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27Mar

No fracking way: keep your furnace (and water) off dirty gas

by: Adria categories:Big Issues, Column, Home Comments Off

How’d you get your eggs cooked this morning…or your shower nice and hot? Natural gas has always gotten a lot more respect on the green-front than other fossil fuels. We hear again and again that it burns cleaner, choking out less smoggy pollutants than say coal or conventional oil, so when we use it in our homes we don’t feel so guilty. We get 1 green thumb up for our natural gas furnaces (particularly if they’re high efficiency), natural gas-fired baths (especially if your system is tankless or high efficiency), even our our natural gas stoves (as a cook, I admit, I love mine). But I would feel a lot dirtier coming of that shower if that natural gas had been fracked, as it is in a growing number of provinces and states. I get into all the nitty gritty in the latest Ecoholic column on natural gas and fracking.

The ArtisCC Fracking petitionts Against Fracking video above is trying to keep fracking out of NY state but the message extends across state lines. Tell your provincial/state politicians not to frack with you – keep the hydraulic fracturing of natural gas out of our energy plans. Sign this Don’t Frack With Our Water Petition from the Council of Canadians.

 

 

 

20Mar

What’s hiding in your wipes?

by: Adria categories:Bodycare, Column, Home, Kids Comments Off

news-eco-0314_largeTo wipe or not to wipe

I know, I know, wipes are seriously convenient when you’re on the go, but you probably know it’s definitely more sustainable to go the reusable cloth/wipe/rag route. You wipe junkies will have my head if I tell you to axe them from your life permanently, but can we agree to reducing? Let’s try a tradeoff. Cut out disposable wipes from your cleaning routine and home bodycare routine (that means NO using moist wipes instead of TP!) and keep the disposables for when you’re out and about. For the DIY route, an old flannel sheet cut up into squares works beautifully. Now what to look for when you’re shopping for greener wipes? Read the latest Ecoholic column on the topic! Here are a few bonus bits of info.

Rash-worthy ingredients

The thing with wipes is the chemical substances aren’t rinsed off, they get to stay on skin. Not good since so many wipes contain stuff like parabens and serious irritants. Also, just because the wipe says it’s natural, doesn’t mean it’s free of dodgy chemicals.  Huggies Naturals wipes replaced formaldehyde- releasing DMDM hydantoin with methylchloroisothiazolinone/methylisothiazolinone. Not good! Dermatology journals have documented cases of sores, redness and itching on people’s behinds, hands, etc from using moist wipes that contain the preservatives (these bad boys are so irritating they’re on Health Canada’s hotlist of restricted ingredients).

Phenoxyethanol, while really common in paraben-free products like Aleva, can also trigger skin reactions with prolonged contact in some so isn’t desirable in products that stay on the skin. Ditto for cocamidopropyl betaine, which may really irritate some (like my mom!). FYI, phenoxyethanol used to be okayed by some organic certifiers like Ecocert, but Ecocert has since changed its mind.

Don’t believe the biodegradable hype

I’m glad there are so many wipes out there that are offering alternatives to typical petroleum-fibre materials (like polyester, etc), but be aware that if your wipes say they’re made of tree pulp or cellulose fibre, they’re mostly just rayon AKA viscose – yes, your wipes, too. Rayon/viscose fibre is made of tree pulp aka cellulose fibre and, as I say in the column, the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on bamboo rayon companies claiming their materials were biodegradable because, well, nothing biodegrades in your typical North American landfill – and city composters just skims all wipes out. Also processing tree pulp, even bamboo, into a soft fabric like rayon involves a lot of polluting chems. All this to say, your wipes really not going to biodegrade, so let’s try to use less of them. Deal?

 

 

 

 

08Nov

What the palm? The rainforest-razing oil in…everything

by: Adria categories:Bodycare, Column, Foods/Drink, Home Comments Off

Hand me a top hat and cane and I’ll sing about palm as a supercalafragalistic  plant-based petrochemical replacement. Gee willikers, you can add it to everything from lip balm to bathroom cleaner – amazing! But the song and dance come to a screeching halt when you start probing palm’s rainforest record. You know how headlines used to tell us that rainforest beef was clearcutting the Amazon? Well, now palm oil plantations are clearcutting rainforests in Indonesia, Malaysia, Liberia, Camaroon, and the list goes on. I get into some of the nitty gritty details in this week’s Ecoholic column in NOW mag. One reader, Tarama, had written in wondering how she can avoid the troubled ingredient.  Noted Tamara, “It seems almost everything from food, cosmetics and cleaning products (including environmentally friendly brands) include it.” That’s right, sister. Many of them do. So how do you avoid it?

When it comes to food, you’d think palm oil would be easy enough to spot and avoid on ingredient lists, but it’s also often the basis of what’s listed as “vegetable oil.” The EU is starting to demand that veggie oil makers put an end to the mystery. Unfortunately, that ain’t the case in North America so if a product won’t cough up details beyond “vegetable oil,” SKIP.

As for beauty products, palm can be hidden behind the name sodium laureth sulfate, sodium laurel sulfate, sodium laurel sulfoacetate (all of which can also be from coconuts) as well as glyceryl stearate, stearic acid, steareth-2 and steareth-20. I mention a few palm-free soap brands in this week’s column like Ella’s Botanicals and Lush.

When it comes to cleaners, even natural brands often use palm. It can be hard to know for sure since it’s not mandatory for companies to disclose their ingredient lists. When in doubt, try emailing your favourite natural brand and asking them whether they contain any palm-derived ingredients. I’m waiting to hear back from a couple myself. Let them know you want to support palm oil-free products. If all else fails, go back to basics. Baking soda and vinegar are totally palm-free.

Know of any other palm-free brands? Let me know!

24Oct

When to toss, blue bin or reuse cosmetic packaging & more

by: Adria categories:Bodycare, Column, Home 1 comment

Don’t look now but we’re surrounded. Just peak around the room you’re sitting in right now and start counting the plastic stuff that’s infiltrated your life – your computer (casing/cables/mouse), the foam stuffed furniture under your hiney, your wallpaper/wall paint, telephone, pen, windows, synthetic carpet underfoot are all made of some form of petrol-based plastic and we haven’t even stepped foot in your kitchen. If you tried going 100% plastic-free, you wouldn’t be reading this article on a laptop/phone/tablet right now.  Sorry. Of course we could all try to challenge ourselves to slash back our plastic dependency (you can read all about my blundered waste-free trials and tribulations in an older NOW post here), but what do you do with the plastics you already bought and brought home? Why can’t it all go in the blue bin? Why is styrofoam such a pain in the ass to recycle? Check out my latest column on this one (including info for TO about how we can now recycle those clear plastic sushi trays and salad boxes thanks to a move by Canadian grocers).

 Then there are all the cosmetics containers we bring home. Be it lipstick tubes or plastic face cream jars, pretty much none of it can get recycled. Sucks, really. If you’re in the middle of purging your older paraben-laced lipstick or chem-laced mascara, don’t bother blue binning it. Ditto for toothpaste tubes and pretty glass cosmetic jars/bottles. Only very run of the mill shampoo-style plastic bottles are generally accepted (as long as they’re not #3 plastic). If yours are half full (with say, a silicone/siloxane-heavy conditioner you’re trying to get rid of), I don’t always recommend dumping the contents down the drain before recycling those since cyclopentasiloxanes/cyclotetrasiloxanes/cyclomethicones are bad for the fishes. Same goes for triclosan. Bring it down to your local municipal household hazardous waste depot instead (just google it for your home town).

As I say in the latest Ecoholic column in NOW on cosmetic containers:

What you can do in the future is look for refillable makeup packaging. Manitoba’s Pure Anada online shop has refills for foundation, and upon request for blush and eyeshadow. Vancouver’s Sappho Organic Cosmetics(sapphocosmetics.com) offers blush and eyeshadow refills. Jane Iredale and Ecco Bella both have a wide selection of product refills, as does more mainstream Aveda.

UPDATE: Toronto-based Pure + Simple carries refills for products such as its foundations and also has a bottle return program for its 50ml porcelain glass jars (including those from Martina Gebhardt). They can be returned to any of their spa locations to receive $1 credit for each bottle returned. The bottles are re-sterilized and reused to eliminate waste, so make sure to give them a good rinse before returning them.

For more tips on how to reuse your unrecyclable plastics, including those old lipstick tubes, check out both questions in this week’s column.

04Oct

Is there lead in your dishes?

by: Adria categories:Column, Health, Home Comments Off

I’m a little suspicious of my plates. The scrapes and scratches on these Kengington Market imports have me wondering whether they’re leaching something dodgy. And yet, I never bothered to buy a lead test until two readers contacted me recently wondering about their ceramics. Then I got to reading. Here’s what Health Canada has to say about lead in dishware:

“For many years, glazes containing lead oxide were used on ceramics when they were manufactured to give these products a smooth, glassy surface free of blemishes. Bright yellow glazes may also contain cadmium. In some glazed ceramics, small amounts of lead and cadmium in the glaze may be released into food. Both lead and cadmium are toxic heavy metals and can cause serious health problems, especially in children.”

Yikes.  Although they kind of make it sound like lead leaching is a thing of the past, that isn’t always the case. Actually, two physicians out of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philly decided to test a bunch of dishes from their local Chinatown last year and were pretty shocked by what they found. Of the 87 plates, spoons, cups, etc that they bought at 18 stores and swabbed then with LeadCheck (the same swab I used on my plates), 25% tested lead positive. But as I say in this week’s column on the topic, imports aren’t the only concern.

Now don’t panic and toss your plates on the ground like a Greek wedding guest. The feds say a good lead-free glaze should protect you from what’s inside. If you’re worried about your dishes, I definitely recommend doing your own lead check though. I won’t reveal whether my dishes ended up being tainted – you’ll have to read my column for that!

 

 

 

16Sep

Is bamboo really full of bologna?

by: Adria categories:Apparel, Home Comments Off

So after our big Lousy Labels: Home Edition episode on CBC Marketplace I’ve been getting a lot of emails and questions from readers asking me if bamboo is really, well, full of bologna. Truth is, it’s complicated. The short answer is solid bamboo wood (the kind used in flooring) is perfectly fine, for the most part, unless it’s bound together with formaldehyde-releasing glues (which is common in the flooring world), especially if that bamboo comes from Forest Stewardship Council-certified forests. An example of one such bamboo flooring (FSC-certified and formaldehyde-free) is Plyboo. Canadian-based Silkroad flooring is certified EcoLogo to be ultra low in formaldehyde.

As for fabrics, the short answer is: making rayon, any rayon (whether regular rayon or bamboo rayon), involves a lot of chemicals (namely very polluting carbon disulphide, a reproductive toxin). Now bamboo rayon is greener than regular rayon (because chopping down fast-growing bamboo is greener than chopping down the trees you need for regular rayon) but it still uses the same polluting chems to make that bamboo soft.

Is bamboo rayon as green as organic cotton or greenest of all, hemp? No. Is it greener than polyester/acrylic/nylon/spandex/other petroleum-based fabrics? Yes. Compare it to toxic pesticide-laced conventional cotton (sometimes called the world’s “dirtiest crop” because it uses incredible quantities of insecticide) and it should win out too. But we expect more from our green fabrics….

Still, not all bamboo is created equal!

Tips for picking a greener bamboo fabric:

  • Some bamboo manufacturers are borrowing cleaner processing techniques from Tencel/lyocell. Tencel/lyocell uses gentler solvents and closed loop techniques (which means they recover/recycle 99% of its chemicals). Some bamboo makers are also using certified organic bamboo to prove that the bamboo was harvested sustainably. Others get Oeko Tex 100 certified to prove that the final fabric/item of clothing isn’t sprayed with a chemical like formaldehyde (it does NOT mean that no chemicals were used to process the fabric itself).
  • Look for brands that say they use closed loop bamboo rayon like Canadian eco clothing designer Miik, which also uses certified organic bamboo that’s Oeko Tex 100 certified. Other “closed loop” organic bamboo users include US-based Jonono and Bamboosa (in their process, 100% of the sodium hydroxide and 74% of the carbon disulphide is recovered and recycled for further use).
  • Look for brands that say they use bamboo lyocell. This is even rarer but they exist, like Bamboo Five.
  • Look for clothing made from Tencel, or eucalyptus-based lyocell (sometimes just called eucalyptus fabric). Fashion forward and Canadian-made Kali Clothing uses a lot of Tencel. So does Modrobes.
  • If you love a company that uses regular bamboo (as so many amazing eco fashion designers do – we love our Canadian-made, sweatshop-free and fair trade brands!), encourage them to switch to greener forms.

You can find more details on bamboo in both Ecoholic Home and Ecoholic Body.

 

17Jul

Chill out: Bonus AC-free ways to beat the heat

by: Adria categories:Column, Health, Home Comments Off

Another day another sizzler. As we melt into little pools of sweat at our own feet, I can’t help but think of those old 80s ads, you know, with the frying pan and the egg and the “this is your brain on drugs” message. This, honey, is your planet on climate change. While farms go thirsty thanks to record drought in the US and parts of Canada (the driest summer since 1956 in the US and the worst in a decade in eastern Canada), people are cranking their ACs like mad. What do you do if you don’t have one or are trying not to use yours to keep your energy-use down? Why you read my last Ecoholic column and get a few tips! But there are a few more I didn’t get into.

  • Chill out: stress will only get you sweating. Try a little meditation or tai chi in the shade to calm your mind and body.
  • Eat raw food to avoid turning on your stove or oven. Just boiling water in my kitchen was enough to turn it into a steam room. For raw-licious ideas, I like Doug NcNish’s Eat Raw, Eat Well.
  • Go for an evening dip at your neighbourhood public pool! Funnest way to cool down, for sure.
  • If you’re a homeowner….Get light-coloured Energy Star shingles (a great tip that came in from a reader named Mary). She had them installed and said: ”We really notice the difference in heat in our home over the previous black shingles.”
  • Having awnings installed over windows is another great option for keeping the heat off your house.
  • Plant deciduous trees! On the south, east or west side will do. Okay so they’ll take a few years to get to work on cooling your home BUT trees can cut cooling costs by a good 30 per cent once they’re grown! When the leaves drop in winter they let warming light in. But, ugh, let’s forget about winter for now. Unless visualizing snowmen helps your mind keep calm. ;)
25May

Is your garden getting doused with lead?

by: Adria categories:Home Comments Off

Living in the east of Toronto , I’ve always wondered what’s in my soil.  Not just the nutrient balance but the really dirty stuff too, like lead. Until I get a proper lead test done and/or build raised beds in my latest apartment, I’ve refrained from planting root veggies, as much as I’ve craved pulling up my own purple carrots from the ground. Either way, you don’t want to be adding more pollutants to this already polluted world by bringing in toxic gardening supplies! For the full low down on dirty tools, including tainted hoses, check out my latest column on not so green gardening supplies….Speaking of dirty, did you know Milorganite fertilizer is made with Milwaukee sewage sludge?? Nasty, I know. Before you get free compost from your city, make sure it’s sewage sludge free!! Lots of municipalities try to pawn theirs off. Ick.

10May

Good news and bad news on pitcher filters

by: Adria categories:Foods/Drink, Home Comments Off

Oh pitcher filter. Why did you have to disappoint us, so? Yes, in this week’s Ecoholic column I talk about the short comings of Canada’s favourite water filter, Brita, as well as other pitcher filters. Seems they do reduce heavy metals like mercury and used to meet lead reduction standards, and then the standards improved and the pitchers couldn’t keep up. So yes, they do reduce lead somewhat, but not enough to meet NSF standards. On the bright side, activated carbon filters do seem to seriously reduce the presence of trace pharmaceuticals in water. More good news (not mentioned in the column), last year, Toronto voted to bring in ultra violet filtration to the city’s water, which will also slash the presence of pharmaceuticals in our water supply. A very good thing, especially in light of a new federal water study out of the U.S. that found 112 toxic materials (from flame retardants and pesticides to personal care and cleaning chemicals, as well as drugs like the diphenhydramine, Benedryl) downstream from wastewater treatment plants. For all the deets on filters, check out this week’s column. 

Oh and as for my point about carbon filters not removing fluoride and pestering your local councillor about removing fluoride from your local water supply, thought I’d share a link to a full news article I did a while back for NOW Mag on the problems with fluoridated water as well as a link to Canadians Opposed to Fluoride.

You may have spotted in Ecoholic Body I leave the choice on fluoridated toothpaste in your hands. But that’s a whole ‘nother topic for another day.