So … What’s Wrong with Plastic?

First it’s important to understand that not all plastics are created equal.  Some plastics contain harmful chemicals that can leach out into our bodies, with a host of negative side effects.  Understanding which plastics are safe, and for what uses, is no small feat.

Here’s a little rhyme I heard to keep in mind when shopping.  5 and 4, 1 and 2 – all the rest are bad for you.  So check for the number inside the little recycling triangle on the bottom of your stuff and avoid the 3’s, 6’s and 7’s.   Just to be on the safe side, you’ll likely want to go easy on the 1’s as well.

What’s the problem?  Well, plastics contain a whole host of toxic substances that are put in there to make them strong, clear and flexible.  From phthalates, to BisPhenol A, to antimony, these chemicals are accumulating in the environment and in our bodies, causing reproductive challenges and cancers to name but a few issues.  And no one knows for sure how much is okay, which makes it very difficult to regulate and protect the public.

One of the best guides that I’ve seen to plastics is on the healthy child website http://healthychild.org/5steps/5_steps_5/?gclid=CIjg5df6s5wCFSMSagodPRuwnQ

This guide walks you through each of the various types, gives you some examples, and tells you about the challenges.

So what can you do with your lunches?

1. Avoid plastic – there are other options available, including stainless steel and glass.  Where its feasible, consider switching out.

2. Use only the “safe ones”.  Since an all stainless steel lunch can weigh several pounds, it may not be a great choice for the little ones, but particularly for your food containers, choose the safe options only.

3. Never, never, EVER heat food in plastics.  Heating increases the rate of leaching, and puts it directly into your body.

4. Be extra careful with babies.  Glass bottles are not much more expensive, and are a much safer option.

5. Limit use of cling wraps and baggies – these plastics can be less stable, not to mention less environmentally friendly.

It sounds daunting, but a little knowledge can help you significantly reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals in plastic.

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Presumably, you’re sending your kids to camp because you want to give them the opportunity to reconnect with nature.  It makes sense then,to pack them away with stuff that protects the nature they’re going to visit.

So where do you start?  Well the first thing that comes to many peoples’minds when they think of camp is the bugs.  So let’s start by addressing them.  There are a few simple tips to minimize bites of all kinds, before we get to creams and potions.

1) Choose light-coloured clothing –  Not only are these much cooler in the sun, but mosquitoes are attracted to dark colours, and much less likely to bite you in lightly coloured clothing.

2) Go for coverage – A light, long-sleeved shirt is not much hotter than a t-shirt, and can drastically reduce the number of bites that kids get.  Light, long pants can offer the same kind of protection, and there’s even the kind that convert to shorts if you’re out of the woods and get too hot.  Socks are important too.  Don’t choose the low kind that leave your ankles bare.  Bites on the joints can be some of the itchiest and most annoying for the kids, so we want to avoid them as much as possible. And finally, a hat is a great way to keep the bugs from burrowing in the kids’ hair and feasting.

3)  Don’t wear anything “stinky” – Send the kids with unscented shampoos, creams and sunscreens, and try to wash their clothes in unscented detergents before they leave.  All of these things attract bugs in droves.

If you still want some kind of a bug repellent, I’d suggest using something without harmful chemicals in it.  This protects both your childrens’ health, and the plants and animals that they’re going to visit.  DEET, while quite effective as a repellent, is a toxic chemical, and should be used sparingly if at all.   The challenge is that there are so many “natural” solutions out there that really don’t work, so are hardly worth the expense and effort.  Repellents containing either eucalyptus and citronella, or both seem to be the most promising.

Smart camps will schedule activities that keep the kids out of the sun during the 11am -1pm time frame when the suns rays are most harmful.

Just like bug sprays, sunscreens have come under a great deal of scrutiny in the past few years for their chemical content, and the jury is still out on many of the specific ingredients.  We’ll stick to a few guidelines here:

1) You’ll want to avoid parabens, as you would in other skincare

products.

2) Choose something “natural’, without a huge list of chemicals in it.

3) Avoid “nanotechnology”.  We’ll address this later in a separate blog, but essentially it means that the particles are so small that they can be absorbed right into your bloodstream – not a good thing.  Avoid products that say things like “micronized”.

Here are a few other tips to green their trip:

1) Pack natural shampoos and conditioners that are phosphate-free and biodegradable, so when they end up in the water, they don’t wreak havoc on the ecosystem.

2) Pack a reusable water bottle, and encourage kids to refill at the water cooler, avoiding disposable cups and bottles.

3) Send along a crank flashlight instead.  No batteries are required, just a little hand power keeps this flashlight shining brightly.

I hope your kids have a great time at camp and come back with a renewed commitment to take care of our planet.  And I hope you’re able to get some sleep while they’re gone

For the most part, no.  Unfortunately, it is one of the most commonly
abused greenwash terms, likely because there is no standardized
definition. Generally it means that the product will break down quickly
in nature to naturally occurring components with the help of the
existing bacteria.  But how quick is quickly?

Eco-Logo, the most prevalent environmental certification in Canada
requires that products or packaging be “readily biodegradable”.  They
specify a test for all products that measures how quickly a product
breaks down.  In general they are looking for at least 60-70% breakdown
within 14 days.

This test is going to screen out a lot of products.  Take plastic bags
for example.  Technically they do biodegrade - they break down in nature
– it just takes an estimated 1000 years to do it (we don’t know for sure
since plastic bags have only been around for 50 years…).  I don’t know
about you – but that’s not my idea of biodegradable.

Another of the challenges related to biodegradability is that the tests
are quite expensive.  It can cost in excess of $1000 to test a single
product because of the length of the test.  This can be prohibitive to
the small, local manufacturer who is making products in small batchs –
in many ways just the kind of supplier that we would be looking for from
a carbon footprint perspective.

Another way to check for biodegradability is to ensure that it doesn’t
contain any key ingredients that are known to be not readily
biodegradable.  Some examples include artificial colours and scents.  A
more comprehensive list of ingredients to avoid is included here:
http://www.healthy-communications.com/ingredientstoavoid.html.

Overall – biodegradability is a tough issue to follow on your own, and
has certainly been one of the most challenging of criteria for us to
screen at Green Cricket.  Third party verification provides the easiest
way to be sure, but doesn’t cover every product category available, or
apply in every situation.  Asking questions may be the best way to go.
Never be afraid to challenge a claim.  If a product that you’re looking
for is labelled biodegradable, feel free to ask what that means, and how
they demonstrate it.  We always do.

Candles have become a staple of the décor of many homes over the lastdecade.  While going green has come to the forefront of things like cleaning and personal care products, you may not have even consideredgoing green with your candles.  You should.  The story isn’t pretty.

Conventional candles aren’t green, and they definitely aren’t healthy.  The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) found that approximately 40% of candles have lead wires in the wicks which ensure that the wick stands up tall.  Unfortunately, lead wicks also mean that the air quality in your house is severely compromised – as much as five times the amount deemed hazardous for children.  Lead poisoning has some serious side effects including hormone disruption and cognitive dysfunction to name a few.

Candles are also typically made of paraffin – most people don’t realize that paraffin is actually a petroleum product.  Burning candles indoors creates some of the same pollutants that come from your tailpipe.  If you see soot build-up around the jar, or on the ceiling above the candle, it’s a good indication of what might also be happening to your lungs.

There is a better way. Candles made from Beeswax burn much cleaner and are therefore better for the planet and for your health.  100% vegetable-based candles are also non-toxic and a good option.  Lead-free is an absolute necessity, so make sure that the wicks are made from cotton and labelled lead-free. Lastly – avoid synthetic scents, they may smell great but most are carcinogenic. Don’t buy candles from the dollar store.  Many will fail all of these tests.

You don’t need to give up candles to be green, but you may want to choose to be more strategic in the candles that you choose.  In candles, you pay for what you get – truly green candles that won’t compromise your health are more expensive to manufacture, and hence more expensive to buy.  We think it’s worth it.

Cottaging is one of the great pleasures in life, but as more and more of us head north to enjoy the great outdoors, the stress on the lakes can be more than they can bear. Here are a just a few tips on how you can minimize the impact of your cottage on the lake that you love.

1) Always choose biodegradable – Although there are no universal standards around what biodegradable means, in a nutshell it says that a product will break down into substances that are naturally occurring in a short period of time once it is used. For things like soaps, shampoos and cleaners that you’ll be using up at the cottage, this is critically important. Conventional products can literally take years to break down, which is very harmful to everything in the lake.

2) Think of your septic system – Bacteria are necessary for the effective functioning of your septic – they do the majority of the work breaking down your waste. You can imagine the problems created when you put things like antibacterial soap or toxic chemicals into your septic system which kill off all of the good bacteria. Choosing green products make a big difference when your wastewater goes directly into the environment.

3) USE your septic system – The lake is great for swimming, but it’s not a bathtub. The load of soap and shampoo that gets added directly to the lake has many implications for the plant and animal life. It makes a big difference if your wastewater runs through your septic system first before heading into the lake – 95% of the breakdown has already occurred.

You may be just one person, but there sure are a lot of you. Every year there are more and more people on the lake, and many of our lakes are being pushed to the brink. Fishing is on the decline and swimming is being threatened. We need to be much more careful with the products that we put in the lake. If you must bathe in it, be sure that you use products that have natural ingredients, are biodegradable and phosphate-free to minimize the damage.

4) Remind your renters – many long-time cottagers know these tricks, but renters can also have a big impact on the lake when they come up for their vacation. Why not leave them a note, or put it in your contracts that they need to respect the environment while they visit so that it will still be great next year.

Visit www.greencricket.ca for more information on green camping & cottaging, and green living in general. We’ve also got a full line of green products for your home & cottage.

Have a great Summer!

Have you ever read the warning label on a tube of toothpaste? Are you alarmed that toothpaste even has a warning label? I’ll guess that few people have bothered to read the safe use instructions on the package, including not swallowing the toothpaste and, on some popular brands, “Recommended for adults and children over 12 years.”

Why should we all be concerned about this? Because most people haven’t a clue what’s in toothpaste and digging up a list of ingredients takes more than a little effort.

You might be surprised to discover that conventional toothpaste contains the artificial sweetener Saccharin. Health Canada banned the use of Saccharin in food 30 years ago due to animal studies that linked consumption to an increased risk of bladder cancer. (They are currently rethinking that ban, due to heavy lobbying from the diet-food industry, but many scientists continue to recommend against lifting the ban.)

Most brands also contain Triclosan as an antibacterial agent. The EPA considers Triclosan a pesticide and part of a class of chemicals that is thought to cause cancer in humans. Most whitening toothpaste also contains lye, considered a poison by the FDA.

Then there is the controversy around fluoride. It’s not that fluoride is bad it’s just that we may be getting too much of it. When you combine toothpaste, fluoridated drinking water in some communities (not Rothesay or Quispamsis) and the consumption of all sorts of processed foods that are made with municipal water that is fluoridated, some health experts are worried that we’re ingesting too much fluoride. It builds up in our bones and among other things is linked to increasing rates of bone cancer in young boys.

Children under the age of two shouldn’t use toothpaste with fluoride and all children should be supervised while brushing to prevent swallowing. Not that it helps. The commercial brands for kids are formulated to taste just like candy and putting a toothbrush spread with children’s toothpaste in a child’s mouth is like giving them a lollypop and telling them not to swallow.

Now that you know some ingredients you might like to avoid, there are several alternatives to conventional drug store toothpaste, including options for children.

Tom’s of Maine gets a good rating since it’s saccharin-free, Triclosan-free and offers several options without fluoride, as do Natures Gate, Jason and Green Beaver (made in Canada). All carry a great variety of flavours. My children won’t budge from Tom’s of Maine Apricot and I prefer Nature’s Gate Fennel.

These brands are more expensive than convention brands but keep in mind you only need a small amount to do the job. For a little extra whitening power (minus the lye) keep a little pot of baking soda by the sink and brush with that a few times a week. Combined with proper flossing you won’t be compromising your dental health for the sake of overall wellness.

[written by guest blogger Bridget Oland]

The environmental implications of BP’s spill from the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico is very concerning on so many levels.  But as I listen to the media create theatre out of bashing the big oil companies, it occurs to me that the real culprits here are you and me.  The problem is that you and I don’t really want to know how oil gets from the ground and into the tanks of our cars, or into the energy plants that produce electricity for our homes and offices and stores and streets.

So long as we are going to consume oil, we are going to have environmental disasters that result from accidental oil spills.  It is a random, yet probabilistic fact.  I don’t believe that anyone intends that these things happen, and maybe more regulation and inspection would help.

My point is that with everything we do with this planet, there is a balance between the consumption of non-renewable resources, economic prosperity, and lifestyle choice.  Be happy with the choices you make, be aware of the consequences those choices make to the planet, and respect with dignity the impact those choices have on the living things around you.

As my First Nations’ brothers and sisters in Canada say “Judge no man before you have walked two moons in his moccasins”.

[written by David Greene]

This year Earth Day marks a couple of milestone birthdays: 40 years since the original US Earth Day in 1970 and 20 years since the first International Earth Day in 1990. Organized as a series of teach-ins by a small group of educators and environmentalists, the 1970 Earth Day was envisioned as a grass-roots response to the environmental crisis of the day, inspired by the impact of and lack of government action in response to an oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara CA. Planners aspired to attract crowds as large and passionate as those protesting the war then being waged in Viet Nam to make themselves heard on the issue of the environment. From their actions, 20 million demonstrators observed the first Earth Day and urged leaders and citizens to make the changes necessary to preserve the health of the planet. Since that time Earth Day has grown to become an international event, marked in 141 different countries in 1990 to where it is today, about to be celebrated by a billion people in over 190 countries and coinciding with the World People’s Conference on Climate Change.

According to Gaylor Nelson, the founder of the original Earth Day: “Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.”

Inspired by the idea that an international movement could start from the actions of a few individuals, I started a list of things my family could do to celebrate Earth Day’s 40^th birthday:

· Plant something. Planting vegetation, particularly trees, helps to reduce greenhouse gases and improves the quality of the air we breathe.

· Get outside. Many reasons are speculated as to why April 22^nd was chosen as the date for Earth Day. Nelson offers that among them was it was late enough in the spring for good weather. Take advantage of the sunshine and warmer air to get out and enjoy the Earth. Whether it’s gardening, going for a walk or playing out of doors, remind yourself why the environment is worth protecting.

· Start a lifestyle change. Earth Day is a great day to start that resolution you keep putting off, such as bringing that travel mug to work, making a point of not buying anything with excess packaging, or mine: stocking my trunk with reusable shopping bags for those spontaneous trips to the store.

· Leave the car at home. Automobile travel is among the biggest contributors there is to climate change that we have direct control over. Earth Day is a great day to ride a bike to work, take the bus or carpool with a friend.

· Get rid of litter. My son recently did a science project on biodegradation inspired by the amount of trash the melting snow revealed in our local park. Recognizing that little of the garbage we saw would be properly recycled, his Earth Day project is for us to go back with some bags and gloves to clean the place up.

· Cook an Earth Day meal. Make up a dinner sourced from local, organic growers to experience what healthy, low environmental impact eating tastes like.

What are you planning to do to celebrate Earth Day? Tell me your ideas!

Happy Birthday, Earth Day!

[written by Guest Blogger Jaipaul Massey-Singh]

Bio: For Jaipaul, reviewing and debunking the claims of “green” products is a natural extension of his quest to create a more environmentally responsible home along with his wife and 6 year-old son. Jaipaul brings several perspectives to our Blog; as a consultant to companies seeking environmental certification, as a community leader in green issues and as a presenter of the An Inconvenient Truth presentation on global climate change.