Do you or someone you know have a new baby at home? If so, take note. One of the most important baby care safety tips is to make sure you are feeding your infant the most natural, pure foods you can find with no additives. Which means: try to feed your baby foods that don’t come from a package.
Everyone knows about the Oscars, but have you heard about The Toxies? This Wednesday, March 3 at 11 am, the first-ever red carpet awards ceremony for “Bad Actor” chemicals will take place at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Bad Actor chemicals include some of the most toxic compounds known. Despite the health risks from these poisons, they lurk in many common products and pollute the environment, threatening our children and families.
Once-thriving ecosystems around the globe are now choking to death on our discarded plastic relics. It’s a problem that’s on the minds of Generation Green members, so we’ve begun to share a few tips to help you reduce the amount of plastic that the global polymer machine creates on your behalf.
In case you need a little extra motivation, read about the Great Pacific Garbage Gyre, the continent-sized mass of bottles, toys, bags, cigarette lighters, and other plastic trash floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Twice the size of Texas, the Gyre is a moving reminder of the fact that, when it comes to throwing away plastic, there simply is no Away. more »
The entire Ecuadorian Amazon was once a thriving ecosystem and home to thousands of species (including one called homo sapiens). But Chevron-Texaco’s operations have turned this living treasure into a polluted monument to greed and shortsightedness. If you haven’t already, please take a moment to click here and support Amazon Watch’s ChevronToxico campaign.
It’s time the company that profited from the Amazon Chernobyl take responsibility for the destruction those profits was built on.
In response to the campaign, Chevron-Texaco is ramping up its ongoing effort to weasel out of paying for the damage it caused in Ecuador. In a press release last week, the Chevron Corp. announced that “newly discovered evidence” shows that the Special Master appointed by the court to investigate the allegations, a gentleman named Richard Cabrera, did not disclose that he owns a remediation company that could benefit from the potential clean-up in Ecuador. Because of this nonexistent (and, by the way, previously disclosed) “conflict of interest,” Chevron is asking that the case be thrown out of court. more »
The Center for Environmental Health is working on a number of projects to protect children and families from dangerous chemicals in plastics, like Bisphenol-A in plastic water bottles and canned food linings and lead in fake leather plastic.
But the problem with plastics is more than just the immediate effect they can have on people’s health. Plastic waste builds up and overwhelms our landfills and municipal waste systems because it doesn’t biodegrade like natural materials do. Think about it: those disposable plastic cups that we all drank from and tossed in the trash at the ballgame, street festival, or Earth Day celebration twelve years ago may have broken down into smaller parts, but each of those parts is still the same undigestible, undegradable polymer that can choke ecosystems. Same goes for our plastic bags. And the straws in our drinks. And our spoons from the ice cream shop. And the lids on our coffee cups. . .
When it all adds up, it creates some really nasty problems, like the Great Pacific Gyre. So, today we’re sharing some of the blogs and sites that we look to in order to help us find ways to use less plastic.
Fake Plastic Fish: This is a great blog detailing realistic ways to cut down on your plastic usage in everyday life. It follows a Bay Area resident’s attempt to cut her plastic waste down to almost nothing during the span of a year. http://fakeplasticfish.com/
Life Without Plastic: This site offers home products—from dishware and food storage items to children’s toys—with plastic-free items that use alternative materials. http://lifewithoutplastic.com/
The Story of Stuff: This is the popular, 20-minute video that takes viewers on a fun, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our society’s production and consumption patterns. http://storyofstuff.org/
Sewage sludge is the mucky residue of municipal wastewater treatment operations, consisting largely of human feces. Repackaged as “biosolids,” sludge is sold or given away to farmers and homeowners for use as a nutrient-rich fertilizer.
But when used to grow food, our turds may bite back: sludge can contain heavy metals, pharmaceuticals, toxic chemicals, disease-causing bacteria (including e. coli and salmonella), viruses (hepatitis and polio), and parasites that can contaminate soil and potentially food crops. More than 330 synthetic chemical contaminants that have been detected in sludge are known or suspected toxins. more »
Take a close look at the fine print on a can of Raid, a bottle of Cutters, a jug of RoundUp, or virtually any pesticide on the market today, and you’ll see these words: “Inert ingredients.”
Inert ingredients are the pesticide industry’s best-kept secret.
The Bad News
There are thousands of chemicals used as inerts in pesticides, and over the years, we’ve discovered what some of them are. The truth is that many inert ingredients are neither chemically nor toxicologically inert. Some cause cancer, some cause genetic damage, some cause reproductive harm, and others cause a wide variety of other health problems. more »
Oddly, the content of this bogus article from the UK Daily Telegraph contradicts its own headline, quoting the author of the study it purports to address: “Simply eating more bread, pasta and potatoes instead of meat is more environmentally friendly.”
Let me see if I follow: going veggie is bad for the environment. But eating bread, pasta and potatoes (all plant-based, vegetarian foods last time I checked) is better for the environment than eating meat. more »
With all this talk and media coverage of hazardous ingredients in purses and jewelry, it’s about time that we think about making more informed choices of the consumer products we buy. These days, there are many helpful blogs with safety information and consumer ratings of numerous brands that you may be thinking about buying, as well as general tips on how to be a better consumer, protecting the health of your family as well as the environment. Here are some of CEH’s top choices for Environmental Consumer Research blogs: more »
A Valentine’s Day stuffed bear sounds like a great gift for the kids in your life. But at Target, don’t get too close to the bear! After all the public attention to lead-tainted children’s products, you might think that major companies like Target would have systems in place to insure the safety of products they sell for our kids.
Inert ingredients are the thousands of chemicals that the pesticide industry is allowed to keep secret. Some of these chemicals are anything but inert: they can cause cancer, genetic damage, reproductive harm, and other serious health problems. EPA recently announced that it’s considering requiring pesticide companies to disclose inert ingredients. Please take action today to demand your right to know when pesticide companies expose you to toxic chemicals.
Tell Chevron: It’s Time to Take Responsibility for the Amazon Chernobyl
Do you or someone you know have a new baby at home? If so, take note. One of the most important baby care safety tips is to make sure you are feeding your infant the most natural, pure foods you can find with no additives. Which means: try to feed your baby foods that don’t come from a package.
Tell your representatives to phase out the worst of the worst toxic chemicals. Please click here to learn more and to take action.
Inert ingredients are the thousands of chemicals that the pesticide industry is allowed to keep secret. Some of these chemicals are anything but inert: they can cause cancer, genetic damage, reproductive harm, and other serious health problems. EPA recently announced that it’s considering requiring pesticide companies to disclose inert ingredients. Please take action today to demand your right to know when pesticide companies expose you to toxic chemicals.
Please sign this petition from CEH ally Amazon Watch to tell John Watson, Chevron's new CEO, to do the right thing and clean up the company's mess in Ecuador.
It's unbelievable: Target and Walmart, two of the nation's top retailers, are still profiting from products that expose your children to lead. It's time for the stores to hear from you. Take Action: Click here to tell Target and Walmart to keep lead-tainted products off of their shelves.
Click here to join the growing thousands of concerned parents who are telling Mars that our children deserve better than the usual corporate runaround. It's time to stop including pesticides and reckless, untested GMOs in candy. 
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