developing fetuses, infants and children. In 2010, BPA was linked to aggressive behavior in baby girls, as Janet Raloff reported in Science Times. Animal studies have shown that BPA can cause brain damage and learning disorders as well as interfere with reproductive systems. Exposure to BPA in the womb has led to development of asthma in animals.

How to Avoid BPA and Other Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Products

The good news: While BPA is pretty much everywhere, it can be avoided.

Below are five small but significant steps adapted from my book, Do One Green Thing, for losing your body burden of toxic chemicals.

1. Bypass the BPA:

Eat more fresh and less canned food. Consumers Union tests found pervasive BPA in canned food linings last year; Eden Foods has been using BPA-free can linings for more than a decade.

Phase out sports and baby bottles and kitchenware made with polycarbonate PC #7 plastic. Use my lists of top food storage containers and safest drink bottles.

Never microwave food in any plastic container; perversely, even so-called “safe” plastics have been found to leach BPA when heated .

2. Choose green, botanically-derived household cleaning products, like these dish soaps. Use my list of conventional cleaning ingredients to avoid for the sake of your indoor air and our waterways.

Yes, household air can get a little stale in January, but rather than spraying toxic synthetic “air fresheners,”, crack a window to let real fresh air in. For fragrancing, set out some potpourri or dip diffuser sticks in a vial of plant essential oils, like the pure tropical blends from Alora Ambiance.

3. Don’t buy toys, apparel and home decorating products made with PVC vinyl, often identified by the recycling code #3, which can be contaminated with brain-damaging lead and phthalates, which have been linked to obesity in human adults, asthma in children, and reproductive deformities in infants and wildlife.

4. Eat more organic and locally-grown produce and fewer meats and processed foods. It's good for your waistline and you'll reduce toxic pesticide exposures and unhealthy fats, preservatives and sugars in your diet. You can also choose low-mercury, sustainable fish using EDF’s handy seafood selector cards.

5. Stop buying bottled water. It’s generally not safer than tap, as shown by EWG’s 2011 drinking water report.

Eighty percent of disposable plastic bottles wind up in landfills and oceanic garbage patches, whereas 80% of glass is recycled! And, when heated, these polyethylene (PET #1) bottles can release phthalates and other toxic chemicals in some tests, as this 2010 study finds. Drink tap water, filtered if necessary, and get involved with local and environmental groups that work on protecting watersheds, including Environmental Defense Fund. In California, for instance, here are EDF's efforts to preserve major ecosystems by making water use more sustainable.

We're Not Guinea Pigs! Taking Action for Safe Chemicals Policy

Despite BPA’s lengthy rap sheet, the U.S. has resisted taking protective action, lagging behind Canada and Europe. In late 2010, the EU banned BPA in plastic baby bottles, while a similar law, sponsored by Senator Diane Feinstein and calling for further studies by the U.S. FDA, foundered in Congress. Another BPA ban was rejected by the California legislature last fall, after last-minute lobbying by the chemical industry,the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Californialegislators also failed to implement California’s Green Chemistry Initiative. Scheduled to take effect this month, the law would have kept carcinogens out of household cleaners, cosmetics and children’s products, while requiring companies to fully disclose ingredients and materials .

We’re not guinea pigs, but we’re being treated that way “Children’s toys, kitchen productds, cosmetics, fast food containers–countless items that we use on a daily basis are made with chemicals that science is linking to the rising rates of childhood cancers, infertility, learning disabilities and more,” says Richard Denison, Ph.D., senior scientist with EDF, which is part of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition working for policy change. Join up! You'll be glad you did.

Until regulations are in place, it’s up to us to protect ourselves and the environment from chemicals hidden in everyday products.

You’re Invited

If you’ll be in the Bay Area today, January 11th, please join me at a toxic chemicals and daily products talk and sustainable cocktail party at EDF's San Francisco office, from 5:30-7:30, sponsored by Whole Living Magazine, where I'm the "Econundrums" columnist online and in every print issue. RSVP at this link.

Got a question? Ask me on my home page at GreenerPenny.com, and sign up for our free monthly email newsletter filled with new studies and green living tips.

Thanks, and Happy Nontoxic New Year!

For Lead-free Shopping Bags, choose organic or recycled cloth, not plastic.

2010-11-21T18:07:00.000-08:00

Shopping with reusable bags, and not taking disposable bags, is one of the greenest little things you can do, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. But last week, reusable bags were dealt a p.r. blow when brain-damaging lead was found in plastic models sold by some CVS, Winn-Dixie and Publix stores. Tests of the shopping bags found the neurotoxic heavy metal to be present "potentially unsafe levels," The New York Times reported . Note: When it comes to children's health, there is no safe level of lead, which collects in the body and causes irreversible developmental harm.

The Tampa Tribune, which paid for some of the tests, warned that the lead content could qualify the bags as hazardous waste Wegman's recalled its own reusable bags due to lead in September of this year.

The recycled-plastic bags are made in China, which also produces lead-contaminated toys , millions, but not all, of which are recalled every year. Because so much lead in paint, ink and plastic goes undetected in consumer products, it's a good idea to treat any plastic bag--reusable or disposable--with caution, especially if it's worn and crumbling, and/or ink is flaking off.

An easy solution: Choose totes made from certified organic or recycled fiber, like these organic cotton bags from Mimi the Sardine. Both from Oliveand Myrtle.com .

Do try to avoid vinyl (PVC #3) lunch boxes, bags, toys, shower curtains, raincoats, lunch pails and other products, because PVC plastic is often made with lead and toxic phthalates.

Top 10 Green Holiday Gift and Decorating Ideas

2010-11-21T18:02:00.001-08:00

Simplify the Holidays: Less Waste, Less Stress, Fewer Things, More Time

1. Make the season bright--and energy efficient--with Light Efficient Diode (LED) lights, like these holiday LED strings by Martha Stewart at Home Depot. Give LED lightbulbs, too, for year-round use: They're 25x more efficient than incandescent bulbs, mercury-free, and last 10x longer than compact fluorescents (CFLs).

2. Make D.I.Y. ornaments by reusing and recycling materials like shredded paper and these bottle caps, which aren't recycled by municipalities although the containers, if made of #1, #2 or #5, are. Photo by Natalie McKinney, Kokua Hawaii Foundation.

3. Give locally grown and/or organic, heirloom food. Baskets of fresh farmers' market produce or dried fruit and nuts, cheese platters, gift boxes of dried pasta, bottled pesto and olive oil, homebaked treats, you name it, won't go to waste! Top it off with organic, fairly traded chocolate.

You can send organic whole foods and prepared meals from Diamond Organics (diamondorganics.com). A great source of tasty organic meat is applegatefarms.com, or you can find a local purveyor of organic or grass-fed meats by typing in your zip code at eatwellguide.org. Indulge in hand-crafted American artisanal cheeses made from the milk of grass-fed cows, sheep and goats, from artisanalcheese.com, vermontshepherd.com and more.

The holidays, when we observe traditions, are an ideal time to sample heirloom foods that keep gene pools diverse and healthy. Treat your family to the unique taste of a free-Range heritage turkey or pampered pig; see slowfoodusa.org for a state-by-state listing of farmers who raise native breeds of fowl, as well as special regional vegetables, fruits and meats.

Get a sustainable taste of the wild-- Alaska salmon, that is--free of toxins and not overfished. It’s not in season fresh right now, so buy it smoked from seabear.com or wildcatch.com.

Organic coffee is being produced from Sumatra to Colombia to Hawaii, USA. When it’s also shade-grown, beneath a forest canopy that provides a home to migratory songbirds, and is produced by farmer cooperatives under fair trade standards, coffee is one of the most well-rounded green choices you can find. Meeting all three standards are Batdorf & Bronson (batdorf.com) and Grounds for Change (groundsforchange.com)

4. Give time and togetherness.
Among its top 12 ways to simplify the holidays, Kokua Hawaii Foundation suggests giving redeemable "service certificates" for tasks you or a child can perform, such as: good for one car wash, one homemade meal. We might add an hour's worth working in the garden, helping with shopping and carrying groceries, sweeping the front steps.

5. Buy a live local tree, and plant it after the holidays in your yard, city park or botanical garden. You'll find a place!

6. Give a plastics and (mostly) paper-free party. My friend Sarah rents wineglasses, for example. It’s so nice having real glass instead of plastic, which affects the taste of the wine. I just bought a lot of vintage wine glasses from a neighbor's yard sale where I ran into Cristal. Use lightweight, renewablebamboo plates and bowls, or Recycline’s colorful dinnerware made of recycled milk jugs. Organic cotton and hemp or secondhand cloth napkins and dishcloths /can work even in large parties, but for best, post-consumer recycled paper goods, click here..

7. Choose gifts that are minimally packaged, or not at all. Culture’s the ticket: No matter where you live, you can give tickets to theatre, concerts, art exhibits, aquariums and natural history museumsl or services, such as yoga or dance classes, piano, drawing or pottery lessons, in your recipient’s locale. No shipping, no fuel miles.

8. Good green drinks. Give and toast with certified organic wine,
gin, vodka and rum from masionjomere.com,and beers, including several varieties from Wolavers.com. Non-alcoholic options include R.W. Knudsen’s organic grape (choose red for resveratrol), apple and orange carrot juice from knudsenjuices.com.

9. Treat a hard-cooking loved one to a truly special night out at a restaurant that uses locally produced and organic foods. Search at Chefs Collaborative.

10. Buy local whenever possible. It's the strongest and most rewarding connection you can make. Search for sustainably produced goods made and sold in your vicinity in the Organic Consumers Association Buying Guide, and Green America's(formerly Co-op America) National Green Pages.

During the holidays and beyond: Visit loved ones. You don’t have to entertain them, just be yourself and listen. Even if you have to fly a long distance and pay to offset your carbon emissions and assuage your conscience, it’s totally worth it.

Want more simple green living tips? Subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com. Follow us at Twitter.com/Greenerpenny and on GreenerPenny’s Facebook page.

See more tips, and make a pledge to simplify your holidays at Kanu Hawaii(they have a cool calculating widget to show how many trees and how much carbon you've saved) and Center for a New American Dream, whose 2009 holiday tips pamphlet is on their website now.

Gifts that Give Back to the Earth

2010-11-21T13:45:00.001-08:00

Contribute directly, or as a gift on behalf of a caring person on your list, to non-profits that work to save our planet and, therefore, ourselves.

Waste for Life teams design and engineering students and professionals with members of poor communities worldwide, from Argentina to Lesotho,in projects that make sustainable building materials out of trash. These 5 reasons to donate to Waste for Life can apply to most green and fair trade non-profit organizations. Be as generous as you can this year!

After this summer's tragic oil spill in the Gulf, the ocean and its threatened species need a lot of loving care. Adopt the Gulf or arctic seas, and denizens from porpoises to polar bears, with a gift to Oceana. Adopt 4 animals and get sea creature cookie cutters (I can't resist)! Contribute to the Blue Frontier Campaign. Support the work of Environmental Defense Fund, which works out ways to sustain natural resources, such as fisheries, in partnership with local industries such as small fishermen. Become a member of, and donate to, your local aquarium, or, if you haven't got one nearby, to one of the active ocean/estuary conservation organizations such as San Francisco's Aquarium of the Pacific .

Sponsor a specific national park or wilderness area through Sierra Club. Even Yosemite, Yellowstone and Sequoia need help! You can do so paper-free for $20 and up.If your recipient is a child, $25 will garner a stuffed animal (cougar, wolf) of a species that lives in that place, plus pictures and info.
And do check out Sierra columnist Avital Binschtock's generous roundup of fun, fresh, appealing fair trade and environmental gift ideas at Sierra Club's The Green Life blog .

Some green organizations offer some ungreen swag as membership premiums, such as petroleum-based plastic backpacks and the lot. That's why I'm stoked by Surfrider Foundation's organic cotton cap and tote in their membership package. Giving a membership supports annual state of the beach events, protection of ocean water quality, coastal open space and beach environments, marine life and habitat, and most of all, our waves!

Kokua Hawaii Foundation, which seeks to eliminate plastic waste and supports green education in public schools and community agriculture, gives an organic cotton bag to new members. In their store, you can buy prganic cotton onesies for babies and clean wave graphics on organic tshirts for grownups.

For other ethical giving opportunities, click here.

Want more simple green living tips? Subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com. Follow us at Twitter.com/Greenerpenny and become a fan on GreenerPenny’s Facebook page.
Thanks!
Mindy

Green holiday wrap, cards, and shipping: buy local, d.i.y., order early

2010-11-21T02:19:00.000-08:00

During the holidays, Americans toss out 25% more waste. Two words that make the season green: Waste Not! Saving paper and packaging for reuse saves trees, and sending gifts by ground rate, not by 2-day-air or overnight, saves fuel. Both reduce carbon emissions.

*Tree-free Gift Wrap
Try not to buy readymade gift wrap, or any paper made from virgin trees rather than post-consumer-recycled paper.

Last week, when I was Terri Trespicio's guest on Martha Stewart's Whole Living Sirius Radio show , listeners called in with some creative ideas for reused, reusable gifts, wraps and cards. One woman, who grew up in India,continues the Diwali festival tradition of giving gifts of food in stainless steel containers wrapped in fabric and embellished with fresh flowers.

Another listener has her kids "shop" their basement for gifts, like forgotten but tools and art supplies. A seamstress sews fabric gift bags that her recipients can reuse. Another collects old Christmas cards from friends that don't want them and repurposes them into new cards and gift tags.

My friend Cristal wraps all her Xmas gifts in old scarves found at yard sales.My friend Lexy saves all her daughter’s drawings on butcher paper and wraps gifts in them, although how she parts with these artworks I do not know.

You can reuse any kind of paper or fabric, including newspaper, old maps, magazine & comic pages. Organic cotton dishtowels, handkerchiefs and napkins are doubly green because they're part of the gift. If every family wrapped just 3 gifts this way, it would save enough paper to cover 45 football fields, according to Sierra Club.

Give at least one gift that doesn’t require wrapping, like a colorful bag or box (preferably made of Forest Stewardship Council certified PCR paper) of rainforest-friendly coffee, tea or chocolate.

Holiday Cards.

According to the Greeting Card Association, more than 2.6 billion holiday cards are sent each year. Terri and I discussed whether e-cards are a satisfactory replacement, and concluded that, while certainly sustainably tree-free, they're also rather soulless. We're also old-fashioned enough to treasure real signatures, by hand, over virtual or printed ink.

If you’re sending out traditional holiday cards, look for those with the greatest percentage of post-consumer recycled (PCR) paper or paper that's certified by Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) as PCR or coming from well-managed forests. National Envelope and PleasanTrees.com sell holiday cards that are certified by the Rainforest Alliance to FSC standards. All of the cards sold by Cardstore.com come from FSC certified, responsibly managed forestsPaporganics offers wrapping paper made with 90 percent post consumer recycled with 10 percent hemp, a tree-free fiber, as well organic cotton holiday gift card packs. Paporganics.com. Or send electronic invitations and cards from evite.com or regards.com. Or spare forests with tree-free fibers, such as hemp, kenaf, banana-stalk or bamboo, or even recycled blue jeans, dollar bills or green tea leaves. *For greetings, Green Field (www.greenfieldpaper.com) sells "Peace" cards made from 100% recycled junk mail; Dolphin Blue (www.dolphinblue.com) sells card stock that's 50 percent PCW recycled and 50 percent recovered cotton. Decorate it with your own photos or potato or linoleum cut-out print.

*Shipping News

Order and send gifts early, ideally at least three weeks in advance. Rush air shipping releases more carbon dioxide than standard ground delivery.

Buy from companies that use recycled and recyclable packaging (ask sales reps, or check shipping policies on company websites).Amazon.com, for instances, packages items in boxes composed of 25- to 30-percent post-consumer recycled material.

When you shop and buy local, carpool and combine errands to save fuel and emissions.

Want more simple green living tips? Subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com. Follow us at Twitter.com/Greenerpenny and become a fan on GreenerPenny’s Facebook page.
Thanks!
Mindy

Do One Green Thing for Your Holiday Travel

2010-11-20T18:11:00.000-08:00

Transportation is responsible for 28 percent of U.S. annual carbon dioxide emissions, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Every gallon of gasoline burned releases 24-28 pounds of CO2. It's about the same for jet fuel, according to the Tufts University Office of Sustainability. With a national average fuel inefficiency of 19.1 miles per gallon, each car is responsible for releasing 2,750 lbs. of C02 annually. http://sustainability.tufts.edu/?pid=41. Per seat, on average, every airplane passenger is responsible for burning about 77 gallons of fuel in a 2500 mile cross-country flight, according to this roundup of air travel studies by Grist.org . That's about 1,555 pounds of CO2!

But hey, it's the holidays. It's all about family togetherness, and families are far-flung. How can we prevent hurt feelings without wounding the planet? Here are some tips from the transportation chapter of my book, Do One Green Thing.

If you can do just one green thing to green your transportation, take the train.

Riding the train cross-country reduces your carbon footprint for the trip in half compared with flying, to 775 pounds of CO2. For commuting and shopping, taking light rail instead of driving reduces your annual transportation greenhouse gases by 1,366 pounds. No light rail in your locale? Take the bus. Commuting by city bus cuts 804 pounds of carbon per annum.

If you've got to drive, it's merrier, greener and cheaper not to go alone. Car pooling spreads expenses and carbon emissions among riders.

*Zipcar car sharing services can now be found in more than 50 cities and 100 universities.

*Car rental companies, which have been offering hybrids for a while, are now branching out into electric vehicles.

No matter what you drive, here are some tips that will increase your fuel efficiency when you drive.

*Drop the road rage. According to the Department of Energy’s fuel economy guide, aggressive driving, such as speeding, rapid acceleration and braking to get around that jerk on the bike, lowers gas mileage by 33% at highway speeds and 5% at city speeds. Also, Big Green Purse reports that most cars hit their optimal fuel economy at 60 miles per hour (mph), so every additional 5 mph after that costs you an extra $0.l0 in gas.

*Keep your car in tune, tires correctly inflated, and change the oil regularly. The Department of Energy states that certain types of serious engine maintenance, such as replacing a busted oxygen sensor, can increase your fuel efficiency by as much as 40%. Keeping tires properly inflated will increase efficiency by 3.3% and regularly cleaning your air filter can improve efficiency by as much as 10%. Guess Granddad was greener than he realized.

Check out our other seasonal tips at GreenerPenny.com.

For a one-stop, well-organized green living guide full of tips, product info and shopping lists in every category, from food and drink to cleaning, appliances, lighting, electronics, recycling, clothing and more on transportation, see my book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices.

How to Find Heritage Turkeys and Other Green Thanksgiving Tips

2010-11-17T18:24:00.000-08:00

Just caved and ordered a fresh antiobiotic-free, family-farmed Diestel turkey from my local Whole Foods, which also sells Mary's heirloom and organic birds. I was going to order a frozen organic from my food co-op, Kokua Natural Foods, but given my pre-holiday work deadlines, I couldn't trust myself to defrost safely in time. I confess, I view this choice as a lesser evil, because although Diestel's is not a huge industrial factory farm, I can't rely on "free range" or "humane" claims unless they're backed up with third-party-verified seals such as Certified Humane, which forbid cruel practices such as debeaking. When Whole Foods rolls out its long-anticipated Global Animal Partnership ratings for animal welfare later this year, we'll see how they rate the companies whose products they sell.

I compromised, because stress does not make for a holiday! I personally know two women who literally broke their backs while taking 20-lb. Thanksgiving turkeys from the oven. That’s not sustainable! Although I like to eat turkey, as a child I was disturbed by the mass seasonal slaughter and the deadening conformity of nearly every household’s cooking and eating the same thing on the same day.

Now I realize that what I actually oppose are industrial factory farms, and thecommodification of what was originally a local and spiritual feast of thanks for good fellowship and food.

Below are a few ideas for sustaining yourself, your community and the planet.

* Give to the hungry. Donate dollars to non-profit organizations in your community that serve free meals to the needy. For where to take food, locate your local food bank, participating supermarkets and other distribution channels through Feeding America.

* Eat out if you like. While cooking whole foods at home most days is better for the budget and health, it’s a holiday! Don’t break your back.

To find a green restaurant near you that serves local and sustainably produced food, type in your zip code at Eat Well Guide. Within 20 miles of my Honolulu home I found 12 restaurants ranging from gourmet Alan Wong’s to health food bars.

Eat conformity-free. “My brother and I decided to eat out and only eat desserts. We'll skip the turkey, dressing and side dishes,” writes my friend Julio Vega, a creative director and book designer in New York City. I feel lighter already!

* Find local produce and animal products, farmers’ markets and farm stands at Local Harvest

*Vegetables can make the meal, and not just for vegans.

Thanks to Paul Rauber, senior editor at Sierra Magazine, for sharing “my fabulous brussel sprout side dish that even brussel sprout haters like. Trim ends off sprouts, slice thinly. Saute in brown butter (or just butter) until they begin to brown. Add stock to not even cover, plus roasted walnuts or pecans. Cook maybe 5 minutes, squeeze on a spritz of lemon, and there you go. It's from Alice Waters' Vegetables. Have a great day!”

And why not stuff a squash instead of a bird? My Aunt Claire makes a succulent roast pumpkin filled with apples, cranberries, raisins, nuts and grains. Check out these recipes at Cooks.com .

Food for thought: “Animal, Vegetable, Miserable,” by vegan philosopher Gary Steiner, in the Sunday New York Times.

* Turkey shopping? Choose heritage, organic and/or certified humane. Call your local natural and health food supermarkets.

Heritage birds are registered breeds such as the Narragansett, the first domesticized turkey in the U.S. Buying them helps preserve a diverse gene pool. Plus, they’re able to breed naturally, unlike the industrial Broad-Breasted Bronzes or Whites, whose bodies are too heavy and legs too short for sport. Your bird might also be a Bourbon Red, White Holland, Royal Palm, or Standard Bronze. We got a Bourbon Red from Mary’s Turkeys. We could tell because it’s, ahem, flat-chested, lacking the “high, raised keel bone” that characterizes a Naragansett, according to Mary.

Thinking ahead to December, you can order heritage poultry, meat, wine, and artisanal cheeses through Heritage Foods USA, the retail arm of Slow Foods USA.

Organic turkeys have to be raised without antibiotics and eat organic, vegetarian feed free of GMOs and pesticides. Make sure it displays the USDA Certified Organic label. certified organic ranch; guaranteed no GMOs, no pesticides.

Is there a dif from a taste point of view? “Organic has a larger breast, heritage has larger thighs,” says Mary of Mary’s turkeys.

Philosophically, we favor humane animal welfare labels that guarantee the creature had had freedom to move about, clean quarters, fresh air, a vegetarian diet, and was slaughtered with minimal suffering. The most reliable labels are certified humane, food alliance and animal welfare approved.
Need a turkey recipe? We like Maria Rodale’s.

*Pumpkin Pie? Buy fresh farmers’ market kabocha/acorn squash or canned organic pumpkin. While there’s a reported shortage of conventional canned pumpkin, shelves at natural food stores are well-stocked with organic in cans. Find regular and vegan (dairy free) recipes here.

*Prepare for Psychic Survival with Sierra Club’s Thanksgiving how-to-cope guide. Provides witty, fact-based ripostes to environment-bashing table talk.

Top green humane poultry, meat & dairy labels

2010-10-28T21:29:00.000-07:00

Best Green, Humane Picks

If you eat animals but care about how they live and die, and felt discomfited by recent reports on chicken slaughter methods, rest assured there are humane alternatives. Look for third-party-verified, certified humane labels on poultry, eggs, dairy, and meat. Independent third-party vetting of claims is the gold green standard, as opposed to industry self-verification, which cannot be objective. The following seals mean that antibiotics are given only to sick animals; no growth hormones are administered; and feeding of animal parts to animals is prohibited. Animals are not confined in cages, and specific humane slaughtering requirements must be followed to qualify for the labels below (pasture/grass requirements are noted where applicable).

Animal Welfare Approved: This family farm label guarantees that cows and chickens spend most of their lives outdoors in the fields; has very specific humane handling and shelter standards; and gets top ratings from the World Society for Protection of Animals.

Certified Humane: Pasture time is not specified, although humane shelter (enough space to freely move about; no crates, cages, or being tied in stalls) and handling are.

Food Alliance Certified: Sets clear standards for lifetime access to pasture and humane treatment, including slaughtering. (See www.foodalliance.org.)New: Food Alliance now has an additional, exclusively grassfed label

Demeter Biodynamic (meat, milk, cheese, eggs): Animals are guaranteed outdoor time at least partially on grass, and may not be confined.

American Grassfed Association (ruminant meat & dairy): Cows, sheep, and goats eat grass, period, and this standard requires that they spend most of their lives outside, in a pasture. Third-party-certified by the Food Alliance (see later in this list). Sick animals, if given antibiotics, are removed from the program.

Maine Quality Trademark (milk): No growth hormones are used; animal welfare is respected.

Good and Green but Not Guaranteed Humane

USDA Certified Organic: Better for you, but not necessarily for the animals. They eat only 100 percent certified organic grass, corn, or grain, and sick animals given antibiotics are removed from the program. While it's required that animals have “access” to pasture, this is currently not clearly defined except, since February 2010, for dairy cows. In the autumn of 2010 USDA is considering similar outdoor living guarantees for poultry. Human slaughtering is not addressed.

Lesser Labels: Not Third-Party Verified

United Egg Producer Certified: There is no third-party verification of humane treatment of creatures,nor pasture/outdoor acess requirement.

Cage-Free, Free Range or Free Roaming: There is no guarantee that the cows, chickens, or other animals actually got outdoors, and no third-party verification that they are not caged or confined, the Humane Society warns.

“Grass Fed”: The USDA defines this as the animal ate only 100 percent grass in its life, but third-party verification is not required.

USDA “Naturally Raised”: These products contain no hormones* or artificial colorings, and only a few antibiotics are allowed, but there’s no third-party verification.

Excerpted from my book Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices (St Martin's Press, 2010).

For more green news and product tips on food, cleaning, personal care, plastics and more, come to our home page, GreenerPenny.com, where you can also send me an email and ask me questions.

Thanks!
Mindy Pennybacker

The trick to a Green Halloween: organic, vegan, healthier treats

2010-10-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

For a safe fun Halloween: When it comes to costumes, I vote for fresh air, preferring props that don't cover the face, especially masks made of toxic PVC vinyl (for my PVC lecture, see bottom of this blog). When it comes to treats,the main attraction, adults know to check kids' loot bags for safety, and this includes reading labels to make sure, at minimum, candies come from identifiable and traceable sources. Then, if you can, nix the high-fructose-corn syrup and hydrogenated vegetable oils, organic or not! If your child brings home unlabeled candies, “trade” them for organic, fairly traded treats--the ones you've been giving out, of course, as a good green parent and community member.
Green Halloween Sweet Treats:
Endangered Species organic "bug bites" and more
Annie's Organics vegan (no gelatin) little packets of gummi bunnies
: Lake Champlain's new individual wrapped organic chocolate squares Newman's Own Organic chocolate cups, cookies, soy crisps Sweet Earth foil-wrapped milk and dark chocolate coins;
Yummy Earth organic, gluten-free individually wrapped lollipops, check out their super-natural ingredients Sour Z treats or Gummy Worms
organic raisins) and chocolate treats, U.S.-made chocolate coins by reputable companies likeVermont’s Lake Champlain, and organic cookies shaped like cats, bats and autumn leaves from Dancing Deer. Find nearby retailers on company websites; or check at Whole Foods. Also, as much as possible, buy from local producers you know and trust. Check your yellow pages or local “green” pages or food magazines, for candymakers near you; many independent bakeries also make confections, including chocolates and fruit gels. Type in your zip code at Sustainable Table and zoom into your local food network.

More treats:

Fairly traded, foil-wrapped mint-chocolate bits at Kate's Caring Gifts

Sweet Earth Very Scary organic milk or dark chocolate colorful wrapped "coins," skulls, witches' hats, bats

For a handy organic, fair trade chocolate, mobile-handy shopping guide, click here, and check out the other product lists and criteria at GreenerPenny.com/guides.
Be sure to visit our homepage, GreenerPenny.com, for news, updates, to ask me any questions and sign up, if you like, for our free monthly newsletter!
And plse check your local or online bookstore for my green living book full of practical tips, the latest science, and recommended products, Do One Green Thing.
Remember...screen, then have a screaming good time!

*For more info on phthalates in synthetic fragrance and plastics, and how to avoid them, click here

d.i.y. green glass cleaner

2010-10-21T07:40:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Terri Trespicio, Jennifer Sendrow and the other folks at Martha Stewart Radio for inviting me this morning to talk about green money-saving tips!

In response to one listener's call-in question, here is a fume-free, effective cleaner for your glass shower doors, mirrors, glass table tops, windows, whatever, from my book, Do One Green Thing.

Glass Cleaner
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 cup water
3-4 drops liquid plant-based soap

Mix in a spray bottle, spray and wipe off with newspaper!

For more tips and to ask me questions, come to GreenerPenny.com.

From my Garden to my Kitchen to my Belly

2010-09-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

After only 5 weeks of tending my garden several of the plants began to ripen and offer their abundance. First off, most of the herbs became full enough to allow me to harvest small handfuls. Helpful Tip: Many of the herbs actually do better when you use them regularly and keep them pruned. Allowing an herb grow overly full, or letting it flower, causes the plant to expend too much of its energy nourishing the flowers while the flavorful parts - such as the leaves - suffer and wither. Several times I've had to prune the flowers off the cilantro, basil, Thai basil, chives and thyme. Now by late summer my garden is at its peak, overflowing with vegetables and herbs. Here comes the fun part: Eating!

I've made an array of dishes this summer: fresh mojitos with the mint; tomato-basil and mozzarella salads with the basil and tomatoes; flavorful omelets with the chives and spring onions; soup with the eggplant, onions, garlic, and chilies; and a tasty white wine and butter sauce for scallops using the chives, spring onions and tarragon. (See below for some of these recipes).

Fresh Mojitios

Ingredients:
- 10 fresh mint leaves
- Crushed ice
- Rum
- Freshly squeezed lime juice
- Sugar

1. Rinse and wash the mint leaves
2. In a glass mix the crushed ice and mint leaves. Muddle until the leaves are partly broken up (in order to disperse the minty flavor).
3. Over the mint and ice, pour the rum and lime juice. Half rum, half lime juice - or adjusted depending on how strong you desire your drink.
4. Mix in the sugar to taste. Stir until all ingredients are mixed well. Enjoy cold!

Tomato-Basil Mozzarella salad

Ingredients
- 3 tomatoes
- About 3/4 cup of fresh mozzarella
- 5-10 basil leaves
- Olive oil
- Balsamic vinegar
- Salt, pepper

1. Slice the tomatoes and mozzarella into small bite-sized pieces. Mingle together in a serving bowl.
2. Rinse and wash the basil leaves. Cut or tear the leaves into thirds and mix into the salad.
3. Sprinkle olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the salt. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve fresh.

Eggplant Soup

Ingredients
- 1 eggplant, sliced in thin discs
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 cloves crushed garlic
- 1 chili pepper, finely diced (optional, if you like spice)
- Olive oil
- 1 28-oz. can of crushed tomatoes
- 2-3 chicken bouillon cubes (or vegetable bouillon cubes)1 1/2 cups water
- 1 small yellow squash, cubed
- 1 8-oz. can of corn
- 1 14-oz. can of black beans

1. Saute the eggplant discs with the onions, garlic and chili pepper until slightly browned. Add generous amounts of olive oil while frying.
2. In large saucepan combine the can of crushed tomatoes with the sauteed eggplant, onions and garlic. Add the bouillon cubes, water and squash and bring to a boil. Sprinkle additional olive oil in soup, if desired.
3. Add the black beans (include the liquid in the can) and the corn. Continue simmering for about 20-30 minutes, or until the vegetables reach desired consistency for soup.
4. Remove from heat, add salt and pepper as desired.

White Wine and Butter Scallops

Ingredients:
- 12-15 fresh medium sized sea scallops
- 1/4 cup white wine (I used a Sauvignon Blanc)
- 1 stick butter
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- Handful of chives
- 2 spring onions
- 4 tarragon leaves
- 3 garlic cloves
- 3/4 cup of baby Portabella mushrooms, sliced
- Olive oil

1. Chop the chives, spring onions, garlic and tear tarragon leaves.
2. In a saucepan mix the white wine, butter, lemon juice, chives, spring onions, garlic and tarragon leaves. Cook on medium heat on the stove top, stirring occasionally, until the butter melts completely. Remove from heat.
3. In a fry pan, sauté the sliced mushrooms, with olive oil and a few sprinkles of the wine-butter mixture, for taste. Bring to a light golden brown. Remove from heat.
4. Lightly sauté the scallops, for about 40 seconds on each side, or just until each side turns slightly brown.
5. Add the wine-butter sauce and the mushrooms to the scallops, and continue cooking on stove top for about 3 more minutes, paying attention to the scallops to ensure that they do not get overdone. Remove from heat.
6. Serve over rice with a side of greens such a bok choi, kale or broccoli.

For information on seafood, such as scallops, see the Enviornmental Defense Fund (www.edf.org) or the Marine Stewardship Council (www.MSC.org). Or see chapter 3 of Mindy Pennybacker’s book Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices for more information on fish.

If your garden is lacking a few key ingredients you can still source sustainable, locally grown produce. Visit www.localharvest.org or www.pickyourown.org to find farms stands and farmers markets near you. See chapter 2 of Mindy Pennybacker’s book Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices for more information on finding local and organic produce.

For BPA-free canned goods, try Eden Organic products (www.edenfoods.com/).

See chapter 5 of Mindy Pennybacker’s book Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices for food storage and cookware that is healthy for you and the planet.

For information on how and why to eat organic and live green in all areas of daily life for your health and the planet, see GreenerPenny editor Mindy Pennybacker’s book Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices. Visit GreenerPenny.com, to get more green news and tips, sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter, or ask any green living questions that pop into your head!  

--by Lindsay Kurz, GreenerPenny web and graphic designer

Green nontoxic garden pest control: deer fences

2010-09-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

Return of the Critters! Just when the herbs and vegetable in my garden began to pop out and things got exciting, the deer wanted in on the action too. Two weeks ago, the kale had grown full and luscious enough that I was just about to harvest my first batch. When I went outside to clip some leaves for dinner I found that someone had been there first: To my dismay, each kale plant had been munched down to leafless stumps! Deer had also nibbled some of the parsley, though they had kindly left about half the leaves.

I quickly sprinkled a generous helping of Rabbit & Deer Scram over the entire garden, but not wanting to risk losing any more of my dinner to the deer I decided it was time to move onto plan B of protecting my garden.

Up until now I had avoided fencing off my garden with netting - as many gardeners do in these parts. I liked that my garden was open, and the fencing was not aesthetically pleasing. At this point, however, I realized that it would either be the fencing or no more vegetables for me to eat.

I soon found that there is a variety of fencing materials, and so I chose materials that were the least intrusive to the look of the garden. I found a light black netting that seems to disappear somewhat into the background because of how lightweight it is. Instead of heavy wooden posts to hold the netting up, I used svelte and sustainable bamboo poles.

I erected 12 bamboo poles around the perimeter and corners of the garden, stretched the black netting around the poles to create a fence and held it in place to the poles with twist ties. One section of the fencing I open and close to enter and exit and hold the netting door in place with twist ties.

The netting fence has been in place for a week. And while I still prefer the garden without the fencing it has seemed to work in keeping the deer away (fingers crossed). The parsley has since recovered and is full again. The kale still looks sad and out of the six kale plants only two have started to recover with small new leaves.

Tools and Materials:

Netting and bamboo poles - Agway or other yard and garden store

Twist ties - saved from old bread loaf packaging

Bio Integral Resource Center (BIRC.org) for common-sense pest control in home and garden.

For information on how and why to eat organic and live green in all areas of daily life for your health and the planet, see GreenerPenny editor Mindy Pennybacker’s book Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices. Visit GreenerPenny.com, to get more green news and tips, sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter, or ask any green living questions that pop into your head!

--by Lindsay Kurz, GreenerPenny web and graphic designer

Least-toxic garden pest control for deer and weeds

2010-08-08T17:47:00.000-07:00

After preparing the soil and planting seedlings, the most labor-intensive portion of gardening was behind me, and I could, I thought, look forward to the more leisurely pursuit of upkeep: weeding, watering, pruning and watching the garden grow. I was delighted that after only four days after planting, the white onions had already sent up small green pips emerging from the soil, the cilantro seemed taller and the basil seemed fuller.

I live in the Northeast, where, thanks to summer rain showers, I do not need to water the garden every day. Every other day or once every three days suffices and helps conserve water, too. At one point I noticed some uninvited mushrooms sprouting alongside the garlic sprouts - a confirmation that my garden was getting enough moisture.

Speaking of the uninvited: Next came woodchucks and rabbits and deer, oh my! A downside of living in the Northeast is that there is no shortage of woodland creatures poised to infiltrate the garden and make a meal of my lovingly tended greens. If only they ate the equally opportunistic weeds, instead!

To stay faithful to the non-polluting and hopefully non-violent ethics of organic gardening, here’s what I did to keep my two main adversaries—deer and weeds—
at bay the least-toxic way. Note on "nontoxic": Even organic essential oils can be toxic if directly or over ingested, so we don't loosely use the term!

Furry Pests

* I surrounded each seedling with a plant cage, making sure it was tightly woven enough to keep rabbits from squeezing through and deep enough, at least 6 ". to at least make burrowers think twice. While cages do nothing to enhance the visual appeal of my garden, they make a difference in keeping woodchucks, rabbits and deer at bay.

*Another trick, which I learned from my mother, is to sprinkle the perimeter of the garden with a powder called "Rabbit + Deer Scram." I purchased the powder at Agway, my local yard and garden store. It is not cheap, but my mother swears by this potion and indeed it has kept the animals mostly away. It is made of powdered blood (a byproduct from slaughterhouses) and powdered herbs and spices such as garlic, peppers and cloves. I would not have been surprised if the directions on the bottle had instructed me to sprinkle this on the garden at night, under a full moon while chanting some spells.

There's also a bloodless remedy, Deer Pharm repellant by Pharm Solutions, which is made with USDA certified organic plant oils.

Deer detest dill, oregano, peppers, sage, and rosemary, So plant ‘em! They’re good eating garden essentials, too. For more on plants that repel deer and other mammals, go to GardenGuides.com.

For great common-sense methods of discerning what pests you’ve got and how to outwit them or remove their cover, see this University of Georgia Cooperative Extention gardeners’ pest control publication. Your nearest USDA ag extension will be glad to help you with their scientific know-how for discouraging local garden pests of all spots and stripes. Find them on USDA's page here.

Weeds

Weeding the garden is both satisfying and tedious, I find. Using my hands works better and quicker than a weeding tool. A new crop of weeds - mainly clovers, dandelion and stray grasses - seem to crop up every 5 days. It takes about 1 hour each week to make a clean sweep and restore the garden to crisp alternating lines of green plants and dark soil.

For least-toxic control of weeds, Pharm Solutions also makes an organic herbicide.

D.I.Y. solutions include sprinkling gluten meal (left over from making cornstarch), or targeting weeds with white vinegar. For more great tips, see Go Organic Gardening.

See Resources, below, for more organic gardening and least-toxic pest control websites.

Resources

Bio Integral Resource Center (BIRC.org) for common-sense pest control in home and garden
Deer + Rabbit Scram - Agway yard and garden store

Plant cages – your local garden supply store

Organic fertilizers, nontoxic pest control for insects, weeds, diseases, from essential oils to green soaps including composters and tools, can be got from Planet Natural,Gardeners Supply Company or Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply, which also has canning supplies and sends you a gift of organic seeds with each order.

For information on how and why to eat organic and live green in all areas of daily life for your health and the planet, see GreenerPenny editor Mindy Pennybacker’s book Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices. Visit GreenerPenny.com, to get more green news and tips, sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter, or ask any green living questions that pop into your head!

You can also comment on this blog and I’ll be happy to respond.

--by Lindsay Kurz, GreenerPenny web and graphic designer

Next week: Least-toxic insect control in the garden

How to plan and plant your organic garden

2010-07-23T20:20:00.000-07:00

After many hours clearing and tilling the soil of my future vegetable garden , the next step was planning the layout and planting the variety of herbs and vegetables.

I decided to start with seedlings from pony-packs, rather than seeds. My reason was that, because weeds grow quickly and I am not an experienced gardener, I might not be able to differentiate between new sprouts and weeds. Additionally, starting with seedlings allowed me to better line the garden up in the tidy rows I'd envisioned since the idea of a vegetable garden first popped into my head.

While a seed is significantly cheaper than a potted seedling, everything was so relatively cheap to begin with that this small extra cost was worth it to me. For those plants that grow from bulbs – such as onions and garlic – I started simply with the bulbs.

I bought the seedlings at good prices (about $2 on average per plant or pony-pack) from the garden center in Walmart and also from a local garden shop and greenhouse. I also purchased several bags of composted manure from a local dairy farm (). Because it was composted manure there was no smell; it looked and felt like dark rich soil. You can also use compost made from kitchen produce scraps layered with woody "brown" material, or buy organic compost at a garden supply store locally or online.
For more info on compost, see GardensAlive.com.

With a pen and paper I drew out a map, plotting out where each section of plants should go. It's impressive how many herbs and vegetables ultimately fit into that 20' x 15' space ! I planted mint, horseradish, chives, oregano, rosemary, thyme, cilantro, basil, Thai basil, tarragon, sage, parsley, lavender, two varieties of tomato, Serrano peppers, jalapeno peppers, green bell pepper, orange bell pepper, red bell pepper, kale, red onion, white onion, garlic, two varieties of eggplant, yellow squash, cucumber and strawberries.

For each plant, I dug a hole about the size of my head, filled it with the composted manure and tucked the plant in, gently padding down the soil around the base. After planting each herb or vegetable, it's important to water it shortly afterwards. I next made labels, penning the name of each plant with permanent marker on the top of a popsicle stick and planting each popsicle stick next to its respective plant.

Preparing the garden had been an incredible amount of work, and so being able to step back at this point and see the small plants in neat rows was quite rewarding.

--by Lindsay Kurz
Graphic artist and website designer

Editor's Note: On Planning what to Plant

For advice on what to plant in your climate, and when, contact your nearest USDA agricultural extension office.

Tools and Materials:

Potted seedlings:
Seeds of Change /product_details.aspx?item_no=PS17981
Walmart ()
Local garden store
Composted Manure, or homemade or storebought organic compost
Garden shovel, gloves
Popsicle sticks and permanent marker

For more info and tips on living healthily and sustainably, including editorially vetted products and shopping lists, please visit our website, GreenerPenny.com, sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter, and check out Do One Green Thing,the lifestyle book by GreenerPenny founder Mindy Pennybacker.

Synthetic Air Fresheners' Toxic Taint

2010-07-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

In winter, when homes are sealed to keep drafts out, make sure you're not breathing toxic chemicals! High on the list of indoor air pollutants are commercial air fresheners. A study published on July 10, 2010 in Environmental Health found that women who used more household cleaning products, including air fresheners and mold removers, had a 2x higher risk of breast cancer. Many aerosol refreshers are tainted with toxic phthalates, which have been linked to birth defects and reproductive harm. A 2007 Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) study found that the hormone-disrupting compounds in 12 out of 14 common air fresheners and none of these products listed phthalates on their labels. Many of these products were labeled “natural” or “unscented.” Febreze Air Effects Air Refresher, unlike thirteen others in NRDC's tests, was found to be free of toxic phthalates, which have been linked to birth defects and reproductive harm. In response to the tests, Walgreen’s pledged to remove all phthalates from its branded air fresheners. For the list of phthalate-tainted products, including Glade Air Infusions and both Febreze and Glade scented oils, go to http://www.nrdc.org/. Of course, there are many dozens more air fresheners on the market that haven’t been vetted for phthalates. What to do?
1. Look Before You Spray. Read labels. If you see the word “Fragrance,” it’s likely that the manufacturer is taking an advantage of an FDA labeling loophole that allows users of synthetic fragrance to avoid mentioning specific ingredients—including phthalates, used to disperse synthetic scents. Look instead for specific essential plant oils, preferably organic.
2. Do a Sniff Test. Before buying any fragranced product, natural or not, spray some from a tester to see whether it produces sneezes or itchy eyes. Strong fragrances, particularly citrus or pine, can provoke irritation and allergic/asthmatic reactions. And remember, when it comes to any perfume, a little goes a long way, so you needn’t overdo it.
3. For greener products, see http://greenerpenny.blogspot.com/2007/04/unclean-air-fresheners.html Pass this info on to your odor-phobic college student, teen or preteen, mom, mother-in-law.
4. For greener cleaning brands, free of the most-toxic ingredients, click here. 5. Here are a "Choose It" list of safe d.i.y. cleaning ingredients, including plant essential oils for air freshening, and a "Lost It" list of ingredients to avoid.
CHOOSE IT
• Baking Soda
• Borax
• Cornstarch
• Hydrogen peroxide
• Lemon juice
• Plant essential oils
• Table salt
• Vegetable oil
• Washing soda
• White vinegar

LOSE IT
• Alkylphenol Ethoxylates (APEs)
• Ammonia
• Chlorine Bleach
• Fragrance (synthetic, likely contains phthalates)
• Glycol ethers
• Lye
• Nonylphenols (NPEs)
• Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES)
• Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS)
• Terpenes
• Triclosan (antibacterial)

Excerpted from my book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices

For the dirt on glycol ethers in cleaing products, particularly when they react to other ingredients such as terpenes, click here.

Phthalates, suspect hormone disrupters that have been connected to reproductive system deformities in male infants and obesity in adults, have recently been linked to attention deficit disorders.

For more info, go to GreenerPenny.com and sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter, plus the chance to win green giveaways!

Coffee: Organic, Fair Trade, Rainforest Alliance or Bird Friendly certified

2010-07-12T00:39:00.000-07:00

You can't go wrong with one of these 3-star certified coffees: All are certified Organic, certified Fair Trade and either certified Bird-Friendly or Rainforest Alliance, which means they're cultivated in the shade of forest canopies.

Arbuckle Organic Line

Audubon Breakfast Blend

Bisbee

Cafe Canopy

Cafe Ibis

Cafe Moto

Caribou

Catskill Mountain

Coffee AM

Deans Beans Birdwatchers Blend

Elan Organic

Higher Ground

Jim's Organic

Marques de Paiva

Montana Coffee Traders

--The above list is excerpted from Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices, by Mindy Pennybacker (St Martin's Press, 2010).

Visit our website, GreenerPenny.com, for lots of fresh green living tips and the skinny on new studies and products.

Getting started growing my own food

2010-07-10T16:32:00.000-07:00

Up until a mere 10 months ago I lived in a small, but charming, one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. My kitchen was minute, and my garden consisted of a window box in which I unsuccessfully attempted to grow basil, parsley and rosemary for the occasional homecooked meal. I spent Saturday mornings browsing the farmer's market at Union Square, eyeing the beautiful displays of luscious fruits and vegetables. Someday, I dreamed, when I have more land than a window box, I'll plant my own organic vegetable garden.

This spring, after my husband and I moved to a small town in upstate New York, I decided to act on my dream.

There is a small 20' x 15' patch of land next to our garage that at one time must have been a well-kept garden, but had long since gone to weeds. Armed with advice from friends and neighbors and a few borrowed tools, I began. The first task was to clear the land and till the soil. So far this has proved to be the most arduous step, taking three consecutive weekends in late May. I removed wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of weeds to add our compost heap. Once and a while I would discover a small sapling, buried bulbs or a patch of overgrown herbs (primarily mint and horseradish), that I would save to transplant elsewhere.

Once the land was cleared, I tilled the soil with a pick-ax and shovel. This was a strenuous task. The dirt was heavy and clay-like, and desperately needed the aeration. There were also many rocks and small boulders that had to be removed. Luckily, previous owners of our house had kept a compost heap, which provided a source of dark rich soil to be churned into the garden.
Now the soil was prepared, the fun part--planning the layout and variety of vegetable and herbs-- could begin.

--by Lindsay Kurz

Next week: Planning and Planting the Garden.

Editor's Note: On Planning what to Plant

It's already mid-summer--too late, if you live in a climate where the ground freezes to start a garden from seed. But depending on your climate, you can at least grow herbs or cultivate (and harvest from) a well-established plant, while laying in some seedlings, like eggplant and chard, for harvesting in a couple of months and into the warm, if cooling, days of fall.

For advice on what to plant in your climate, and when, contact your nearest USDA agricultural extension office.

To order organic seeds, go to Seeds of Change

To order packs of organic seedlings--right now, eggplant & Swiss chard are still available!--go to Seeds of Change.

Tools + Materials for clearing land and enriching soil
•Pick-ax
•Shovel
•Garden gloves
•Rake
•Wheelbarrow
•Compost/soil

Where to order garden tools & supplies

Organic fertilizers, nontoxic pest control, composters, tools, can be got from Planet Natural or Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply
, which also has canning supplies, potted fruit trees and an irresistible henhouse (watch out or you'll order it, even if you don't have chickens!) and sends you a gift of organic seeds with each order.

For great easy, funny instruction: Talking Dirt: The Dirt Diva's Down to Earth Guide to Organic Gardening, by Annie Spiegelman.

For the dirt on pesticides and other non-organic additives, a list of the most important produce to buy organic, and conventional produce that has fewest pesticide residues, plus green food storage and cookware and tons of resources for all categories of sustainable living, see Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices, the new book by Greenerpenny editor Mindy Pennybacker, in bookstores now!

For more seasonal green living tips and news, please visit our home page, GreenerPenny.com, where you can ask Mindy questions and sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter (and prizes).

Green grilling methods

2010-06-23T22:10:00.000-07:00

Every July 4th, 60 million U.S. barbecues emit 225,000 metric tons (5.17 million lbs) of CO2 . Propane & natural gas, although they’re nonrenewable fossil fuels, release the least CO2 when burned. Electric grills, fed by power plants, cause the highest CO2 emissions but release no air pollution while they cook. Charcoal, made from wood, contributes to deforestation and burns dirtiest, spewing lung-threatening particles of soot.

If you’re happy with your hibachi and charcoal, no reason to pop for a new, less-polluting propane grill. But you can green it up by burning solid charcoal from well-managed forests or untreated scrap wood instead of toxic-chemical-larded briquettes (never dump these on a beach!). The EPA advises using a chimney or electric starter instead of lighter fluids, which produce 14,500 tons of smog. http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/greentips/2008/greener-patios.html http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?ReleaseNumber=mr20030703-00 For a green upgrade (less deforestation attached) and more distinctive taste, use real wood charcoal harvested from sustainably managed forests or reclaimed (and untreated) lumber. Lump charcoal is cleaner than conventional briquettes, which may contain coal dust and chemical additives as binders, advises the Union of Concerned Scientists. http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/greentips/2008/greener-patios.html
Here’s a list of greener charcoal to stoke up on.
Cowboy Charcoal: Made from fast-replenishing hickory and mesquite http://www.cowboycharcoal.com/
Original Charcoal: From Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) audited American tree farms, not clearcut forests. http://www.originalcharcoal.com/index.asp
Lazzari Charcoal: Made from mesquite, some from Rainforest Alliance/ FSC certified sources. http://lazzari.com/
Nature’s Own Chunk Charwood: Made from logging leftovers; cured with grain alcohol rather than petroleum. http://www.char-wood.com/natures-own-lump-charwood.html
Greenlink Charcoal and Briquettes: Made from mangrove wood, coconut shells. http://www.greenlinkcharcoal.com/mangrovewoodcharcoal.html http://www.greenlinkcharcoal.com/allnaturalbriquettes.html

Grill without guilt! For more information about green cooking methods, recycled materials and energy saving electronics and appliances, and every facet of a sustainable lifestyle, see Mindy's book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices (St Martin's Press, 2010).

For frequently updated green living and product tips, visit our home page, GreenerPenny.com, where you can also subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter. Ttweet with us at http://Twitter.com/GreenerPenny and, if you like, like GreenerPenny.com on Facebook. Thanks!

Greenest Soap & Shampoo Brands

2010-06-23T14:01:00.000-07:00

Botanical, not petroleum, ingredients are the basis for the soaps & shampoos made by the companies below. I've also vetted them to be free of the man-made chemicals that are currently of most concern for our health and the planet's, including synthetic "fragrance" that may contain hormone-disrupting phthalates. Green seals are noted. For ingredients and abbreviations keys, see end of list, below.

GreenerPenny's Top Shampoo and Soap Picks
Alba Botanica Rainforest Shampoo contains tropical andiroba and brazil nut oils certified by Rainforest Alliance to Forest Stewardship Council standards.
Aubrey Organics CO
Burts Bees NPA Note: While Burt's persists in listing “fragrance,” usually a tell-tale giveaway of phthalates, company reps have repeatedly assured us that their fragrances are phthalate-free. We believe Burt's, a co-founder of the Natural Products Association, but urge them to fully disclose their fragrancing ingredients.
California Baby Super Sensitive Shampoo & Body Wash, No Fragrance, CO
Dr. Bronner's USDA, fair trade, 100% PCR packaging.
Dr. Hauschka, BDIH.
Ecco Bella
Jason Natural Cosmetics Organics Earth’s Best Organic
J.R. Liggett's Shampoo Bar (no plastic packaging!)
John Masters Organics, CO, USDA
Kathy's Family
Lavera , BDIH
Miessence , USDA, CO
Neals Yard
, CO
Nourish Organic USDA
Organic Apoteke (high-end facial cleansers) E
Organic Essence USDA
Pangea Organics, CO
Planet Botanicals, CO Purity Cosmetics
Terressentials ,
USDA
Weleda NPA and BDIH certified
Whole Foods 365

Runners-Up

We also like the following shampoos & body washes that are free of the most problematic chemicals, although they contain at least one of these ingredients of concern: cocamidopropyl betaine, disodium EDTA, "fragrance," phenoxyethanol, polyethylene glycol, or quaternium compounds.
Avalon Organics, CO
Aveda Dry Remedy Moisturizing Shampoo and Men's Pure-formance Shampoo, CO, C2C
Kiehl's aloe vera bodywash, C2C, 100% PCR bottle
Method hand & body soaps, C2C
http://natures-gate.com/shop/showItem.asp?ProductId=48575027&menuId=159">Natures Gate Organics (as distinguished fr their regular line) 70% CO, E, QAI

For details and explanations re cosmetic brands, labels, specific types of products and ingredients, see my book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices (St Martin's Press, 2010).

Toxic Ingredients

Parabens, "fragrance" (synthetic,phthalates),hormone-disrupting sudsers alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEs) and nonylphenols (NPEs), formaldehydehile; cocamidopropyl betaine and sodium cocoyl sarcosate, while based on coconut oil, are processed in ways that may release carcinogenic nitrosamines; ethoxylated chemicals (including PEG, propylene glycol, phenoyxethanol, ethylene oxide, and sodium laureth sulfate), made by a process that can produce carcinogenic 1,4, dioxane as a byproduct. A recent study by Organic Consumers Association found 1,4 dioxane residues in many products labeled (but not certified) organic and natural.
Least-toxic, natural alternatives to synthetic preservatives include Grapeseed oil and grapefruit seed oil , which raise no health concerns, according to EWG’s Skin Deep database; however, grapefruit seed extract can sometimes be contaminated with parabens, triclosan (an antibacterial that contributes to the growth of resistant bacteria) and benzethonium chloride, another iffy preservative, according to EWG. See also the helpful glossary of ingredients published by Terressentials.

Labels Key

USDA: the whole product is third-party certified organic (CO), w/ 95% CO ingredients.
CO: contains some USDA certified organic plant ingredients.
BDIH: EU third-party seal barring all petroleum-based ingredients.
NPA: Natural Products Association industry-certified seal strictly limits chemical processing and additives.
E: ECOCERT, a European industry-verified seal requiring 10% CO ingredients and bans many toxic chemicals.
QAI: Quality Assurance International.
C2C: Cradle to Cradle certified biodegradable
PCR: Post-consumer-recycled packaging

To receive frequently updated green living and product tips, subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter and ask me any questions at GreenerPenny.com,tweet with me at http://Twitter.com/GreenerPenny and search for GreenerPenny.com on Facebook. Thanks!

Mindy Pennybacker
Editor

Twelve simple steps to shrink our oil footprint and save our seas

2010-06-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

As the author of an optimistic green book who's admittedly felt somewhat challenged since BP's cataclysmic gusher, I was invited to speak to a local Surfrider Foundation chapter about simple ways we can help protect the seas in our daily lives. Can individuals really make a difference in the face of such vast damage? The answer: Yes. Our collective consumer muscle, which represents 70% of the U.S. economy, matters more than ever now in redirecting the marketplace away from energy and products based on fossil fuels. Surfrider members agreed, and we had a lively and productive discussion about steps to take right now.

Wherever you live or travel, here are some things you can do this summer to reduce our demand for fossil fuels and save our wounded seas. In 1988,the Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 11 million gallons, or about 261,904 barrels, of oil in Alaskan waters. As of this June 15, it was estimated that up to 60,000 barrels, or 2.5 million gallons, are spewing into the Gulf every day, meaning that BP's gusher may be surpassing the Exxon Valdez total every 5-6 days.

Worldwide, by improving energy efficiency in buildings and transportation alone, we can save 64 million barrels of oil a day, the equivalent of one and a half times U.S. annual energy consumption, McKinsey & Co. reports.In this way, we can conserve our own resources and the sensitive ecosystems that are threatened by oil and coal extraction.

As summer heats up, there are many simple things we can do in our energy and product choices to stop unnecessarily "spilling" oil. Below, 12 tips to get you started:

1 Say no to bottled water and toxic, non-recyclable plastics

If every American stopped buying water in disposable bottles, we'd save at least 17 million barrels of oil a year. That's 6 million more than the Exxon Valdez, and the equivalent, in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, of taking one million cars off the road, according to the Pacific Institute.
Not only are plastics made from fossil fuels and likely to release unhealthy chemicals such as Bisphenol-A and phthalates into our water, food and air, but they make their way from landfills out to sea, where they strangle turtles and birds and collect in floating continents of trash. For a list of safer reusable plastics, click here.

2 Eat sustainably sourced fish.
Seventy-five percent of fisheries worldwide are on the brink of collapse due to overfishing and habitat destruction (like BP's). Make healthy green choices with the Monterey Bay Aquarium's newly updated fish & seafood lists at mbayaq.org.

3 Use compost and organic, not synthetic, fertilizers in your garden.

Synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, made from fossil fuels, overload the soil with nutrients, which run off into waterways and out to sea, stimulating the growth of algae and causing oxygen-depleted dead zones. For organic options, click here
For the same reason, choose USDA certified organic food, which is required to be produced without synthetic fertilizers.

4 Eat just a little less red meat, and choose certified sustainably produced animal products.

If all Americans skipped red meat for one day (3 meals) a week, it would reduce the equivalent in carbon emissions of taking 20 million cars off the road for a year. Substituting vegetables for one day equals driving 1,160 fewer miles per year. As Michael Pollan reported in "Power Steer," the fossil-fuel fertilizers used on the corn fed to one beef calf adds up to about 284 gallons of oil. About thirty-two million cattle are slaughtered in the U.S. each year for beef, so in addition to blood, that "spills" more than 9 billion barrels of oil.

In addition to their cruelty, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) result in runoff of nitrogen-rich manure. CAFOS splling into the Mississippi River have produced one of the largest dead zones on the planet--in the Gulf of Mexico, where algae that feed off spilled petroleum may cause yet more hypoxia.

Choose meat and dairy that's certified humane, organic, biodynamic, or Animal Welfare or Food Alliance approved.

5 Use green cleaning and personal care products.
Many conventional detergents, liquid soaps and shampoos contain chemicals, such as alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEs) and nonylphenols (NPEs), that harm reproductive development in marine life--and may impact human hormones, too. Happily, many cleaning and cosmetic brands steer clear of these and other toxic tongue-twisters. Purer shampoos include Aubrey Organics, Burt's Bees, Dr.Bronner's. and Nature's Gate Organics.

6 Reduce runoff.
Keep soapy, greasy water out of storm drains, which carry it out to sea, by collecting "grey" water to irrigate plants, and using porous materials like gravel and pebbles for terraces, driveways, and paths. Catch rainwater in barrels, and don't wash cars on slopes. Conserve clean water by taking shorter showers, turning tap off while sudsing, shaving or brushing teeth, and using water-efficient faucet aerators, shower heads and appliances. See epa.gov/watersense for more tips.

7 Use a nontoxic sunblock.
A widely used sunscreen chemical, benzophenone-3 (BP-3), also known as oxybenzone, has been implicated in the feminization of male fish and viral infections in coral. BP-3, rated a high hazard by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), is also a suspected human hormone disrupter that's been found in 97 percent of Americans tested by the Centers for Disease Control. Enough, already!

Here's a short list of mineral-based sunblocks that are free of BP-3 and other problematic synthetic chemicals, and rated highly protective in EWG's comprehensive guide.
While you're at it, try not to break or step on coral!

8 Buy green power and Energy Star appliances/electronics
In many states, we can now choose green power, like solar or wind, for our homes through our utility. Replacing old appliances, like air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines, with Energy Star models also means big savings for the planet and, thanks to state and federal rebates and other incentives, for our budgets.

9 Drive alone less, take public transportation and carpool, bike and walk more. "If enough people reduce driving or switch to more energy-efficient vehicles, gasoline demand would decline and prices would be dampened," the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports.
It's basic economics: reduced demand results in reduced production.

10 Make sure automobile tires are properly inflated.
By conservative estimate, this would save 800 thousand barrels of oil a day. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/from-the-fact-1.html See more driving tips that will conserve oil and reduce your carbon emissions from the Union of Concerned Scientistsand Environmental Defense Fund.

11 Turn off lights and turn up the a.c. temp.
Incandescent lightbulbs waste 90% of their energy as heat, and even CFLs waste 30%, so turn off unneeded lights to keep your space cooler. Now you can comfortably turn your air conditioner temperature up a bit. Air conditioning represents 21% of annual home electricity consumption. A shift from 72°F to 74°F in the summer will save 366 pounds of CO2/year and $28 on the average annual energy bill.

12 Join hands to take action: Clean a beach, sign a petition,tell your Congressional delegation to support green energy and tough new environmental protections.
*For Gulf spill volunteer efforts in your locale, petitions and more info, visit Oceana's website.
*Join the Hands Across the Sands campaign June 26 to show solidarity for the people and environment of the Gulf and encourage the growth of clean, renewable energy sources. 350.org is one of the organizers.
*Help clean an ocean, bay, river or reservoir beach. Get inspired on Surfrider's event site for International Surfing Day June 20th, which is also the summer solstice and Father's Day.
*Hands in your pockets! Give $ to Gulf wildlife rescue and families in need.

Many more everyday green living and safer food, water & product tips can be found in my book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices.

Now that mosquitoes can resist DEET, we should, too!

2010-06-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

DEET-based insect repellents can be bad news for people. DEET can trigger allergic skin reactions and asthma attacks in sensitive individuals, and has recently been linked to nervous system harm . Still, for a long time, DEET was thought to be the only chemical that could adequately repel mosquitoes that carry dangerous diseases like yellow fever, dengue fever and West Nile virus. But a new study suggests that convention wisdom may be wrong. The research, published early May in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that mosquitoes that carry the yellow fever virus can develop a resistance to DEET and that those mosquitoes can pass the resistant trait down to their offspring.
Apparently, this isn't the first study finding that mosquitoes can become resistant to the toxic pesticide. As far back as 1978, scientists wrote in the Journal of Medical Entomology that some mosquito species could tolerate higher levels of DEET exposure than others, and in 2004, scientists found that the amount of DEET used to repel mosquitoes that carry yellow fever was inadequate at repelling a species of mosquito found in the Caribbean that carries malaria.

The good news is that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other scientists have found safer chemicals that, in some cases, work better than DEET against even the most ravenous disease-carrying mosquitoes. In one 2004 study published in the Journal of Entomology, comparing effectiveness of different mosquito repellents, http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1603/0022-2585-41.4.726?journalCode=ment picaridin, a chemical derived from pepper, was found more effective at repelling yellow-fever mosquitoes than DEET, and oil of lemon eucalyptus was found just as effective as DEET in repelling mosquitoes that carry West Nile Virus. Other plant oils, such as soybean and geraniol (an oil derived from geraniums), have also been found effective at repelling mosquitoes but not as effectively as picaridin and oil of lemon eucalyptus (note: the CDC advises using products that contain oil of lemon eucalyptus as an active ingredient, not the undiluted oil you can buy at natural food stores. The latter isn't as effective alone as it is when combined with other ingredients).

Unfortunately, you have to make a bit of a tradeoff when purchasing insect repellents. The natural brands that disclose all their ingredients use mostly plant oils that haven't been found very effective in scientific studies. Products that use the most effective ingredients, on the other hand, are made by large companies will tell you what the active ingredient is but not any of the other ingredients, which means they could be using hormone-disrupting chemicals like paraben preservatives or phthalates.

Looking for a safe insect repellent for those evenings outside or an upcoming tropical vacation? Give these a shot. They all contain an effective insecticide without any other nasty chemicals like parabens or phthalates:

Badger USDA Organic Anti-Bug Balm
: oils of citronella, rosemary, lemongrass and geranium make you smell sweet to anyone but bugs.

-BiteBlocker contains a 7 percent concentration of soybean oil and geraniol and no toxic chemicals ($5.40/2-oz. bottle).

-BugBands are rubber bracelets treated with geraniol that you can wear on your wrist or attach to a belt loop or ankle if needed; the bands are reusable up to 120 hours ($14.95/4 bands).

California Baby Natural Bug Blend
uses citronella, lemongrass and cedar oils.
-Repel is the only commercially available product sold in the U.S. that contains oil of lemon eucalyptus. While the concentration of the ingredient is high (the more of the active ingredient, the more effective the product), the company doesn't disclose what the additional ingredients in the product are. So you may want to save this product for the occasions when mosquitoes are really unavoidable, like camping trips or hikes in the woods ($11.50/4-oz. bottle).

-Likewise, products based on picaridin, like Natrapel, Cutter Advanced, and Off! Skintastic contain effectively high levels of the active ingredient but don't tell you what else is in the products. You should also save these for deep-woods hiking or other situations where the threat of mosquito-borne illnesses outweighs the risks associated with unhealthy chemicals in personal care products.

A few other tips when applying insect sprays:
- Forgo the sunscreen/insect repellent combos. Insect repellents should be applied only when needed, whereas sunscreens should be reapplied every two hours to protect against skin cancer.

- Take care around your face. You don't want to directly inhale any chemical regardless of how safe it sounds. When you need to apply insect repellent to your face, spray some on your hands first, then rub it on your face.

Caution for Children: Insect repellents of any kind should not be used directly on young children's skin. For safety tips, see this helpful fact sheet from the Palo Alto Medicatl Foundation.
* report on DEET's neurotoxic effects

**Another study finding that picaridin works better than DEET:

For the latest in green living, health news and products, visit our home page, GreenerPenny.com. You can also sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter and enter green product raffles!

If you'd like to have all the daily green living tips, product choices and resources you'll ever need in one handy, user-friendly place, we suggest Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices, by GreenerPenny editor Mindy Pennybacker.

by Emily Main

Mothballs and other toxic pesticides

2010-06-05T19:12:00.002-07:00

When it comes to synthetic pesticides, the less you use the better, and best is using none at all. Labels can't be relied on for safe usage advice. Take mothballs.

At the March 2010 meeting of the American Chemical Society, Linda Hall, a scientist with the California Environmental Protection Agency, presented a new study about the misleading nature of pesticide labels. She was focusing on mothball products and noted that, while companies tell you the minimum amount yper square footage ou should use for their products to be effective, they are loathe to tell you how much is too much. No maximum number of mothballs is noted.

The labeling info gap, Hall said, leads people to think that if a little bit is good, a lot is EVEN BETTER! But this is clearly not a good idea when it comes to hazardous ingredients in mothballs such as carcinogenic

naphthalene

, and para-dichlorobenzene (pDCB; the latter has been found in extremely high levels in homes across California, as well as the rest of the country, Hall reported.

Labels also fail to provide safety information about the need to air out mothballed clothes before wearing them. This should be done, just as with conventionally drycleaned clothes, which release vapors of toxic perchloroethylene.

For less toxic pest control, leave mothballs and insecticides on the store shelf, and find safer ways to keep bugs away. Synthetic pesticides are hazardous in any quantity and can trigger asthma and allergic reactions, and they've been linked to childhood leukemia, Parkinson's disease, autism, and a wide array of other chronic illnesses. A recent study at Stanford University suggested that pesticides can interfere with the way your body produces insulin, possibly leading to type 2 diabetes).

Keep moths away from your clothes by cleaning them before putting them away, and sealing them in airtight containers. If a few moths do happen in, put clothes in plastic bags and shove them in the deep freeze for three days to kill eggs, or air them out in sunlight. Here are more non-chemical mothproofing tips.

For general pest control, boric acid powder and diatomaceous earth are two less toxic products that work by rubbing off a bug's waxy outer shell. They don't have any impact on humans unless directly ingested. For more tips, check out

Bio-Integral Resource Center
Beyond Pesticides
UC-Davis Integrated Pest Management Program

To get all the daily green living info you need in one handy place, see the new book by Greenerpenny editor Mindy Pennybacker: Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple Everyday Choices. The book includes Choose It/Lose It product and ingredients lists and other tips for your daily food, water, household cleaning/energy/deco, personal care, apparel & transportation.

To stay on top of environmental health and green product news, please subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter in the sub box on our homepage at GreenerPenny.com.

And, if you have other ideas about living with less, please leave us a comment below.

--by Emily Main

Phthalates in food: to avoid 'em, choose organic

2010-05-17T14:58:00.001-07:00

Phthalates in Food: To avoid ‘em, choose organic

GreenerPenny aims to keep you posted about how to avoid phthalates, chemicals that have been found to interfere with the body's hormones, lower children's IQ, and even cause childhood behavioral problems. New studies have found associations between high phthalate levels and lower IQ scores and behavioral problems. There's no hard evidence that phthalates actually cause these problems, but nevertheless, scary stuff!These sneaky chemicals crop up on products made with vinyl, like shower curtains, tile flooringand some plastic cling wraps used on food, and anything that's artificially fragranced—shampoos, lotions, laundry detergents. So avoiding those products and storing food in glass or stainless steel containers should, in theory, keep you and your home free of phthalates.

But phthalates may, it turns out, be lurking in your refrigerator, in conventional produce and poultry. In a new study published this month in Environmental Health Perspectives, Justin Colacino, a grad student from the University of Michigan, used data from the CDC's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to collect information about levels of phthalates in people's urine and what they ate. He found that people who ate poultry had some of the highest levels of phthalates in their bodies, and also that eating a lot of fresh produce, particularly potatoes and tomatoes, was associated with high phthalate levels.

A second study published this month in a journal called Abstracts of Environmental Research offers more evidence that our food may be contaminated with these chemicals. This study was relatively small and involved sending 25 adults to live in a Buddhist temple in Korea for five days (Koreans, the authors write, have even higher levels of phthalates in their bodies than Americans do). Before the study started, they were asked to recall everything they ate for 48 hours, and their urine levels were tested for phthalates. The researchers noted that eating a lot of dairy was associated with high levels of phthalates. Then, for five days, the adults at a vegetarian diet, at the end of which their urine was tested and phthalate levels measured a second time. There was a marked drop in the levels of phthalates in people's bodies after the five days.

Neither study was very clear as to how these chemicals are making their way into our food. (In the Korean study, the authors didn't specify whether their "vegetarian diet" included dairy and they didn't say whether the adults were exposed to personal care or cleaning products that contained phthalates, so their results may have overestimated food as a source of phthalate exposure). However, Colacino writes that phthalates are used in many pesticides, and because they bypass wastewater treatment plants, phthalates can end up in sewage sludge, which is used to fertilize conventional crops. The pesticides and sewage sludge are used on the vegetables we eat and on the corn that's fed to cows and chicken.

No study should deter people from eating a healthy diet that includes fresh vegetables, even if this produce contains phthalates, but you can cut down on your exposure to phthalate-contaminated pesticides and sewage sludge with one simple shopping tip: buy organic.

• Pesticides and sewage sludge aren't used by organic farmers, so you can at least be sure that your tomatoes and potatoes won't have as high levels of phthalates as their conventional counterparts; potatoes, by the way, are on the Environmental Working Group's "Dirty Dozen" list for having some of the highest levels of pesticide residues.

• Don't rely on "certified pesticide free" labels that are cropping up on grocery store produce. Those aren't verified by any independent third parties and they also don't guarantee your produce wasn't grown in phthalate-laden sludge.

• Buy local. Organic produce can be expensive, but it's farmer's market season! Now's the time to find a local farmer who grows food organically, whether it's certified organic or not, and stock up. And let your freezer be your best friend. Learn how to freeze vegetables (it's so easy a Caveman can do it!) so you can eat local and organic throughout the winter without making too big of a dent in your wallet.

--by Emily Main

For further info:

The IQ study appeared in March:
http://ehsehplp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.0901376

The behavior study was in January of this year:
http://ehsehplp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info%3Adoi%2F10.1289%2Fehp.0901470

Top Green Sunscreens 2010

2010-05-17T14:23:00.001-07:00

Here’s Greenerpenny’s newly updated, 2010 Sun Products Short List of least-toxic, full-spectrum UV blockers.
Here's my practical tip for surfers and other water babies out in the summer sun, wind & waves: Use what works. For me, that means a mix of pure green, like California Baby pure mineral block, and a runner-up that really stays on, like Shiseido's sunblocking foundation for faces. Both below.
When it comes to sun protection, no one has to be perfectly green.
I also try to surf early or late in the day, outside the window of the sun's strongest UV rays, between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Enjoy!

Top Picks

These mineral-based products block both UVA and UVB rays, and are free of toxic/ irritating synthetic sunscreen chemicals*.

Alba Botanica Sun Mineral Kids/ Fragrance Free, SPF 30, Z, T, H, A, Nn http://albabotanica.com
Badger SPF 30 + Sunscreen and All Season Face Stick, Z, H, F, CO, Nn http://badger.com
California Baby SPF 30 No Fragrance face stick or lotion, T, H, F, Nn http://californiababy.com
Loving Naturals Organic SPF 30, Z, H, F, CO, Nn http:lovingnaturals.com
Purple Prairie Botanicals SPF 30 Sun Stuff or Sun Stick, Z, H, F, CO, Nn, http: //purpleprairie.com
Think Baby and Think Sport SPF 30+, Z, H, F, Nn http://www.thinksportbottles.com/ts_safesunscreen2.html
Goddess Garden Kids SPF 30+, Z, T, H, F, CO, http://goddessgarden.com
Heiko Kids SPF 40, Z, H, NS, http://amazon.com
UV Natural Sunscreen, Sport SPF 30+, Z, H, F, Nn, http://uvnatural.com
Elemental Herbs Kids Natural Broad Spectrum SPF 20, Z, F, Nn, http://elementalherbs.com
Mexitan SPF 50, Z, T, H, F, http://mexitan.com
Miessence Reflect Outdoor Balm, SPF 29.5, Z, NC, CO, Nn, http://elyorganics.com
Erbaviva Children’s Sunscreen SPF 15, T, F, CO, http://erbaviva.com
Nature’s Gate Mineral Sunblock/ Sport Block, SPF 20, T, Z, A, http:// naturesgate.com
Jason Natural Cosmetics Earth’s Best Organic Sunblock, Mineral Based/ Chemical Free SPF 30+, T,Z, NC, http://drugstore.com
John Masters Organics SPF 30 mineral sunscreen, T,Z, CO, Nn,NC, http://johnmasters.com/sun.htm
Kasia Good Day Sunshine SPF 30, Z, T, H, F, http://kasiaorganicsalon.com
Lavera Sunscreen Neutral SPF 40, T, NC, http://lavera-usa.com
Soleo Organics Chemical Free Sunscreen SPF 30+, Z, H, NC, Nn, http://amazon.com
Tru Kid Sunny Days Face & Body Stick SPF 30+, Z, T, H, NC, http://trukid.com

Everyday (not beach or sport) Sun Protection

Keys Soap Solar Rx Therapeutic SunblockSPF 30, Z, H, F; manufacturer notes product is not waterproof nor designed for coverage during active sports/perspiration.http://www.keys-soap.com/xcart41/product.php?productid=31 Its zinc particles are smaller than 100 nm, per EWG.http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/product/71905/Keys_Soap_Solar_Rx_Cosmetic_Moisturizing_Sunblock%2C_SPF_30/

Runners-Up

The following are free of BP-3, but have other ingredients of concern.

Aubrey Organics Natural Sunscreens SPF 20-25, T, F, aubreyorganics.com (padimate-O) Avalon Baby Natural Mineral Sunscreen SPF 18, T, F (peg-100 stearate) http://avalonorganics.com
Banana Boat Kids SPF 50, T, Z, NS, (octinoxate, homosalate) http://drugstore.com
Blue Lizard Sunscreen Sensitive/ Baby SPF 30+, T, Z, H, NS, (parabens) http://amazon.com
Burt’s Bees Chemical Free Sunscreen SPF 30, T, NC, (“fragrance”) http://.burtsbees.com
Kiss My Face SPF 30 Face Factor/ Oat Protein, T, NC (avobenzone, octinoxate) drugstore.com
Mustela SPF 50, T, Z, H, NS,
Neutrogena Sunblock/ Stick SPF 60 and Pure and Free Baby Sunblock/Stick, T, Z, H, NS (peg-100 stearate, polyethylene, BHT) http://neutrogena.com
Shiseido Sun Protection Stick Foundation 35, Z, T, H, NS, now paraben-free! octinoxate, parabens, “fragrance”), http://shiseido.com
Solbar Shield SPF 40, Z, T, H, NS (peg-100 stearate)
Solar Protection Formula SPF 58, T, Z, NS (parabens)

Key:

T: Titanium Dioxide
Z: Zinc Oxide
H: Rated most highly effective against both UVA and UVB rays by Environmental Working Group, ewg.org
F: Full member, Compact for Safe Cosmetics (CSC) safecosmetics.org
CO: Contains certified organic ingredients
Nn: Non-nano, safer size particles > 100 nanometers
A: Associate member CSC
NC: Signed CSC but not in full compliance
NS: Has not signed CSC

*No benzophenone-3 (oxybenzone/BP-3), homosalate, octinoxate, octyl-methoxycinnamate, octocrylene, padimate-O, parsol 1789/avobenzone, parabens, “fragrance”(phthalates)and 4-methyl-benzylidene camphor, all of which have been linked to allergic reactions, hormone disruption, reproductive harm to wildlife, damage to skin cell DNA, or the growth of cancer cells in lab tests.A particular baddie, BP-3, has been implicated in the feminization of male ocean fish and promoting disease in corals as well as hormone disruption in lab tests, and is widely present in the bodies of the American population.

For detailed information on sunblocks, a top cosmetics companies list, choose it/lose it charts and chemicals to avoid in all personal care products, see my new book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices

Buyer Beware: Buy the specific product listed, and doublecheck labels of other products by the same maker. Some of the companies above use synthetic chemicals in other sunblock products, including some for kids!

Check if your company has signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics here: http://www.safecosmetics.org/display.php?modin=50

**To avoid nano particles, look for sunblocks that contain micronized particles of at least 100 nanometers Titanium or Zinc Oxide, which are less likely to penetrate skin, per Environmental Working Group (EWG). EWG’s Skin Deep Database Sunblock ratings of over 500 products now include particle size. Search your sunscreen's rating at ewg.org/cosmetics/report/sunscreen09/findyoursunscreen?ptype=sunscreen

Remember, UV avoidance is the best policy! Whenever possible, cover up with hats and long sleeves/ rash guards, and stay out of the sun, especially between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.

For more seasonal green living and health tips, and to ask me questions, come to my web page, GreenerPenny.com; if you haven't already, please subscribe to GreenerPenny’s free monthly email newsletter on our home paage.

Toxic Fire Retardants Lurking in Mattresses and Couches

2010-05-13T01:52:00.000-07:00

You shouldn't need a science degree or private investigator's training to figure out what chemicals are in the products you buy. But try and find a couch that isn't made with chemical flame retardants, and you might feel the need for such skills--not that they'd necessarily help.

The furniture industry has been one of the slowest to respond to the greener products trend, and despite the fact that large companies, like Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn, are selling sofas with organic cotton upholstery or certified-well-managed hardwood frames, the foam cores are still likely to be treated with harmful flame retardants in order to comply with a California law requiring that all furniture sold in the state be able to resist open flames. Chemical flame retardants are increasingly being linked to learning problems, infertility, and even cancer.

But what exactly are those chemicals? No one seems to know. During the 80s and 90s, furniture was treated with a class of chemicals called polybrominated biphenyl ethers (PBDEs). By now, after being linked to a variety of health disorders, including thyroid and behavioral problems, penta-BDE, the most common PBDE used in the polyurethane foam found in sofas, has been phased out. Good news, right? Not exactly. Furniture manufacturers still had to comply with California law, so they replaced penta-BDE with a cocktail of other chemicals, whose identity, in many cases, is unknown even to the companies selling the furniture.

Heather Stapleton, a professor of environmental chemistry at Duke University, has been trying to figure out what fire retardants, exactly, these companies are using--for which one needs samples of the foam to test in a lab. "Often, furniture companies are asked to sign nondisclosure agreements, saying they won't test the foam to see what's being used," Stapleton says. It's disconcerting, to say the least.

Stapleton's tests have revealed that quite a few companies are using a chemical called tris, which was linked to cancer as far back as 1978 and, she says, acts like a pesticide when it enters the body. A March, 2010 study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, the journal published by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, found that tris impairs a man's sperm quality, possibly leading to infertility. Stapleton's tests found tris being used in furniture and pillows made by Ikea, which was hailed as a responsible company for being one of the first to eliminate PBDEs from its product line. The chemical was also found in IKEA mattresses, says Arlene Blum,Ph.D, executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute.

If companies aren't using tris, Stapleton's tests have found that they're likely to be using a trademarked mixture of chemicals called Firemaster 550, which has never been tested for safety. Like PBDEs, Firemaster 550 contains bromine, which means it has the potential to build up in people and in the environment. It has been found in house dust, raising concerns about exposure expressed in this report.

It's rare that a piece of furniture would be labeled with the type of chemicals used to make it flame resistant, but there are a few steps you can take to protect yourself:

-If you can afford one, buy a sofa made from organic cotton, latex, and wool. Companies such as Q Collection, Dalla Terra, and If Green make furniture (usually starting around $5,000) without hazardous chemicals of any sort and are a safe bet. See GreenerPenny's list of natural, chemical-free mattresses.

-Buy local. Unless you live in California, there's no law requiring that furniture be open-flame resistant, so you can try to find a local craftsman that can tell you exactly what chemicals are, or aren't, in the furniture he or she is making.

-Avoid products that meet California Technical Bulletin 117. While you may have no other choice but to buy a flame-retardant sofa adhering to California standards, you don't have to buy flame-retardant nursing pillows, throw pillows, baby strollers, chair pads, mattresses, or any of the hundreds of other products made with flame-resistant polyurethane foam. If you see a hang tag on a product that says "Complies with California TB117," put it down! Look for another alternative made from cotton, wool, or other natural materials.

-Check your fire alarm. While it may feel reassuring to buy flame resistant furniture, the Consumer Product Safety Commission notes that just 100 deaths and 118 injuries are caused by furniture fires every year. In most cases, those are associated with improperly extinguished cigarettes. Change the batteries in your fire alarms every six months and keep cigarettes out of your house. That will protect you much longer than toxic furniture!

For more information:

Tris was used as a flame retardant in sleepwear until health concerns arose. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/201/4360/1020
http://ijt.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/19/2/119

Tris was found to enter the human body through exposure to flame retardants. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/211/4485/951

Firefighter organizations have expressed concern about occupational exposures to toxic fire retardant chemicals. http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/info/conf/fireretardants/3-Webster.pdf

by Emily Main

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Green vs Toxic Cleaning Ingredients

2010-05-06T15:49:00.001-07:00

Choose It:
• Baking Soda
• Borax
• Cornstarch
• Hydrogen peroxide
• Lemon juice
• Plant essential oils
• Table salt
• Vegetable oil
• Washing soda
• White vinegar

Lose It:
• Alkylphenol Ethoxylates (APEs)
• Ammonia
• Chlorine Bleach
• Fragrance (synthetic, likely contains phthalates)
• Glycol ethers
• Lye
• Nonylphenols (NPEs)
• Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES)
• Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS)
• Terpenes
• Triclosan (antibacterial)

Excerpted from my book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices

For the dirt on glycol ethers in cleaing products, particularly when they react to other ingredients such as terpenes, click here.

Phthalates, suspect hormone disrupters that have been connected to reproductive system deformities in male infants and obesity in adults, have recently been linked to attention deficit disorders.

For more info, go to GreenerPenny.com and sign up for our free monthly e-newsletter, plus the chance to win green giveaways!

Green vs Greenwashed Personal Care Labels

2010-05-02T11:04:00.001-07:00

I never cease to be amazed at the prevalence of the word "organic" in the brand names of many personal care products, some of which not only contain not a single certified organic ingredient, but several toxic synthetic chemicals, such as paraben preservatives, and phthalates in synthetic fragrance!

As for "natural," don't even get me started. I will restrain myself to repeating that "natural" is an undefined and unregulated claim in the cosmetic marketplace.

What labels are meaningful? Quite a few. See the Choose It/ Lose It list below.

CHOOSE IT

The Certified USDA Organic seal on a personal care product means that the whole thing is certified organic, meaning it must contain, at minimum, 95% certified organic ingredients. This is still a rarity, but some companies such as Organic Essentials and Origins Organics do make USDA certified products.

Australian Certified Organic uses stringent standards on a par with USDA's; it is accredited by the reputable International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM).

The Soil Association: An EU seal from the respected UK organic farming research institute, it's not quite as stringent as USDA Organic, allowing more synthetics, but is pretty pristine all around.

BDIH (Association of German Industries and Trading Firms) is an EU seal barring all petroleum-based ingredients. Very strict, the best, really, except for not requiring certified organic plant extracts.

Natural Products Association's (NPA) seal strictly limits chemical processing and additives, but is not as strict as BDIH. No organic requirement. Bars many specific toxic or irritating ingredients, including phthalates, parabens, and sodium laureth and lauryl sulfate.

NSF/ANSI (National Sanitation Foundation International/American Natural Standards Institute) requires the product to be 70 percent organic (per QAI standards) and strictly minimizes synthetics.

Made With USDA Certified Organic: As with food, the product must contain a minimum 70 percent certified organic ingredients, and no synthetic preservatives. All major cleansing and moisturizing ingredients must be made from organic, not conventional or petroleum-based, substances. However, there's a loophole that doesn't regulate the processing, which can create synthetic byproducts such as 1, 4 dioxane.

Contains USDA or Quality Assurance International (QAI) Certified Organic Plant Oils/Extracts": The whole product is not certified organic, but look on the ingredients list and see how many of the plant essences are certified organic. QAI is an international third party certifier that works with USDA. Chances are you're getting a pretty good green deal.

ECOCERT is a respected European mark still rare in this country. It requires at least some percentage of certified organic ingredients, and forbids many synthetics and problematic processing that can create toxic byproducts, but does allow some synthetics, so one should still read ingredients lists.

OASIS (Organic and Sustainble Industry Standards): This EU seal specifies 85 percent organic ingredients, but uses industry, not third-party, certifiers.

CERTIFIED VEGAN: No ingredients taken from animals

LOSE IT

The following labels and claims are meaningless.

Chemical Free/ No Chemicals

Contains No Hazardous Ingredients per OSHA Regulations

Earth Smart

Environmentally/Eco Safe

Environmentally Friendly

Natural

Organic, when it appears on the label or in the name of a product that is not certified organic nor contains at least 70 percent certified organic plant ingredients.

For more information, including comprehensive shopping lists of Top and Runner Up Green Beauty Brands, see my new book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple Everyday Choices.

For news & updates, check our home page at GreenerPenny.com.

See GreenerPenny's specific product and brand recommendations and critiques here.

Chlorine-free laundry whiteners, brighteners

2010-04-30T15:33:00.000-07:00

Chlorine bleach is too strong for our own good, and the planet's. It is highly caustic, meaning it can burn our skin, eyes and respiratory tracts, and capable of releasing nerve-damagine chloramine gas if mixed with ammonia or acidic substances. It harms aquatic life and reacts with decaying organic matter, such as leaves, to produce toxic trihalomethanes in our drinking water. Enough, already! You can use a commercial bleach labeled chlorine-free and based on hydrogen peroxide or oxygen (see list, below). Or D.I.Y. with some old-fashioned basic ingredients. For stain removal, I recommend presoaking the item in 2 tablespoons washing soda (a mineral powder) mixed with a gallon of water in a pan, or you can add a half cup to a washer load before you start it. A half cup or so of either mineral-based Borax, or lemon juice or white vinegar in a gallon of water will also brighten and help lift stains. Use gloves to protect skin when handling these ingredients, which are caustic, though not as strong as chlorine. Remember to hang laundry in the sun, a powerful whitener and disinfectant, plus you'll save 723 lbs. of carbon dioxide emissions and at least $50 per year on your energy bill by hang drying only half your loads.

For more green living tips and statistics about how small things add up to big changes, see my book, Do One Green Thing; for new lifestyle and product news, come to GreenerPenny.com .

Look for the label "Chlorine-free" on bleaching products from the following makers:

Arm & Hammer
Clorox 2
Country Save
Ecover
Seventh Generation

Top green liquid dish soaps

2010-04-19T18:47:00.001-07:00

A botanically- rather than petroleum-derived dish soap is gentler on hands, eyes and lungs, and aquatic life it eventually touches after going down the drain. I have vetted the ingredients in the recommended products on this list, and found them to be free of the "Lose It" ingredients one should most avoid in liquid soaps: APEs and NPEs, fragrance, sodium laureth sulfate and other ethoxylated ingredients, and the antibacterial chemical triclosan. Meaningful third-party certifications are noted; in a heartening trend, most of these products have received the Environmental Protection Agency's Design for the Environment (DfE) seal.

CLOROX GREENWORKS: DfE; in tests by the Organic Consumers Association, it had no detectable traces of 1, 4, dioxane, a suspected carcinogen that can be released as a byproduct in certain manufacturing processes.

DR. BRONNER'S CASTILE SOAPS certified fair trade, USDA certified organic plant ingredients, 100% post consumer recycled packaging. No detectable dioxane in OCA tests. http://www.drbronners.com

ECOS (EARTH FRIENDLY PRODUCTS) DfE http://www.ecos.com/ Although I don't like grapefruit really, I like their gentle grapefruit dish liquid.

GREEN DEPOT DfE http://www.greendepot.com/greendepot/product.asp?prod_name=Green+Depot+Liquid+Dish+Soap&pf_id=GDCPLDD32&dept_id=1000&s_id=0&

MARTHA STEWART CLEAN DISH & HAND SOAP DfE, leaping bunny
MIESSENCE MIENVIRON DISHWASHING CONCENTRATE (with certified organic plant ingredients, ranked a top 10 for health by GoodGuide

METHOD DfE http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=169354&catid=34547

SEVENTH GENERATION leaping bunny, and the greenest bottles after Dr. Bronner's, with up to 90% PCW for dish soap and aiming for 100%. http://www.seventhgeneration.com

More information on choose it/lose it ingredients for ever category of home product can be found in Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices, by GreenerPenny editor Mindy Pennybacker.

For a list of DfE certified products, go to http://www.epa.gov/dfe/pubs/projects/formulat/formpartc.htm#cdetergent

Get updates of new enviro studies and green products, and enter free raffles for green products and publications, at GreenerPenny.com.

Green Cleaning without Greenwashed Toxicants

2010-04-15T01:39:00.000-07:00

With Earth Day right around the corner, television and radio stations are rife with advertisements for companies touting what they're doing for the environment. And while there are a number of companies making genuinely green products certified as nontoxic by independent third parties (like Martha Stewart’s new Clean and, surprisingly, Clorox's GreenWorks lines of cleaners, both brands registered with the EPA's Design for the Environment program), there are still quite a few companies trying to greenwash people into believing that potentially toxic products are green.

Take, for example, Simple Green. The company has long advertised its neon-green all purpose cleaner as green, but a recent test by the Environmental Working Group found that it contained 93 air contaminants, including 2-butoxyethanol (the cleaner's main ingredient), which can cause severe respiratory irritation and has been dubbed a possible carcinogen by the EPA. EWG also detected formaldehyde, another carcinogen, and acetaldehyde, another respiratory irritant.

Even if you don't immediately feel the ill affects of these cleaning product chemicals, others in your home might. Children are perhaps the most vulnerable because their smaller bodies absorb more chemicals, pound for pound, than an adult's, but older adults are at risk, as well. A recent study from South Korea found that the volatile organic compounds (chemicals that exist in products but evaporate into air during use) could impair the lung function of older adults and possibly even exacerbate heart conditions.

So if you're looking to Do One Green Thing this Earth Day, learn how to make your own cleaning products! As long as you're the chemist, you can control what goes in, and what you inhale, while you're cleaning.

The easiest cleaners to make involve nothing more than ordinary white vinegar, baking soda and water. Vinegar and baking soda have been found to kill strains of mold and mildew, and vinegar is a mild disinfectant. Both can be mixed with water and sprayed on countertops. For a basic all-purpose cleaner with a little more oomph, mix 2 cups of baking soda with ½ cup of a liquid plant based soap, like Dr. Bronner's, and add three to four drops of vegetable oil. It's a good soft, non-scratching scrub for scouring countertops as well as your bathroom sink.

For dusting surfaces, invest in a microfiber cloth. Popular in Europe and getting popular here in the U.S., these marvelous cloths are made from synthetic fibers split into hundreds of smaller, thinner, "micro" fibers that capture dust so securely that even shaking the cloth won't release them. They work best when you spray a little water on the surface—no chemicals are needed. When the cloths need to be cleaned, you just boil them (laundry detergents can break down the tiny fibers and make them less effective). But do be alert when shopping; cloths are often made with different fiber lengths for different purposes, like general purpose cleaning, window washing, and dusting. A window-washing cloth won't work well as a dust cloth, so make sure you buy what you need.

See the Washington Post staff review of several green cleaners they tested, and their top picks (including sticking with white vinegar and baking soda for the bathroom!)

--by Emily Main

Greenest Reusable Bottles, Plastic and Non-

2010-04-10T16:53:00.001-07:00

BEST SAFEST REFILLABLE DRINK BOTTLES

These light but sturdy bottles, all made to be reused, will not leach toxic Bisphenol-A (BPA) or phthalates.*

Lightweight, Unlined Stainless Steel (R)

Camelbak http://www.camelbak.com/sports-recreation/bottles
Earth Lust http://earthlust.com/
Eco Canteen https://ecocanteen.com/ver16/index.asp
Ecousable (F) http://ecousable.com/
Enviro Products http://www.newwaveenviro.com/stainless-steel-c-8_2_11.html
Guyot Designs http://www.guyotdesigns.com/stainlessbottlesmakes
Kleen Kanteen http://www.kleankanteen.com
Nalgene http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=74
Thermos (I) http://thermos.com/product_catalog.aspx?CatCode=BEVG
ThinkSport (I) http://www.thinksportbottles.com/

Glass (R)

Living La Vida Verde http://livinglavidaverde.net/default.aspx
Reduce Your Footprint (RYF) http://ryfbottle.com/store/category

Lined Aluminum (R)

Laken ** http://sierratradingpost.com

Sigg**

BPA-free Plastics

Cambelbak Better Bottle, TM http://www.camelbak.com/sports-recreation/bottles
Katadyn, PET, http://llbean.com and (F) at Cabela’s, http://cabelas.com com (F)
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/links/link.jsp?id=0076996519688a&type=product&cmCat=SEARCH_all&returnPage=search-results1.jsp&Ntk=Products&QueryText=water+filter&sort=all&Go.y=4&N=0&Nty=1&hasJS=true&_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jsp.form23&Go.x=20
Nalgene Everyday and Wide Mouth, TM http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/index.html
Nalgene Wide Mouth HDPE (R )http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/detail.aspx?ID=58
Novara Flowers widemouth bottle, at REI.com
Rubbermaid (PP) Chug Sport, Sippin' Sport ***
Sawyer (PET) http://cabelas.com
Somafab Crystal (PP) http://www.somafab.com/bottle.html
Tupperware (PP) all kids' bottles; company is phasing out PC.

*Under normal use. Plastic bottles may leach chemicals if heated.
**Old aluminum bottle epoxy linings contained BPA. Bottles made since August 2008 have BPA-free poly linings.
***Choose Rubbermaid Chug & Sip bottles made with PP, not the PC ones

PET: Polyethylene (#1), most-recycled plastic
HDPE: High-Density Polyethylene (#2), widely recycled
PP: Polypropylene (#5), not widely recycled
TM: Eastman Tritan copolyester (#7)
PC: Polycarbonate #7, made with BPA.
PS: Polystyrene #6, not recycled; can leach carcinogenic styrene
PVC: Polyvinyl chloride (#), not recycled, can leach toxic phthalates and lead

F: Bottles with filters also available
I: Insulated with glass or stainless

Excerpted from my book Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices (St Martin's Press, 2010).

For more green news and product tips on food, cleaning, personal care, plastics and more, come to our home page, GreenerPenny.com, where you can also send me an email and ask me questions.

Thanks!
Mindy Pennybacker

Are plastic produce bags safe & green?

2010-04-08T11:13:00.000-07:00

No plastic is truly green, in my opinion.

Most produce bags, as opposed to deli wraps, used in conventional stores are made of #2 high density polyethylene plastic (HDPE) (safeway, they’re marked in chasing arrows) or #4 low density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic. HDPE #2 and LDPE #4 are conventional plastics made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource. Deli counter wraps are usually #3 polyvinyl chloride (PVC) which can leach hormone-disrupting phthalates into your food.

Green supermarkets such as Whole Foods also use #7 PLA bioplastic bags made from plant sources, such as corn. These are different than #7 polycarbonate (PC) plastic, which is made with Bisphenol-A (BPA).

Neither #2, #4 or #7 PLA plastics have been found to leach chemicals into food. They can be reused so long as they haven't collected food residues where bacteria grow.

Unfortunately, no plastic bags can be put in municipal recycling bins, incidentally, even in those that accept #2 milk jugs and shampoo and detergent bottles. http://www.obviously.com/recycle/guides/common.html

But many Whole Foods stores take all plastic bags back for recycling.

As an alternative, I recommend Green Depot’s reusable produce bags, http://greendepot.com, or the many choices at reusablebags.com

SAFEST PLASTICS FOR HOLDING FOOD

2010-04-07T15:27:00.001-07:00

GREENERPENNY’S TOP PLASTIC FOOD CONTAINERS

The products in the following list are made of plastics that have not been found to release the worrisome chemicals Bisphenol-A (BPA) or phthalates, both linked to abnormal development, or carcinogenic styrene into food, heated or not.

Top plastics to avoid are Polycarbonate, with the recycling # 7, made with BPA, PVC, #3, made with phthalates, and polystyrene #6, made with styrene.

Quick check: What’s the number? Turn it upside down. Good and bad plastics are usually identified by a recycling code number* stamped on the bottom inside the chasing arrows triangle. No number? Check the the list below. Not there? When in doubt, don’t buy!

*See the Choose It/ Lose It plastics by recycling numbers, below, excerpted from my new book, Do One Green Thing. http://stmartins.com/doonegreenthing. Note: #7 is a catch-all code that encompasses several different plastics.

Caution: Never microwave in plastics, even those labeled “microwave safe.” Studies have shown that any plastic can release BPA at high temperatures.

TOP REUSABLE PLASTIC CONTAINERS

Choose Reusable Food Ware made of #5 Polypropylene (PP)

While not widely recyclable, PP is safely reusable.

Quick check: Is it clear or cloudy? Polycarbonate (#7PC) is mostly clear and transparent; #5 PP has a milky, opaque look.

GP recommends:

Recycline food containers, dishes, kichenware and cutlery (all #5). A GP tippety-top green pick, Recycline uses 100 percent recycled #5 plastic, including yogurt containers you can drop off at many Whole Foods stores. http://www.preserveproducts.com/

Also PP are Martha Stewart Collection plastic food containers in handy sets, sold at Macy's.

Lunchbox/ picnic lidded sandwich & food containers from Reusable Bags http://www.reusablebags.com/store/lunch-bags-food-containers-c-4_20.html and Laptop Lunches http://www.laptoplunches.com/

Gladware containers and lids (all). http://www.glad.com/containers/gladware_containers.php?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=gladware&utm_campaign=SEM-Brand

Ziploc containers and lids (all)

http://www.ziploc.com/Products/Pages/ContainersSmartSnapSeal.aspx

Farberware/ Frye http://fryeintl.com/aboutourproducts.php Citrus, Fresh Keeper and Monterrey containers & lids; leak-proof seals use BPA-free #1 polyethylene (PET) http://www.target.com/dp/B0000ESWK0/ref=gp_se_search-results-asin-redirect

The Container Store Klip It and Tellfresh (#5) http://www.containerstore.com/shop/kitchen/foodStorage/leftoversPlastic?viewAll=true

Rubbermaid (mostly all #5), a GP tippety-top pick for disclosure of its materials, the company provides a list of its BPA-free products here. http://www.rubbermaid.com/Pages/LearnAboutBPA.aspx

Don’t choose: Rubbermaid’s Premier, Stainshield and Elegan containers, and Chug and Sip bottles with the #7 (PC) on the bottom, or EasyFinds containers, which had trace amounts of BPA and phthalates in Good Housekeeping tests**, but lids were fine.

Tupperware (mostly #5 or #7 (PES); leak-proof seals use #1 PET) . Tupperware’s new product line, released in April, 2010, contains NO PC, hurray! Its microwaveable products are now #7 PES, which is PC-free.

Don’t choose: Tupperware’s PC #7 Rock n’ Serve microwave line and Elegant serving ware. Although no longer being produced, they may still appear on store shelves or at yard sales. http://www.tupperware-blog.com/tupperware-overview/is-tupperware-cancer-causing-38/

TOP PLASTIC FOOD WRAPS AND BAGS

Caution: Cling wraps on most deli counter meats & cheeses are #3 PVC, which contains toxic phthalates. The following are made of #4 LDPE (low-density polyethylene), a plastic that has not been found to leach BPA or phthalates.

Natural Value Plastic Wrap and Sandwich Bags http://www.greenfeet.com/itemdesc.asp?kw=Natural-Value-Plastic-Wrap-No-PVC&ic=6007-00067-0000&eq=

Best Yet Clear Plastic Wrap

Glad Cling Wrap and Freezer Storage Bags (most)

Don’t choose: Glad Press n’ Seal and Food Storage Bags, contained trace amounts of BPA and phthalates in GH tests. **
Saran Cling Plus
Ziploc Food Storage and Freezer Bags
Hefty Baggies

Reynolds Clear Seal-Tight plastic wrap

CHOOSE IT/ LOSE IT PLASTICS BY THE NUMBERS

(from Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices)

CHOOSE IT: NON-LEACHING WHEN USED CORRECTLY

#1 PET or PETE (polyethylene terephthalate) containers are the most recyclable, but not so healthy to reuse. Studies indicate that with worn or heated PET containers may release di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, linked to hormone disruption and cancer.

#2 HDPE (high-density polyethylene) is widely recyclable.

#4 LDPE (low-density polyethylene) is used in some food wraps and sandwich bags.

#5 PP (polypropylene) is not generally recyclable, but safe to reuse.

#7 PES (polyether sulfone) is BPA-free, according to Consumer Reports. ***

#7 PLA (bioplastic made from corn, sugarcane, etc.) is not recyclable in most cities, nor is it compostable except in industrial composters using high temperatures.

LOSE IT

#3 PVC (polyvinyl chloride, vinyl), releases carcinogenic dioxins during manufacturing and can leach hormone-disrupting phthalate plasticizers. PVC is used in many cling and stretch food wraps and films.

#6 PS (polystyrene), that white spongey stuff of takeout coffee cups and clamshells, can leach styrene, a possible human carcinogen, when heated or in contact with fatty foods. #7 (miscellaneous), includes polycarbonate plastic, which contains hormone-disrupting bisphenol A.
#7 PC (polycarbonate), clear plastic popular in sports bottles & food containers, is made with and has been found to release BPA.

**http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/product-testing/reviews-tests/kitchen-cooking/plastic-safety-heat-food-6

***http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/consumer-protection/recalls-and-safety-alerts-5-08/plastic-ingredients-in-bottles-and-cans/recalls-plastic.htm

Excerpted from my book Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices (St Martin's Press, 2010).

For more green news and product tips on food, cleaning, personal care, plastics and more, come to our home page, GreenerPenny.com, where you can also send me an email and ask me questions.

Thanks!
Mindy Pennybacker

Best Green Laundry Detergents

2010-03-31T16:01:00.000-07:00

The following laundry detergents mostly have unscented versions, which cuts back on allergies and irritation, and are at least 2 x concentrated, which cuts back on packaging and shipping fuel. They are also free of all or most of the “Lose It” ingredients listed on my home page at GreenerPenny.com, and http://greenerpenny.com, and in my new book, Do One Green Thing http://stmartins.com/doonegreenthing . Other pluses, such as comparable pricing to conventional brands ($), having no residues of 1, 4 dioxane* in recent Organic Consumers Association tests, http://www.1-4dioxane.com/, ultra-concentrated formulas (more than 2x) or independent third-party eco seals, such as EPA's Design for the Environment (DfE) and Leaping Bunny (cruelty-free) are noted.

Remember, for the sake of the planet and your budget, wash in cold water as much as you can! And hang dry. Thanks!

All Small & Mighty Free & Clear http://www.all-laundry.com/#/products/freeclear/freeclear3x/

Arm & Hammer Essentials http://armandhammer.com , $, did have 5 ppm dioxane.

Biokleen
http://biokleenhome.com/ 3 x, 64 oz., $

Charlie’s Soap, http://charliessoap.com

Clorox Greenworks http://www.greenworkscleaners.com/laundry/
,$, no dioxane

Earth Friendly Products (ECOs) http://ecos.com
2-3x, dep on whether top or front loader, $, no dioxane

Ecover, http://ecover.com,$

Greening the Cleaning, http://imusranchfoods.com

Life Tree, http://www.lifesvigor.com/original-premium-laundry-liquid-32-oz-life-tree.html, no dioxane

Martha Stewart Clean, DfE, Leaping Bunny. http://mslo.cierant.com/

Method free & clear, 8x, DfE 50% recycled packaging, certified by Cradle2Cradle (C2C); http://methodhome.com/all-products/fragrance-free/free-+-clear/method-laupndry-50.aspx

Mountain Green 3x concentrated (1 oz. load) discloses all ingredients on website, http://mountaingreen.biz/ingredients.aspx

Mrs. Meyers http://www.mrsmeyers.com/; did have 1.5 ppm dioxane.

Planet Ultra http://www.planetinc.com,
Certified biodegradable by Scientific Certification Systems (did have 6 ppm dioxane)

Seventh Generation, Leaping Bunny http://www.seventhgeneration.com/ Greenest packaging! Moving from 50% post-consumer-recycled (PCW) to 75% and ultimately 100%.

Sun & Earth http://sunandearth.com, $, strong citrus scent.

Vaska http://vaskaproducts.com

Vermont Soapworks, http://vermontsoap.com

DfE: certified by EPA Design for the Environment as helping protect the environment and safer for families. For more information about EPA’s DfE seal. http://www.epa.gov/dfe/pubs/projects/formulat/label.htm

Leaping Bunny: certified cruelty-free, not tested on animals

*Dioxane is categorized as a probable human carcinogen in California.
http://www.1-4dioxane.com/

*

acc to EWG, mfgs can remove dioxane with a simple step, but its presence shows that most of them aren't doing so. http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ingredient.php?ingred06=726331

Why avoid BPA?

2010-03-16T13:27:00.001-07:00

Why avoid BPA? Last spring, the U.S. National Toxicology Program warned that BPA may pose a threat to human health. Studies have connected BPA with diabetes and heart disease in humans, and behavioral and reproductive problems in animals. In lab tests it has caused normal human cells to express genes linked to breast cancer. BPA is already present in 93% of Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s “body burden” studies of representative populations. BPA has been found to migrate more readily out of polycarbonate when the plastic is heated, washed in strong detergents, scratched or worn-out. All sports or baby bottles are subject to these conditions, but, happily, not all are made of PC. Nalgene has announced it will phase out its clear, colorful PC Lexan bottles, and Wal-mart has removed PC baby bottles from its Canada stores and pledged to stop selling them in the U.S.

Got questions or tips? Ask Mindy and subscribe to our FREE monthly e-newsletter at http://greenerpenny.com/, follow us at Twitter.com/greenerpenny, and become a GreenerPenny Facebook fan!

Greenwashing "Alice in Wonderland" Shampoo

2010-03-07T16:20:00.000-08:00

Although the title character in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland isn’t made a queen, Mia Wasikowski’s wild, abundant tresses provided the crowning glory for a natural beauty. Such hair may be possible for the rest of us, but not by tumbling down a rabbit hole. We know from women’s magazines that a natural look isn’t born, it is made. And, thanks to the green marketing gods, Disney has licensed the Alice in Wonderland brand to a tie-in beauty product in a pretty pink bottle: Organix Rejuvenating Cherry Blossom Ginseng Shampoo.

The tagline: Indulge your hair in nature’s wonderland.

The problem: Despite the implicit promise of the brand name and the company website, BeautyPureandSimple.com, Organix shampoos are not organic. And, they contain some hair-raising, man-made ingredients.

Why it matters: There are two good reasons.

1. We shouldn't be duped by misleading, greenwashing claims. Consumers are demonstrating a willingness to pay a premium for greener, healthier personal care products: Despite the recession, the market for organic personal care grew by 19% in 2008, according to the Organic Trade Association, and the “natural” cosmetics marketplace has been expanding at an annual 13% rate, compared with a 3% average annual increase for the conventional cosmetic sector.

USDA Certified Organic, a meaningful and regulated seal on food products, expanded to personal care products in 2005. Products bearing the USDA label have been vetted by an independent third party as meeting the National Organic Program’s standards. In order to be certified USDA organic, a shampoo or cream must contain 95 percent USDA certified organic ingredients.

The company website says that Organix Rejuvenating Cherry Blossom Ginseng Shampoo contains organic rice milk, but does not authenticate this ingredient as certified organic. And in any case, it’s only one ingredient out of 18.

Nor should consumers be taken in by the claim “natural,” which is meaningless, according to Consumers Union’s eco-labels project.

2. Organix shampoos and many other “natural” personal care products contain toxic, synthetic ingredients that can expose a very vulnerable target audience—preteen girls—to chemicals that have been linked to early onset of puberty, obesity, and some cancers, and others that can provoke allergic reactions and asthma attacks.

Aside from rice milk and bamboo extract, the contents of the “Alice” shampoo are not disclosed, and the product is so new I couldn’t find it in stores. But a sister product, Organix Nourishing Coco Milk Shampoo, contains several ingredients deemed hazardous by the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Database, including the following:

* DMDM Hydantoin, an allergen and irritant that can be contaminated with formaldehyde, classified as a known human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

*Fragrance, a catch-all term that allows manufacturers to conceal perfuming components, which are protected as “trade secrets.” These commonly include phthalates, chemicals that have been linked to genital deformities in human infants, asthma in children and obesity in adults.

*Cocamide DEA and Cocamidopropyl Betaine, sudsing agents linked to allergies and immunotoxicity

Organix Nourishing Coco Milk Shampoo also contains Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate, one of the class of ethoxylated compounds that have recently given rise to concern because they can be contaminated with 1, 4 dioxane, a carcinogen. In 2007, EWG found 1,4 dioxane in 28% of the 27,000 personal care products they tested. In 2008, tests by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) found 1, 4 dioxane in 40% of products labeled “natural.”

In conclusion, let me emphasize that Organix is only one of many companies making implied greenwashing and other spurious health claims; see the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and OCA’s “Coming Clean” reports for many more examples. But these and other products aimed at young teens should be carefully vetted, as discussed in EWG’s recent study of adolescent girls’ exposures to hormone-disrupting chemicals in cosmetics. Greenwashing is not only a rip-off if you pay more for the product based on green claims, but it can be dangerous by misleading people into using precisely the kinds of ingredients they are seeking to avoid.

For more information on green cosmetic labels, see my related blog entry . For regular monthly product and lifestyle updates, please subscribe to my free monthly e-newsletter on the home page at GreenerPenny.com . Share in the dialog by becoming a fan on GreenerPenny.com's Facebook page and following us at Twitter.com/GreenerPenny.

Thank you!

Mindy

Green allergen- and moisture-barrier mattress & bedding encasements

2010-03-02T20:16:00.001-08:00

For health and comfort in bed, natural materials are the top green "Choose It" choice; plastic mattress covers and moth-, stain- and water-proofed fabrics are big time "Lost Its." PVC vinyl, a common cheap mattress pad component, will block dust mites and moisture, but will also release toxic phthalates into the air. Fabric treatments may emit formaldehyde and other toxic Volatile organic compounds (VOCs).If you're prone to sneezes and wheezes, and/or need reasonably waterproof but nontoxic bedding, for a child, a simple and affordable option is a tightly woven organic barrier cloth encasement or wool, which is naturally water-, fire- and odor-resistant.

A barrier cloth blocks allergenic dust mite droppings, pet danders and pollens that collect in bedding. They're also made into pillow and comforter covers. The main criteria is that it be:

*very tightly woven to keep microscopic particles from slipping through
*washable in hot water, which kills dust mites
*free of permanent press or stain- and water-repellant finishes, which can release toxic formaldehyde fumes or are made with Teflon- or Scotchgard- type perfluorochemicals (PFCs) that tests have connected to developmental and behavior problems in young animals.
*made of breathable natural material, preferable organic
* NOT made of PVC vinyl, which offgases toxic chemicals known as phthalates, which have been found to cause respiratory problems in children, and have also been linked in human studies to abnormal reproductive organ development in human infants and obesity in adults.

These days, it's easy to find affordable green encasements, such as the following.

* Allergy Buyers Club has certified organic cotton dust mite covers for mattresses, pillows, comforters, the works, at the most affordable prices I've seen. They're very tightly woven of unbleached, undyed, 100% organic cotton, with "pore" sizes smaller than 4 microns (10 microns is a benchmark for microparticles).

*Heart of Vermont makes sumptuous organic cotton fitted barrier sheets (easy on, zipper-free) with the same tight weave

*Gaiam has practical organic cotton, dustmite-proof comforter covers and fitted sheets. They're backed with polyurethane plastic, though, so not breathable (or natural).

*Allergy Solutions makes all-cotton very tightly woven (1.5 microns) mattress and pillow encasements, or 50/50 cotton poly backed with

Moisture resistant/waterproof mattress covers

My top pick is a mattress topper made of undyed wool, which is very comfortable, naturally hypoallergenic, moisture-absorbing, fire-retardant and provides a nice thick barrier to mites!

Natures Bedroom has mattress toppers made of wool, as well as natural latex (if you aren't allergic to it) and organic cotton.

Allergy Buyers Club sells affordable wool and wool-blend mattress pads, including
Our Home Comfort

Luna Mattress protectors bond cotton terrycloth with a permeated polyurethane membrane that the company says is waterproof and breathable. One of the most affordable options. For regular green consumer news and product updates, subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com.

For more information about nontoxic, green household products and actions you can take to reduce pollution and energy waste, see Mindy's book, GreenerPenny.com.">Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices (St Martin's Press, 2010).

Join our One Green Thing a Day conversations on Facebook.com/GreenerPenny and follow us at Twitter.com/GreenerPenny. Thanks!

Where to buy Organic Bed Sheets, Cases & Covers

2010-02-09T00:43:00.001-08:00

GREENERPENNY SHOPPING LIST: Organic Cotton Bedding

The following companies sell organic cotton (OC) sheets and pillowcases, many of which are either untreated, or avoid the most harmful stain- and water-resistant fabric finishes, which commonly use toxic perfluorochemicals; EWG explains. why Ask for low-impact dyes, discussed in this useful Discovery Planet Green blog, and non-chlorine-bleached fabric (chlorine bleaching releases cancer-causing dioxins into the environment).

Bed, Bath and Beyond, in addition to OC sheets, often sells natural (untreated) and soy and bamboo bedding; bedbathandbeyond.com

The Company Store sells an OC covered down comforter, and bamboo blend sheets, thecompanystore.com

Coyuchi sells organic cotton bedding in subtle "color grown" natural cotton hues, coyuchi.com

Gaiam offers OC and wool blankets, comforters, quilts and mattress pads, and towels, galore, gaiam.com

Native Organic Cotton has OC bedding and robes, towels and aprons, too. nativeorganic.com.
Pottery Barn does OC duvet covers, quilts and coverlets, potterybarn.com

West Elm has tasteful OC bed and bath covers, throws, more, westelm.com

Avoiding toxic chemicals in mattresses & bedding

2010-01-30T13:54:00.000-08:00

Conventional mattresses, made with petroleum-based polyurethane foam, have routinely been treated with chemical fire retardants known as polybrominated biphenyl ethers, or PBDEs.

Shown to cause behavioral and developmental problems in animal studies, PBDEs are pervasive in the environment, found in women’s breast milk and the fat of harbor seals, and easily migrate out of products into house dust and air. Environmental health advocates call PBDEs “ the new PCBs,” referring to the now-banned industrial chemicals that caused lower I.Q.s in the children of women who ate PCB-contaminated fish. See Washington Toxics Coalition's excellent summary of possible health risks,.

In addition, although PVC was banned from being used in crib and children’s mattresses in late 2009, it may still be present in mattresses made before that time, and new mattresses, as well as bedding, may be treated with water- and stain-repellants that can release formaldehyde, another toxic and volatile chemical that readily evaporates from products. In addition, Teflon- and Scotchgard-type coatings are manufactured using toxic perfluorinated chemicals that are widespread in the environment and our bodies.

To avoid these chemicals, you can choose a mattress made with a natural latex core padded with cotton and surrounded with wool, which is naturally water-repellant and flame retardant. Look for labels that say it meets the CPSC and State of California fire retardancy standards for mattresses. To benefit your personal health, it need not be made with organic cotton or wool, which are more of a benefit to the environment; and, non-organic mattresses--and especially futons--are more affordable. Since crib mattresses are so much smaller, organic versions are less pricey.

If you don’t want to pop for a new green mattress, you can block a lot of VOCs—and allergenic dust mites—in your old one by encasing it in a tightly woven barrier cloth, or covering it with a wool or cotton mattress pad. Mattress pads are not advised for cribs, which shouldn’t contain any padding, but can be given extra protection with a flat wool “puddle pad.” For extra adult luxury, choose a topper with a natural latex core.

Below is a list of companies who make greener mattresses and top pads without PBDEs or PVC; they also are good sources for untreated sheets, pillowcases, and bedcovers. (the $ indicates most affordability):

Acorn Innerspring from The Natural Bed Store $ (organic cotton, wool)
Duxiana: Their breathable latex-and-cotton top pad is dreamy.
Earthsake (organic cotton and PureGrow wool)
Greensleep (organic cotton, wool and silk)
Lifekind (organic cotton, natural latex)
Magniflex memory foam with some greener options (bamboo, wool, latex) http://www.magniflex.us/waterlattex.html
Natural by Colgate (coconut coir fiber, organic cotton, regular cotton)
Naturepedic $ (organic cotton, regular cotton, polyethylene) http://www.naturepedic.com/
The Organic Mattress (organic cotton, natural latex, also toppers and bedding)http://www.theorganicmattress.com/
Room & Board (natural latex, no springs) http://www.roomandboard.com/rnb/
Shepherds Dream (wool) http://www.shepherdsdream.com/
Vivetique (organic cotton, hemp, and PureGrow wool) http://www.vivetique.com/

Also check these retailers:
Thenaturalbedroom.com
Ecobedroom.com
Heartofvermont.com

Will Green & Black's organic chocolate lose taste with Kraft?

2010-01-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

A sour Valentine for lovers of chocolate from Green & Black's, the small British concern that makes its bars of bliss from certified organic, fairly traded cacao. American multinational Kraft is swallowing G & B's parent Cadbury, beloved British chocolate for the masses. The New York Times reported that Cadbury, after putting up a valiant fight, has accepted the $19 billion deal.

What of Green & Black? Despite initial worries, Cadbury did not perceivably lower G & B's standards, at least in taste tests by this blogging chocoholic and by Arthur Lubow, who warned about the pending takeover in a Times Op-ed last fall.

Reflecting on when Hershey swallowed Scharffenberger, Lubow writes, "The company...promised not to change the quality of the brand. ..Soon I began noticing a marked deterioration in my beloved 82 percent bar. The texture was chalky. The cherry notes had vanished. It was becoming just another mediocre American chocolate."

Will the same happen to Green & Black's? Think Cheese Whiz,and be forewarned.

Risks of early puberty and hormone disrupting chemicals

2010-01-12T01:10:00.001-08:00

Winter chapped lips need soothing? We'll get to that below, but first, here's some important news: Women who enter puberty before age 12 may be more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and die of stroke, heart attacks or cancer, according to a new study of 16,000 middle-aged to elderly women published in the December Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. According to researchers at Cambridge University, women who had their first menstrual period before age 12 had a 28 percent higher risk of dying from cardiovascular causes and a 25 higher risk of dying from cancer. Reuters quoted the researchers as saying there may be a connection to body fat, since heavier girls tend to start menstruating earlier.

No reason to be glum about things we can't change, of course, but the study is a good reason to be mindful of factors such as excess body fat that have previously been linked to disease. We can also reduce exposures to suspected hormone disrupting chemicals in cosmetics and plastics, some of which have been linked to early puberty and other reproductive system anomalies. For a good summary of the science on hormone disrupting chemicals and the trend towards ever-earlier puberty, see this study by the Breast Cancer Fund.

So shop defensively! It's easy; I've done the research for you. For more information, click on the links below for my articles and lists concerning:
*top cosmetics ingredients to avoid ,
*recent studies on hormone disrupting chemicals linked to breast cancer
* greenwashing in cosmetics
and
* avoiding the toxic chemicals Bisphenol-A and phthalates, which may also, I kid you not, be implicated in our obesity epidemic.

Now for a little lip service. First, read this helpful new Rodale blog on nontoxic, natural lip soothers (full disclosure, it does quote me!).
For products, see GreenerPenny's top green lip sticks and balms.

If you'd like to get more daily green living and product tips, please subscribe to our FREE monthly e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com. Do click on the "Ask" link if you've a question for me. Join the fun dialog on our GreenerPenny.com Facebook page, and follow us at Twitter.com/GreenerPenny.

Thanks,

Mindy

Tips on avoiding plastic chemicals linked to obesity and reproductive harm

2010-01-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

Sixty-six percent of us are overweight, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Indeed, the CDC dubs us an "obesogenic" society. It can be hard enough to control how many calories we consume and burn, but what's really irksome is the possibility that we are involuntarily ingesting fattening chemicals that migrate out of plastics and cleaning and personal care products. Yes, studies are linking chemicals in everyday products to obesity.

Chemical “Obesogens"

Exposure to phthalates--chemicals widely used as synthetic fragrancing agents, as well as in plastics--correlates to abdominal obesity and insulin resistance in U.S. adult males, according to a March, 2007 study in Environmental Health Perspectives . And in 2008, Bisphenol-A (BPA), used in baby bottles and other food and water containers, was connected with greater likelihood of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported.

More worrisome yet, maternal exposures to both chemicals have been linked with abnormal development in offpspring. BPA and phthalates have been been found to be prevalent in our bodies in representative population samples by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and fetuses The CDC says that all Americans have phthalates in our bodies, and previous studies have linked the chemicals to subtle genital and reproductive hormone changes in male infants. As the babies were exposed in the womb and through breast milk, women would be wise to avoid phthalates, too.

Obesity itself can lead to other health problems, of course, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Breast cancer risks include the onset of menstruation at an early age, younger than 13, as noted by the Breast Cancer Fund, whose excellent site also includes studies finding connections between exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals and early puberty in girls. A Danish study last year, reported in the New York Times "Well" column, advanced the chemical culprits thesis.

Early menarche has itself been linked to excess body fat in young girls. A troubling new study, reported in Reuters, found that early puberty meant women were more likely to suffer heart attacks after reaching middle age. Cambridge University researchers said that higher amounts of body fat at puberty appeared to be a contributing factor, as well. Read about how one mother is coping with health concerns for her young daughter in this frank and informative blog.

Enough fatty plastic, already! To avoid "obesogenic" chemicals, steer clear of:

*Steer clear of Polycarbonate plastics (BPA): See our list of BPA free items here. And here!
*Consume less Canned food and liquid baby formula (can linings contain BPA) Diets heavy in canned food can expose us to unhealthy levels of BPA, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which advises using powdered rather than liquid canned infant formula because BPA migrates more readily into fluids.

The exceptions: Eden Foods says its cans are BPA-free, except for the tomatoes. For more tips on cans & aseptic packaging, see our blog inspired by a traditional canned food recipe, and this advice from EWG.

*Don't Use Personal Care and Cleaning Products with "Fragrance" on their ingredients lists, using this all-inclusive term rather than disclosing specifics. "Fragrance" is a trade secret term allowing the coverup of synthetic scents that use phthalates and other toxic chemicals. What you want to see: "Fragrance derived exclusively from organic rose, geranium, and lavender essential oils."

See our list of phthalate-free personal care and air freshener products.

*Don't Use Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) raincoats, cosmetic bags, backpacks, shower curtains, flooring, etc. Vinyl is also the least recyclablel, in addition to being the most toxic, plastic, according to Greenpeace. Help keep our landfills from gaining weight!

Safer, sustainable beef: organic, grass-fed, humanely raised

2010-01-05T13:28:00.001-08:00

Meat is among the top 10 food issues we'll be contending with in 2010, nutritionist Marion Nestle predicts. We certainly can't be careful enough about avoiding foodborne illness through contaminated meat, especially ground beef, a recent investigation by The New York Times makes clear. The newspaper discovered that E. coli and salmonella pathogens have been found dozens of times in Beef Products ground beef, 5.5 million pounds of which were served in U.S. schools last year. The testing was performed by the school lunch program arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Beef Products "fatty beef trimmings" are also widely used in burgers for fast food restaurants, including McDonald's and Kroger's. But does the USDA test Beef Products meat that goes to other outlets besides schools? No. The agency accepts the company's self-testing that shows its ammonia treatments are effective in killing bacteria.

A whopping 35 million lbs. of meat was recalled nationwide in 2007, and 7.5 million lbs. in 2008, according to Food Safety News.We've yet to find a total count for beef recalls due to E. coli in 2009, but the website reported there had been 11 recalls totalling 575,000 lbs. of ground beef by mid-October. That, however, was before 545,000 lbs. of contaminated hamburger was recalled for E. Coli in several states in November, although it was sold in September. Even if 2009 recalls total "only" a bit over a million lbs., it's an unappetizing, intolerable and dangerous situation.

What to do to protect the burger lovers in your life? Buy true quality: USDA certified organic, grass-fed or certified humane ground beef. Why? Because these labels guarantee that food can be traced back to the source, that is, the actual farm and cow. This makes for greater accountability and responsibility in the food chain. While any animal product, organic or not, can become contaminated with pathogens, the cleaner diets and more careful handlng of animals raised according to these labels provides a healthy buffer. Plus, they're free of antibiotics and added hormones.

Philosophically, we favor humane animal welfare labels that guarantee the creature had had freedom to move about, clean quarters, fresh air, a vegetarian diet, and was slaughtered with minimal suffering. The most reliably humane labels are certified humane, food alliance ,animal welfare approved. To find grass-fed meat and dairy products in your locale, search the Eat Wild Guide by zip code.

For more green living tips, please subscribe to our FREE monthly e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com . Ask me questions there, too! Join the dialog on GreenerPenny's Facebook page and follow us, if you like, at Twitter.com/GreenerPenny.

Thanks,
Mindy

Best green lip protectors

2009-12-09T03:15:00.001-08:00

Nontoxic Lip Balms

Protect your kisser! To keep from licking hormone-disrupters off your winter-cracked lips, choose from this plethora of phthalate-free products, all of which use essential plant oils rather than synthetic "fragrance." THE BODY SHOP Hemp Lip ProtectorAt a recent Jets game (remember the last one they won?), a green guy said it saved his lips from cold wind splice and the green tube showed off his team spirit. Body Shop is a Campaign for Safe Cosmetics' CSC signatory. $8. BURTS BEES Beeswax Balms, Lip Shimmers The quickest of comforters: Burt's clear balm (Natural Products Association certified) and new Rescue Lip Balm, which blocks UV rays with natural titanium dioxide. Burt's has also signed the CSC pledge. $3-5. DR BRONNER’S Lip Balm This USDA certified organic balm comes in "naked," lemon/lime and ginger phthalate-free flavors. Yum. A CSC signatory. $2.99 DR. HAUSCHKA Lip Care Stick or Balm One of our top faves. Moisturizes with jojoba wax and carrot and rosehip extracts; $12.95 or $14.50. OLA HAWAII Tropical Melody Lip Balms (pictured) The islands in winter! Banana, coconut/lemongrass, liliko'i (passion fruit) and mango aromas will warm your lips and hearts. We can't get enough of 'em. $6. ORIGINS Lip Balm Their USDA certified organic stick is pure salve-ation. Completely odorless and taste-free, slicks on effortlessly. WELEDA Everon Lip Balm With shea butter, vanilla and rose. Cheap, creamy, and long-lasting. $3.50-4.99.
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Thanks!
Mindy

Top Green Holiday Gifts 2009

2009-12-03T17:48:00.000-08:00

Green Gifts, Carbon Footprints and All

Buy local, or not? It’s the holidays, right, so anything goes? Not quite. Every product has a carbon footprint, that is, the carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, released by the burning of fossil fuels used to manufacture and transport it. Some manufacturers are trying to measure and reduce the carbon footprints of a bevy of products, from food to electronics to fashion with the help of new labels being developed by the UK’s Carbon Trust.

When you can, buy locally made goods to give to those who live near you. Deal face to face, smile to smile, be an engaged and integral part of your local economy. Then, if you can’t find what you’re looking for in a local shop, feel free to order online.

Now for the goods.

Culture’s the ticket: No matter where you live, you can give tickets to concerts, plays or services in your recipient’s local. No shipping, no fuel miles. We gave our son and his girlfriend tickets to “Wolves at the Window,” a production of Brits Off Broadway within walking distance of their New York apartment. They not only went, but loved it, and asked for more!

Alternate Ashtanga: Gifts of yoga classes keep on giving, and yoga studios are trending green. In Honolulu, Diamond Head Yoga, founded by surfer Randall Poulson, uses energy efficient LED lighting and recycled hardwood floors. Find a low-impact teacher and venue near someone you love at GreenYoga.org.

“I encourage students to bring their own mats, which cuts down on spreading germs,” says Poulson, and we agree. We’re partial to Think Sport’s thick new PVC and polycarbonate mats. They’re PVC and polycarbonate free, so no phthalates or Bisphenol-A. Same with these other eco mats. Think ecoyopi, or for Pilates, too.

Help your significant other get core strength (and flat abs) with lessons from a certified Pilates instructor. To find a studio near you, go to Pilates Studio Search.
In my case, the slopes of Diamond Head, or Leahi (forehead of a tuna) also house a great Pilates place, Aware Aligned Awake, founded by another surfer, Cristal Mortensen.

Speaking of surfing, it’s chilly, even in Hawaii, when the north wind blows! For the oceangoer on your list, consider a warm-up cap made of a sustainable fiber. An organic cotton cap and tote bag are included when you give a $44 membership in the non-profit Surfrider Foundation, which is dedicated to protecting water quality and conserving natural beaches and waves. Or check out the organic cotton, wool or recycled poly caps by Patagonia.

Speaking of Patagonia, their Footprints Chronicles are a fun way to comparison shop based on the carbon and energy consumed by their products, say, Mongolian cashmere vs. recycled poly fleece. Watch your back:

Electronics, or rather, Computers? Think takeback, nontoxic and read this for what to do.

Tech gadgets: Give Memory: Photos are nice, especially when the albums are stored on tiny flash drives, or memory sticks. I want one for each writing project! Smart power strips are a great way to save energy.

Green Books:

*One of my favorite practical guidebooks for protecting children from unnecessary toxic exposures is now out in paperback. Healthy Child, Healthy World: Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home, by Christopher Gavigan for HealthyChild.org. It includes advice from witty, down-to-earth pediatrician and author Harvey Karp, and reminiscences from Tobey Maguire, Michelle Obama, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tom Hanks and others.
*Of course, you can’t go wrong with Al Gore’s new book, Our Choice, of which 100% of the profits go to the Alliance for Climate Protection.
*Buy Fred Krupp’s and Miriam Horn’s LastStop Earth from the Environmental Defense Fund’s book store, and help benefit this non-profit.
*The Surfrider Foundation and landscaping expert Douglas Kent collaborated on Ocean Friendly Gardens: A How-To Gardening Guide to Help Restore a Healthy Coast and Ocean. This manual details ways to create water-conserving landscape designs and irrigation, while preventing runoff that deadens our marine environments. Order through Surfrider.
*Budding citizen journalists should read Elizabeth Royte’s Garbage Land and Bottlemania before they ride along to the source of trouble, and, to deepen their analysis of media, her The Tapir’s Morning Bath. See Royte’s blog

Speaking of bottles, make this the season you give everyone on your list a reusable water bottle that’s PVC and BPA-free.

Tote bottles and who knows what in a cute recycled bag from Olive and Myrtle, which also has fresh-looking recycled paper journals, plus traditional toys, and more.

Bicycles: The latest are commute-and-carry haulers, some with buckets. See my article in E. Magazine.

Personal Care: Go gentle on yourself, and support rainforest communities, with
Alba Botanica’s Rainforest Rescue containing Andiroba and Brazil Nut Oil from Forest Stewardship Council-certified forestlands. The Body Shop carries FSC-certified foot files and nail brushes. Eco elegant! For travel, we love l’Occitane’s little tins of pure shea butter, fairly traded, and their certified organic lavender body lotion. For both fairly traded and organic soaps, give Dr. Bronner’s. For plenty more delectable, phthalate and paraben free cosmetics, see my list.

Apparel:

The most sustainable clothing fiber, even greener than organic cotton, is something post-consumer-recycled. And it doesn’t have to be from Goodwill, although their designer wares are as chic as any. Look for local designers who make new designs from old materials, like 1979, whose Made in Hawaii tops and frocks use soft, faded material from vintage men’s aloha shirts. Or Soozou, which makes beach bags and totes from used sails. Timberland’s Earthkeeper line, with those tags giving the carbon footprint of the item, looks pretty irresistible for someone with a weakness for boots.
Moving on…

Jewelry: In an era of conflict diamonds, the mindful consumer will seek out jewelry that’s ethically sourced as well as free of the taint of ecosystems destroyed by arsenic from gold mining. No such problem with Meesah’s earrings and bangles made of repurposed fishing lines or Bakelite fragments! For more ideas see The Green Guide’s jewelry guide.

Edibles: My Dad always says he wants nothing more for Xmas than good health and a package of fresh-baked cookies from Dancing Deer. The latter I can give him. After all, it’s only once a year! For the rest, buy from your local farmers, who will be happy to fill your gift baskets with fresh selections. Find them by entering your zip code at Local Harvest .

The cook will welcome something earthy and authentic, like an unglazed soapstone pot from Vermont, Vermontstonegifts.com, or a terracotta tagine, from tagines.com

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Oh, and you can preorder my book, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth through Simple, Everyday Choices, for delivery in March, here.

Happy Holidays, one and all!

Lead-Free Green Toy Tips and Shopping List

2009-11-27T14:04:00.000-08:00

Every year, toxic levels of lead are found in name brand toys, bought in mainstream stores, in tests by the Center for Environmental Health. This, despite federal legislation passed in January 2009 banning lead and phthalates in toys for young children. No need to panic; there are plenty of lead-free toys. Here’s how to find them.

First, what to avoid. Items in ever category, from painted wood blocks and wire bead sets to action figures, plush toys, cheap jewelry and decorated water bottles, have been recalled for high levels of lead.

Check your child’s wish list against this U.S. Centers for Disease Control list of toys recalled for lead levels by the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC).. You can also search CPSC’s recalls by month. Give heightened scrutiny to imported toys made in Asia, and other countries that lack lead regulations. When in doubt, don’t buy, even if they’re from formerly trusted name brands.
Lists are just the tip of the iceberg. By the time most toys get recalled, they’ve already been sold. Give strict scrutiny to imported toys, including those with big U.S. brand names. Exception: Toys with an independently-verified CE safety label from the EU.

Here’s what to look for:

*Toys sold by trusted retailers you can talk with, and who can verify their products come from manufacturers who avoid lead. Like The Playstore.
*Toys bearing the CE label and an independent third party’s verifying stamp.
*Green toys made in the USA or Canada of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) wood, like many by Holgate, Rosie Hippo and others, or the colorful tea and cookware sets, trucks and more made from recycled plastic milk jugs by companies like Green Toys.
*Mothering Magazine's current issue with 24 green, nontoxic, fair-trade toys, including a crocheted astronaut and rocket ship!
*Toys made by PVC-free companies on Greenpeace’s Toy Report Card.
In addition to phthalates, PVC plastic often contains lead.
*Shop using Healthy Child Healthy World’s downloadable toy list, also on mobile. ***PLUS*** A great gift for parents: their practical environmental health book, out in paperback this year, by Christopher Gavigan.
*Toys tested for lead and phthalates and vetted for safety by Good Guide and their partner Healthy Stuff, where you can search by brand.

Beyond safety, there are other criteria, so check out Huffington Post’s 15 worst tasteless and offensive toys on sale this year! Ho-ho-ho!

Want more simple green living tips? Subscribe to our free monthly e-newsletter at GreenerPenny.com. Follow us at Twitter.com/Greenerpenny and become a fan on GreenerPenny’s Facebook page.
Thanks!
Mindy

BPA-free sport and baby bottle list

2009-11-13T15:27:00.001-08:00

To ensure that your reusable bottle, or your baby's nurser, isn't releasing Bisphenol-A (BPA) into your favorite drinks, first check that the bottles aren’t polycarbonate (PC) plastic, which contains the hormone-disrupting chemical. Here is GreenerPenny's newly updated shopping list for BPA-free bottles for baby, you and kids.

BPA-free BOTTLES List (Note: Many come in sippy cup or 12-oz. kid-size versions, too, and some offer water filter/purification attachments) Stainless Steel: Camelbak Ecousable's stainless steel bottles have nifty new half-turn loop tops. Enviro Products makes an "I Bottle My Own" version for clean water non-profit Riverkeeper . Classic Kleen Kanteen (incl 12 oz), at Greenfeet.com Thermos compact stainless bottle with cup lid ThinkSport Stainless Courtney, a reader, comments that this shapely, grippable double-walled stainless model is her fave. Lined Aluminum: Sigg's new EcoCare lining, in bottles made since August 2008, has been independently tested and found BPA-free. The old linings contained BPA. BPA-free Plastics: The newest plastic in sports bottles is Tritan copolyester, which has the clarity and colors of Lexan without the BPA. Tritan Bottles: Cambelbak Tritan REI Nalgene OTG Tritan (12 oz) and (HDPE #2) loop-top bottles Polyethylene (PETE #1): Katadyn (contains a carbon water filter) and Novara Flowers widemouth bottle, at REI.com Polypropylene #5: Rubbermaid Chug Sport, Sippin' Sport Somafab Crystal Polypro ThinkSport Tupperware kids' bottles, including Kung Fu Panda, Little Princess and Dora; Impressions lidded tumblers (12 oz.); Ice Prisms Bowls and Tumblers (however, the pitcher that comes with the set is PC!) BABY BOTTLES

Glass:
Dr. Brown's
Bornfree
Evenflo Classics

Non-PC Plastic (BPA-free)
Adiri (#5)
Bornfree: either polyamide (PA) or polyethersulphone (PES)
Gerber Fashion Tints & Clear View (#5)
Green to Grow (PES)
Medela breastmilk storage and feeding set
Playtex (#4)
Sassy MAM (#5)
Think Baby (PES)

Why avoid BPA? Last spring, the U.S. National Toxicology Program warned that BPA may pose a threat to human health. Studies have connected BPA with diabetes and heart disease in humans, and behavioral and reproductive problems in animals. In lab tests it has caused normal human cells to express genes linked to breast cancer. BPA is already present in 93% of Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s “body burden” studies of representative populations. BPA has been found to migrate more readily out of polycarbonate when the plastic is heated, washed in strong detergents, scratched or worn-out. All sports or baby bottles are subject to these conditions, but, happily, not all are made of PC. Nalgene has announced it will phase out its clear, colorful PC Lexan bottles, and Wal-mart has removed PC baby bottles from its Canada stores and pledged to stop selling them in the U.S.

Got questions or tips? Ask Mindy and subscribe to our FREE monthly e-newsletter at http://greenerpenny.com/, follow us at Twitter.com/greenerpenny, and become a GreenerPenny Facebook fan!

Best recycled paper products for home & office

2009-11-09T10:50:00.001-08:00

Although one New York City family famously pledged to live without toilet tissue for a year, as chronicled in No Impact Man, post-consumer-recycled paper is about as low-impact as most of us can get. And actually that's quite a lot. In addition to saving trees, which store CO2 and keep it from further warming Earth's atmosphere, making recycled paper uses about 50% less energy than making virgin paper, according to the California Department of Environmental Management. Carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases are much on our minds this Blog Action Day, whose theme is climate change. Office and School Paper Why post-consumer? Because it means that the paper has actually been used and recycled. Plain "recycled" can include virgin paper manufacturing scraps. So look for at least 30% post-consumer-waste (PCW or PCR) recycled content in all the paper you buy. In an ideal world, we could all afford 100% PCW paper, which saves 5 lbs. Of CO2 per ream (500 sheets), as calculated by Stop Global Warming. But the cheapest I could find in stores was MEAD 100% PCR multiuse recycled copy paper, 24-lb weight, for over $22/ream (500 sheets). Hammermill 30% PCR multiuse paper was about $5/ream. That still saves about 1.6 lbs of CO2! Both papers are available at Recycled Products; 30% multiuse PCR reams can also be bought for about $5 at Staples stores. Recycled Paper with PCW from 30–100 percent, as well as chlorine-free, eco-certified, and tree-free papers can be found from the following makers: Badger Paper Boise Aspen Dolphin Blue Green Field Paper Hammermill Mohawk Paper New Leaf Wasau Staples sells its own, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified brand; its labels say that their 30% PCW paper reduces greenhouse gases by 11% and their 100% PCW stock means 37% less carbon emitted. Online retailers, which often have better prices, include Amazon Recycled Products The Paper Mill Store / Paper Towels, Napkins, Tissues The up-to 80% PCW paper towels, napkins, facial and toilet tissues made by the companies below are also processed without chlorine (PCF), thus keeping toxic dioxins out of the environment. Cascade’s "North River" brand Earth First (at Safeway stores) Planet Seventh Generation, / Whole Foods’s 365 / Marcal contains 20-60% PCR, according to Conservatree. Kimberly Clark's Scott paper products have pledged to go 40% PCW recycled and FSC certified by 2011. An informative place to shop for green papers is Treecycle. Also see Greenpeace's guide, which lists brands of facial and toilet tissues, paper towels and napkins that have at least 100% recycled content, 50% post-consumer-recycled content, and are processed without chlorine bleach. And do your own paper use/carbon emissions calculations courtesy of Environmental Defense Fund. Since it's Blog Action Day, we've signed on to take action to stop global warming here. Please join us! And impress (and motivate) your friends with Pew's global warming facts and stats.

Top Ten Cosmetic Ingredients to Avoid

2009-10-13T22:18:00.000-07:00

Here's what to look out for, and steer clear of, on ingredients lists in the personal care product aisles.

1. Aluminum Starch/ Octenylsuccinate: Linked to cancer and developmental/reproductive harm.

2. Antibacterials/ antimicrobials such as Triclosan, which promote the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria.

3. Coal tar colors: Includes FD&C and D & C colors, especially blue 1 and green 3. Cancer links.

4. Ethoxylated Chemicals (the “PEGs” and “Eths”s): These sudsing/moisturizing agents are made by adding ethylene oxide to fatty acids so they’ll become more water soluble. This process can create carcinogenic 1,4 dioxane. Watch out for PEG-80 sorbitan laurate, PEG-6 methyl ether, Polyethylene glycol, PEG-20, Sodium laureth sulfate,Ceteareth-20 and -30, and many more substances with “PEG”- and “eth” in their names.

5. Formaldehyde: While it won't show up on ingredients lists, this known human carcinogen can be present as a contaminant in nearly all types of personal care products. Look for its contaminated "cousins": diazolidinyl urea, imidazolidinyl urea, and quaternium .

6. Fragrance: Synthetic fragrance using phthalates, isoeugenol, cinnamal, and BHT--a fragrance used to mask fragrance--is linked to cancer and developmental/ reproductive harm, allergies.

7. Heavy Metals: Lead and mercury in lip and eye makeups can cause nervous system and brain damage.

8. Nano particles: Still new on the block, but research indicates they may pose possible brain damage, cancer risks.

9. Synthetic Preservatives: Methylparaben and other parabens have been found in breast cancer tumors and stimulate growth of breast cancer cells in the lab.

10. Silica: A risk mostly when used in powders that can be easily inhaled. Mica and talc, also used in powders, are low-risk, although talc can be contaminated with fibers similar to cancer-causing asbestos.

The list was compiled using Environmental Working Group's awesome Skin Deep Database .