Everyone wants to be GREEN. Or look GREEN. Or sell something to people who want to be GREEN. Some of the results make me mad--but sometimes I have to laugh...
A sobering image showing the radical depletion of fish in the ocean over a century. per the Guardian--link below
It's hard to imagine the damage over-fishing is wrecking on the oceans. The effects are literally invisible, hidden deep in the ocean. But there is data out there. And when you visualise it, the results are shocking.
This image shows the biomass of popularly-eaten fish in the North Atlantic Ocean in 1900 and in 2000. Popularly eaten fish include: bluefin tuna, cod, haddock, hake, halibut, herring, mackerel, pollock, salmon, sea trout, striped bass, sturgeon, turbot. Many of which are now vulnerable or endangered.
Dr Villy Christensen and his colleagues at the University Of British Columbia used ecosystem models, underwater terrain maps, fish catch records and statistical analysis to render the biomass of Atlantic fish at various points this century (see the study)
I do so love Tupperware, and I've been stubbornly using it all through the bisphenol uproar. I've even been using non-tupperware in the micro--chinese food containers & throwaway storage containers.
But today i read an article in Rodale about a study stating that ALL plastic leaches estrogenic material. I needed to put my detective hat on to discover if this is truly so.
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—It used to be that people who just couldn't break the plastic habit to go plastic-free could at least rely on certain types of plastics, usually those labeled #2, #4, or #5 in the triangle of arrows on the bottom, because those plastics weren't made using bisphenol A or phthalates, the two chemicals in plastic that are known to interfere with the way your body produces and handles estrogen. But a new study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives concludes that there really are no "safe" plastics, thanks to all the chemicals, additives, and processing aids that go into making plastic products. In a test of nearly 500 chemical containers, the authors discovered that nearly all exhibited some kind of estrogenic activity.
more from the article
WHAT IT MEANS: There really aren't any "safer" plastics, and it's hard to predict which ones will leach estrogenic chemicals into your food. As this study shows, different plastics containing different types of foods will leach chemicals at different levels. That's largely because there are so many steps and additives in the plastic-making process, says George Bittner, PhD, professor of biology at the University of Texas in Austin and lead author of the study. "A plastic item can subsist of anywhere from five to 20 chemicals, some of which are additives, which are incorporated within the plastic polymer but not bound to the structure," he says. Both the materials that make up the plastic resin and the additives can leach out of plastics, says Bittner, who's also the CEO of CertiChem, the lab that tested the plastics in this study, and a consultant for PlastiPure, a company that works with plastic manufacturers to produce estrogenic-chemical-free plastics. You also have mold-release agents and colorants that are used to make or decorate the plastics, adds Mike Usey, CEO of PlastiPure, and those colorants tend to be highly estrogenic.
Rodale didn't provide a link, so I spent some time tracking down the article--Here's the link to the abstract in the Journal of Environmental Health Perspectives
Background: Chemicals having estrogenic activity (EA) reportedly cause many adverse health effects, especially at low (pM-nM) doses in fetal and juvenile mammals.
Objectives: To determine whether commercially available plastic resins and products, including baby bottles and other products advertised as BPA-free, release chemicals having EA.
Materials and Methods: We used a very sensitive, accurate, repeatable, roboticized MCF-7 cell proliferation assay to quantify the EA of chemicals leached into saline or ethanol extracts of many types of commercially available plastic materials, some exposed to common-use stresses (microwaving, UV radiation, and/or autoclaving).
Results: Almost all commercially available plastic products we sampled, independent of the type of resin, product, or retail source, leached chemicals having reliably-detectable EA, including those advertised as BPA-free. In some cases, BPA-free products released chemicals having more EA than BPA-containing products.
Conclusions: Many plastic products are mischaracterized as being EA-free if extracted with only one solvent and not exposed to common-use stresses. However, we can identify existing, or have developed, monomers, additives or processing agents that have no detectable EA and similar costs. Hence, our data suggest that EA-free plastic products exposed to common-use stresses and extracted by saline and ethanol solvents could be cost-effectively made on a commercial scale, and thereby eliminate a potential health risk posed by most currently-available plastic products that leach chemicals having EA into food products.
I have a few problems with this info--this is stated in the Rodale article
Bittner, who's also the CEO of CertiChem, the lab that tested the plastics in this study, and a consultant for PlastiPure, a company that works with plastic manufacturers to produce estrogenic-chemical-free plastics. You also have mold-release agents and colorants that are used to make or decorate the plastics, adds Mike Usey, CEO of PlastiPure, and those colorants tend to be highly estrogenic.
and this is the conclusion of the abstract
Conclusions: Many plastic products are mischaracterized as being EA-free if extracted with only one solvent and not exposed to common-use stresses. However, we can identify existing, or have developed, monomers, additives or processing agents that have no detectable EA and similar costs. Hence, our data suggest that EA-free plastic products exposed to common-use stresses and extracted by saline and ethanol solvents could be cost-effectively made on a commercial scale, and thereby eliminate a potential health risk posed by most currently-available plastic products that leach chemicals having EA into food products.
Somehow this looks to me as though these fellows are proving that all plastic currently being manufactured is unsafe for use, BUT, they happen to be able to make some plastics that are safe.
Yawanawá Indians participated in ceremonial games and dances marking the arrival of Aveda executives.
MUTUM, Brazil—In a remote Amazon village a full day by canoe from the nearest road in western Brazil, Yawanawá Indians in grass skirts gather around a pile of urukum, a spiky fruit they use to make body paint, and pose for two photographers from the U.S. beauty firm Aveda.
The images will help Aveda, a unit of Estée Lauder, sell its popular Uruku line of lipsticks, eye shadows and facial bronzers that use the plant as coloring. The company can charge a premium for products that look good and, at the same time, help save the rain forest by giving the tribe a sustainable livelihood.
But there's something wrong with this picture. For starters, the Yawanawá don't produce much urukum. They delivered none of it to Aveda between 2008 and 2010. Also, urukum itself isn't as exotic as Aveda portrays it in a documentary-style video on its website. Best known as annatto, it's an inexpensive food coloring, grown commercially around the world, that gives products like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese an orange hue.
So not only is Aveda not getting its annatto, I mean urukum, from the Yawanawá, or helping the tribe in any way, but yep, that exotic Amazonian urukum can be bought in any bodega--don't you love it? Maybe tribal peoples were correct when they said that Europeans were stealing their souls when they took their pictures.
This excellent article by John Lyons can be read in full at the WSJ.
If this link doesn't work--the WSJ is a subscription online site--Google the title and you should be able to read it then.
Being in the cosmetic business in a small way, and sourcing all ingredients responsibly, & taking care to inform my customers when they are constantly bombarded by super crap like this gets me really tired.
If you haven't heard of yarn bombing, it's a sort of guerrilla knitting (or crochet)project--knitters/artists/troublemakers make knitted cosies for public objects--trees, statues, park benches, lampposts, stop signs--nothing is safe from Yarn Bombers.
The kind of yarn that's used is generally cheap, ugly acrylic yarn, mostly rescued from thrift shops, spiced up with some furry novelty yarn perhaps.
The goals are many fold--making personal the mostly arid public spaces in a city, subversion, appropriation, political statements of one sort or another, assertion of the craft of knitting/crocheting, also just the fun of putting something funny or pretty or odd in place to surprise passersby.
The interesting thing about knit bombing is that IT DOESNT DAMAGE ANYTHING- EVER! I love this--I think I probably could destroy a weapon of mass destruction, but anything less, I wouldn't.
Knitta, Please is the group of Houston TX knitters who are the first to practice this version of street art--they started in 2005. The group is down to one member, but did just complete a fabulous project for SXSW--a set of knitted stairs--it's beautiful--check it out--first photo above.
As wonderful as all yarn bombers are, I just discovered an even more spectacular practitioner--Juanita Canzoneri is an artist in Colorado Springs--her primary medium is glass mosaic. I'll let her words speak to her path to becoming VideoKnitter:
Confessions of a Video Knitter
My problem: How to responsibly get rid of my video tapes.
Because the product is mixed plastics and metal, it doesn't recycle. If you only have a couple tapes I'm sure your conscience won't bother you about putting them out with the trash. However, if you're like me and have a couple hundred, that's another issue entirely. In 2008 I found a huge box of tapes my husband had relegated to the garage. He said to get rid of them when I asked why they were there. Confronted by this ethical dilemma, I did some research and found that the most reasonable way of doing this was to crack some open and see what could be done with them beyond filling up a landfill or two.
After playing with a variety of working styles, what I enjoy most is knitting/crocheting elements and assembling them into fiber art pieces.
She uses the video tape for yarn bombing, but also makes sculptures & jewelry and bags--they are not all black as you might imagine, but painted with a special paint for plastics--she's made some interesting stuff. She also includes a card that tells what was on the tape! I just love this. Unfortunately, I can't link to a picture from flickr, to show an example, but here's the link to her set. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcanz_studio/
John Wells, a former Manhattenite & Upstate NYer has migrated to the desert in West Texas.
IN October 2007, Mr. Wells bought this land — a 40-acre parcel — for $8,000 in cash, adding a 20-acre tract for $5,000 a year and a half later. It took nine days and $1,600 to build the shell of his one-room house, the first structure in a compound that now includes four shipping containers under a soaring arched roof planted on a lacy framework of metal trusses, all of which he made himself. He gave it all a fancy moniker, the Southwest Texas Alternative Energy and Sustainable Living Field Laboratory, but you can call it the Field Lab for short.
He is truly living off the grid--makes me wish I could build things--a disadvantage in attempting this kind of life--I can cook, make soap, sew & knit--but building structures & systems is way out of my skill area. If you have to hire people to build your set-up you are spending big bucks, alas.
Anyway, check out his blog--he's an entertaining writer-
Although we may mock absurd attempts at Greenwashing, trying to live more lightly on the Earth is something to be desired--but it's not a simple matter--is it better to keep driving that old, less efficient car , keeping it out of the junk stream, or buy a new, energy efficient car? Only one of many decisions to be made daily.
Here's a really interesting resource-- developed to help product designers determine which is the best way to go green. Keep following links--there's a wealth of info here.
Unfortunately, true environmental performance is rarely so simple. Products and the processes used to manufacture them consume energy, utilize non-renewable and renewable materials, and generate emissions. In creating designs, product designers are continually forced to make decisions that involve trade-offs between multiple environmental impacts.
