Pollution in Your community

Feb 2nd, 2006

Get an in-depth pollution report for your county, covering air, water, chemicals, and more. Just go here and enter your zip code. You can find out how your county ranks regarding smog and soot, air pollutants that increase the risk of cancer, and water quality. You can also locate the polluters and see how close they are to your home or workplace. I was distressed to see that in 2002 Douglas county was ranked one of the dirtiest/worst 20% of all counties in the U.S. in terms of total environmental releases. Find out how your community ranks here: http://www.scorecard.org/

How Toxic is your Neighborhood?

Jan 18th, 2006

Get an in-depth pollution report for your county, covering air, water, chemicals, and more. Just go here and enter your zip code. You can find out how your county ranks regarding smog and soot, air pollutants that increase the risk of cancer, and water quality. You can also locate the polluters and see how close they are to your home or workplace. I was distressed to see that in 2002 my county (Douglas, Kansas) was ranked one of the dirtiest/worst 20% of all counties in the U.S. in terms of total environmental releases. Find out how your community ranks here: http://www.scorecard.org/

Turned off, But Still Making You Pay Higher Costs

Nov 27th, 2005

I found a good article on how much electricity is being consumed by electronic appliances that you think are turned off. The NY Times requires you to open an account in order to read any of the articles. Because I didn’t want to make you do that, I copied and pasted the article here. My bad. Cheryl November 17, 2005, New York Times The Unwasteful Home I Vant to Drink Your Vatts By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON — Households across the land are infested with vampires. That’s what energy experts call those gizmos with two sharp teeth that dig into a wall socket and suck juice all night long. All day long, too, and all year long. Most people assume that when they turn off the television set it stops drawing power. But that’s not how most TV’s (and VCR’s and other electronic devices) work. They remain ever in standby mode, silently sipping energy to the tune of 1,000 kilowatt hours a year per household, awaiting the signal to roar into action. "As a country we pay $1 billion a year to power our TV’s and VCR’s while they’re turned off," said Maria T. Vargas, a spokeswoman for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program, which sets voluntary standards for energy use, and grants its ratings to the most efficient products. There are billions of vampires in the United States, drawing more than enough current in the typical house to light a 100-watt light bulb 24/7, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, a research arm of the Energy Department. These silent energy users include the chargers for devices that run on batteries, like cellphones, iPods and personal digital assistants, and all the devices around the house that have adapters because they run on direct current, like answering machines. Some have both batteries and steady power use, like cordless phones. Experts call all those adapters "wall warts." Many deliver in direct current only half as much energy as they suck out of the wall; the rest is wasted. Vampires and wall warts are only part of the problem. DSL or cable modems, among other things, are increasingly likely to be left on around the clock. A computer left on continuously can draw nearly as much power as an efficient refrigerator – 70 to 250 watts, depending on the model and how it is used. It’s not that hard to engineer a more energy-aware computer: Dell introduced one in 2004 that drew 1.4 watts in "sleep" mode and just under one watt when "off." But energy-efficient design is not necessarily rewarded in the marketplace, where people who are shopping for the latest shiny electronic device are unlikely to put its energy consumption rate while "off" topmost on a list of considerations. Energy efficiency experts say the answer lies instead in industry-wide standards, which would require manufacturers to build appliances with low consumption when in standby. Just about everyone supports such a move. President Bush early on announced that electric devices purchased by the federal government would need to meet a standby consumption standard. Congress is pushing forward, too. This summer it passed a bill to set testing protocols for measuring energy use, clearing the way for nationwide consumption standards. The Energy Department held a meeting this week to discuss developing the standards. California has already adopted its own, to take effect in 2006. Among the worst vampires are big-screen televisions, mainly because of satellite and cable boxes, which can draw up to 30 watts when turned off, experts say. Indeed, the words "off" and "on" no longer seem to apply; a better word might be "idling." "They won’t even say ‘off’ now; they’ll say ‘power,’ " noted Alan K. Meier, a senior energy analyst at the International Energy Agency, a consortium based in Paris. "My washing machine draws five watts even when there’s no sign of intelligent life." One culprit is the microchip, whose presence is revealed by a "soft button" instead of a switch. Microchips are generally an improvement over mechanical controls because they are more durable and sophisticated. They also help reduce the size and weight of consumer products. But they require a continuous trickle of electricity. Energy experts say it would be simple to cut that trickle in half – not by running around the house unplugging everything in sight, which would require much resetting of clocks, but by engineering products differently. It doesn’t cost much to make a more efficient device: sometimes just 50 cents a unit, they say. But consumers don’t consider invisible energy use – "there’s no labeling of power use in ’standby,’ " Mr. Meier said, and "no way for people to recognize what a low-standby device is" – making government-imposed energy efficiency the best hope, he said. The Energy Department would be in charge of setting standby mode standards that would apply to all consumer products sold in the United States. "Things may be a small step for each individual consumer," said Douglas Faulkner, the acting assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, "but they can add up across the country." The Energy Star program, whose labels on electronics help consumers comparison shop, has announced that it will not rate a product that fails its standby mode requirements (consumers in the market for VCR’s, among other things, can see how they rate at energystar.gov). "Consumers are buying more electronics, and there are more consumers," Mr. Faulkner said. "So the amount used by these devices is going up." All the more reason to make each item as energy efficient as possible.

Is Your Favorite Seafood Safe to Eat? Sorting Out the Confusion

Oct 20th, 2005

Confused about whether your favorite seafood is safe? Check out these resources from EatingWell. I’ve pulled them all together in one post to make it easier for you to access them:

Catch of the Day – Special Report [pdf] here
Wild vs Farmed: How green is your salmon? [pdf] here
The Great Salmon Challenge – Blind-tasting a global bevy of fish choices here
The Essential EatingWell Seafood Guide (mercury safety rating, omega-3s, harvest notes) [pdf] here
Unfit Fish – Avoiding mercury: no-nonsense guidelines for the seafood consumer here
Recipes: Grilled Salmon with North African Flavors here Sautéed Flounder with Orange-Shallot Sauce here Sizzled Citrus Shrimp here

Toxins in Our Food

Oct 19th, 2005

Have you noticed that more people are becoming concerned about the quality of our foods? Even conventional grocery stores are offering organic choices and free range, hormone-free meat and poultry. I think this is a great trend. I’m always on the lookout for "clean" food and am willing to pay a little more for it. It’s becoming surprisingly affordable.

I thought you might be interested in an article I came across today. It comes from Toxic Relief by Don Colbert, M.D., (Lake Mary, FL: Siloam, 2001) How to Get Sick: A Modern Prescription for Illness . . . Eat Grocery Store Produce and Processed Foods

What a mouthful — literally!

Pesticides and herbicides are among the world’s most deadly chemical compounds. If a pesticide or herbicide kills one thing, it will probably kill, mutate, or seriously damage a whole host of other things. The problem with these compounds is that they tend to stay on the fruit, vegetable, or plant they were applied to.

Toxins from our water, air, food, and buildings only make things worse. Most pesticides are known carcinogens, and some of them pose as counterfeit versions of the female hormone estrogen. These xenoestrogens may promote cancer by stimulating estrogen receptors in the body. Animal growth hormones are another cause for concern. They don’t disappear after an animal is butchered, prepared for market, or cooked. They go right into our stomachs. Nor do they disappear from the milk of a cow treated with antibiotics.

It is estimated that one glass of commercial, non-organic milk purchased from a grocery story may contain the residue of up to 100 different antibiotics! Beyond the hormones that are injected directly into the animal, many of the meats we eat come from animals fed with antibiotic-laden feeds.

Growth hormones in our food supply are even blamed for causing the abnormally early menses of young girls and for the overabundance of female hormones in young men. (Female hormones are given to milk cows to increase production.) Source: Don Colbert, M.D., Toxic Relief (Lake Mary, FL: Siloam, 2001)

Good Fish, Bad Fish: There's a Catch to the Catch of the Day

Jul 13th, 2005

More than 70% of the world’s fish stocks are overfished. Confused about what fish are okay to eat? According to the California Academy of Sciences, the best fish to eat are "fast-growing, abundant, sensibly managed, with minimal bycatch and ecological impacts, or with minimally polluting farming methods." Download your pocket seafood guide here: http://www.organicconsumers.org/toxic/seafood-guide.pdf

Clean up the Yard and Throw a Summer Party

Jun 30th, 2005

What Kind of Shape is Your Yard In? Without realizing it, you may be making nasty comments to yourself about yourself when you go into the front or back yard. You may be mumbling that you’re too lazy to pick up the trash, weed the garden beds, and put the tools away.

Every time you see these things on your way to and from the house (which is really quite often), you have an opportunity to wince a little and feel overwhelmed. If you live in an apartment, you may feel this way when you look at your entryway or balcony. Is it time to take down the winter decorations and clear away the empty clay pots? Why not take advantage of this 4th of July holiday weekend to pick up the yard and get it company ready?

I host a barbecue every year on the 4th because I live on the river close to the big fireworks display. This party gives me a built-in opportunity every year to get my yard spiffed up. If you don’t have a summer party planned, why not plan one? It can serve as a motivator to get the yard cleaned up.

Popular Junk in People’s Yards

• an old couch that needs to be hauled off
• rusted farm implements
• a broken refrigerator
• empty pots
• unraveled hoses
• broken toys
• rakes without handles
• hand tools
• buckets, old tubs, and other containers

How Can You Simplify Your Yard?

One reason our yards get trashed is that we have too much stuff and our lives are too complicated. Can you think of ways to simplify your yard?

Have you noticed that every spoonful of dirt you turn over is prime real estate for weeds? I set a goal years ago to have gardens all the way around my house. This is one goal I wish I hadn’t achieved. I also decided that it would be easier to mulch my entire yard instead of mow it. What was I thinking? There is nothing easier than mowing – except maybe pavement.

This spring it dawned on me that I didn’t have the time to care sufficiently for a complicated yard design. While drinking coffee and staring out at it one morning, I finally decided that destruction was the answer. I started getting excited. I longed for a simpler yard that wouldn’t embarrass me and remind me of my overblown garden goals.

To simplify all of the yard tasks I decided to tear out some of the flower beds lined with rocks (so I wouldn’t have to weed whack them) and let the yard mulch be taken over by things I can mow. Yes weeds. I can plant grass seed in the fall.

I put an ad in my local freecycle group (national group, freecycle.org) that I had free limestone garden rocks for the taking. Two groups of people came and took all the big rocks. A friend helped me take out the remaining smaller rocks so I can easily mow that big garden plot now instead of weed and weed whack. I love it! I can take care of my entire yard now in about 30 minutes because of those two simple changes – taking out some of the gardens and garden rocks so I can mow and turning my yard back to yard, not mulch. Just to clarify: using mulch in gardens is a fabulous idea – mulching the entire yard is not a fabulous idea unless you have a truck, an inexpensive endless supply of mulch, and free weekends to haul and spread it.

Is there something you can do in your yard to simplify yard tasks? Whatever you do, don’t turn over any more dirt…unless you really like to weed.

Here are a few more tips for cleaning up the yard:

1. See your yard as if for the first time. Is there anything junky that needs to be put away, gotten rid of, or cleaned up? Why not take a few minutes to put anything away in your yard that doesn’t belong there.
2. If something big needs to be hauled off, contact the city to see about trash pickup. They will usually come to pick up large items if you make an appointment.
3. Determine that you will weed 30 minutes every morning or evening after work. On this regimen, most yards (even neglected ones) will look pretty great by the end of the week. Put some mulch on them (yes mulch) and you won’t have to weed so much next time.

It will feel great to take care of your yard. I know, I just did it. I feel a lot more on top of life. A junky yard can make you feel junky. A clean yard can make you feel clean and green.

Get a Really Green Lawn

Apr 27th, 2005

I read an interesting article about the use of chemicals on our lawns.  Here are a few highlights from – "Refuse to Use ChemLawn, Be Truly Green."

TruGreen ChemLawn is the number one lawn care provider in the United States, servicing more than 3.5 million households. An analysis of the products TruGreen ChemLawn offers on their customer receipt shows that:

• 17 of 32 (53%) of TruGreen ChemLawn’s pesticide products include ingredients that are likely carcinogens, as defined by the EPA and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
• All 32 of TruGreen ChemLawn’s pesticide products include ingredients that pose threats to the environment, including: threats to water supplies, aquatic organisms, and non-targeted insects.
• 13 of 32 (41%) of TruGreen ChemLawn’s pesticide products include ingredients that are banned or restricted in other countries.

This site offers instructions for growing a great lawn using alternatives to pesticides and provides quite a bit of other useful information. Check them out here. Also visit Organic Consumers Association.

Happy 35th Earth Day!

Apr 22nd, 2005

Let’s celebrate Earth Day today and every day. Here are a few resources to inspire and educate us:

1. Earth Day – EPA resources – www.epa.gov/earthday/
2. Healthy Lawn, Healthy Environment – PDF download
3. Greenscaping Your Lawn and Garden – PDF download
4. More Earth Day Resources: http://www.edselect.com/earth_day.htm
5. Happy Earth Day Coloring and Activities Book – http://www.epa.gov/region5/publications/happy.pdf

A Few Earth Day Facts. . . .

• Every ton of paper that is recycled saves 17 trees.
• The energy we save when we recycle one glass bottle is enough to light a light bulb for four hours.
• Each person throws away approximately four pounds of garbage every day. One bus carries as many people as 40 cars!
• More than 1/3 of all energy is used by people at home. Most families throw away about 88 pounds of plastic every year. We each use about 12,000 gallons of water every year.
• 1/3 of all water is used to flush the toilet.
• The 500 million automobiles on earth burn an average of 2 gallons of fuel a day.
• Each gallon of fuel releases 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.
• Approximately 5 million tons of oil produced in the world each ear ends up in the ocean.
• By 1995 over 200 of the world landfills will be full.
• The amount of wood and paper we throw away is enough to heat 50 million homes for 20 years.
• Earth is 2/3 water. But all the fresh water streams only represent one hundredth of one percent.
• 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean every year.
• It takes 90% less energy to recycle aluminum cans than to make new ones.
• 5 billion aluminum cans are used each year.
• 84 percent of all household waste can be recycled.
• For every 2000 pounds of paper (1 ton) recycled, we save 7,000 gallons of water free from chemicals.
• Approximately only 10 percent of every landfill can be cleaned up.
• Ivory comes from dead elephants, its best not to buy it.
• Fur coats often come from endangered animals, it’s best not to buy them.
• One gallon of motor oil can contaminate up to 2 million gallons of water, so dispose of it properly!
• Here is an example of the water we use every day: 3-7 gallons for toilet 25-30 gallons for tub 50-70 gallons for a 10 minute shower 25-40 gallons for one washing machine load 9-12 gallons for one dishwasher load
• Here is an example of how long it takes some things take to break down: plastics take 500 years aluminum cans take 500 years organic materials take 6 months cotton, rags, paper take 6 months. source: http://www.planetpals.com/earthday.html

The take-home message is that each of us can make simple changes that will have a large impact on our environment. It’s kinda like cleaning up your own home so that you can live safely and comfortably.

What Can You Do About the Excess Stuff in Your House?

Aug 26th, 2004

Do you resist cleaning out your garage or your basement because you don’t know what you’ll do with the stuff you decide to get rid of? It’s sometimes hard to decide whether to have a garage sale, take it to a thrift store, or leave it right where it is undisturbed. Choice number 3 often wins. There’s another choice that’s pretty exciting. It’s called freecycling . . . it’s kinda like dumpster diving on the internet. I am a co-moderator of the Lawrence, KS, freecyclers.

Here’s how we describe freecycling:

What is freecycling? The idea is simple: FREE + RECYCLE = FREECYCLE. Use the internet to get rid of things around the house that you no longer need or are cluttering your life. Or, find things others want to get rid of that you can put to good use.

• Do you have a closet or garage full of things you no longer need?
• Do you want to declutter your life?
• Are garage sales too much hassle, or do you have items that are usable but can’t be sold in a thrift store?

Freecyclers post items such as appliances and electronics (both working and non-working but fixable), furniture, scrap wood, gardening supplies, moving boxes and packing supplies, used magazines, home decor items, clothes, crafting supplies, toys, books, etc. Join the freecycle movement to help keep our unused, unwanted things out of landfills and into the hands of people who want or need them.

"It’s not about exchanging junk. It’s about reducing waste and finding new uses for old items rather than disposing of our natural resources as if they were never-ending. It’s about teaching our children respect for Mother Earth and the value of sharing and lending a hand whenever possible. It’s about becoming more sensible consumers thereby contributing not only to the preservation of our planet for future generations but also to the effort to change a few values so that we may leave a better, more caring society for our children and their children to live in." – Columbia George Freecycle Group Moderator  

How does it work?

Freecycling is easy. To participate, simply subscribe to the freecycle group in your local area (http://www.freecycle.org Use the list to post a message about a usable item(s) that you’d like to give away, or an item you are seeking. Receive emails from others who have items to offer (or view postings on the Yahoo Groups website if you don’t want to receive lots of extra email).

Everything posted on the list must be FREE and legal. No politics, religion, advertising or spam, and no trading or bartering is allowed. The email discussion group acts as a venue for freecyclers to connect. Those interested in items reply directly to the poster and arrangements for picking up items occur off the list through email between the "offerree" and the "wantee."

Click here for some ideas of what can be freecycled. More about the Freecycle Movement

Begun in March 2003 in Tucson, AZ, Freecycle is rapidly expanding to cities across the globe. As of mid-August 2004, there are 1298 networks and 424,148 Freecyclers worldwide.

Freecycle in the News Freecycling explored as alternative to dumping From each according to his junk, to each according to her need Freecycling in Tucson

"Freecycling lies somewhere between the garage sale and the dump, and is much cooler than either. It’s an innovative concept that harnesses the power of the Internet to do what the Internet does best — eliminate the middleman and empower the individual. Unlike traditional charitable organizations that accept people’s castoffs and sell them for low prices in unappealing shops (or end up taking them to the dump anyway), freecycling allows for personal contact between donor and recipient — each gets exactly what they want, and nobody is considered a ‘charity case.’ (Indeed, many freecyclers both give and receive items on a regular basis.) It’s a perfect consumer-friendly circle: no overhead, no intermediaries, no money changing hands, no waste and no catch, and everyone’s happy.

Freecycling. . . one simple, brilliant idea that’s changing the world." – Wes, Moderator of Freecycle Austin, Texas

Join the Freecycle movement Please add your comment at the link below. We want to hear from you!