Joe Laur at Greenopolis has some ideas you can use to make your farmers’ market trip even more responsible and rewarding. Check out these 10 Tips to Shop Smart at Farmer’s Market by clicking on the picture or link.
In a study on male rats, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) discovered that triclosan, used to kill germs in antibacterial products, “decreased sperm count, damaged the male reproductive system, and disrupted male hormone production.” The NRDC is asking the FDA to ban the use of antibacterial for products due to the risk it is taking on its consumers. To read the full article, “Our Antibacterial Overload” and the downloadable report, “Not Effective and Not Safe,” click on the link.
I have been seeing commercials, especially on Hulu.com, for this particular project called Coal River Wind. This organization is trying to help eliminate mountain top removal for cheap coal and install windmills to generate clean wind energy. There are a few things that you can do to help save the mountain:
1. Email the EPA
2. Sign the petition found on CoalRiverWind.org
3. Donate to save Coal River Mountain
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3YwnN9WArk&feature=player_embedded]
Nestle products takes a bite out of rainforests
When you’re biting into some of Nestlé’s most popular products – like PowerBar, Butterfinger, and Nestlé Crunch Crisp you could be taking a bite out of precious rainforests. A new report , click here to view, we released shows that Nestlé has purchased palm oil linked to Paradise Forest destruction in Southeast Asia.
Growing global demand for palm oil is fueling the destruction of rainforests in Indonesia to make way for expanding palm plantations. Fire is often used to clear forests, causing massive, polluting blazes. Illegal canals are cut into ancient peatlands, draining water and releasing methane and other potent greenhouse gases.
We need your help to tell Nestlé to stop destroying rainforests for palm oil! You can do so by clicking on this link from greenpeace.org.
Instead of getting paper or plastic bags at the supermarkets, bring reusable bags! Andy Keller was laid off from his software job and decided after visisting his local dump, where he saw plastic bags everywhere, that he would start his own company called ChicoBag. He makes light nylong grocery bags that can be neatly folded up into their own attached pouch, so it’s easy to keep one. Here are some useful facts on Paper and Plastic bags which will hopefully remind you to bring your reusable bag the next time you go to your local grocery store: (this info is also found in my book: The Earth-Friendly Food Chain)
Paper:
- 17 trees to make 1 ton of paper bags
- 20% get recycled
- Ingredients: Wood, Petroleum, coal
- Could biodegrade in a month: in landfills actually decomposes at about the same rate as plastic
- Each bag causes 5.75 lbs of air pollution
- Generates 5 times as much solid waste as plastic
- Uses more fuel getting trucked to the store. Produces 50 times more water pollution than plastic.
Plastic:
- 11 barrels of crude oil to make 1 ton of bags
- 1% get recycled
- Ingredients: natural gas, petroleum
- Decomposes in 5-1000 years
- Each bag causes 1.2 lbs of air pollution
- 40% less energy to manufacture than paper. 91% less energy to recycle
- 3% of the world’s plastic bags ends up as free-floating litter. Easily washes out to sea, where it clogs the stomachs of whales and turtles.
Source: The Alliance for Climate Protection
Check out this article found in Men’s Health by David Zinczenko with Matt Goulding (the authors of “Eat This, Not That!) They share the nutritional info on America’s worst french fries and provide a bit healthier alternatives if you must eat there.
America’s Worst French Fries (and What You Should Eat Instead!)
