Beware BPA Exposure, Says the FDA (At Last!)

Why does this look to me like another (obvious) argument against letting an industry self-regulate and self-test?

Today, Lindsay Layton of the Washington Post revealed that after years of rumblings from the scientific, medical and public health communities, the FDA has finally expressed concerns that perhaps Bisphenol A - the chemical compound used to harden plastics in water bottles, can liners, food storage containers and a host of other products - might not be as safe as two studies funded by the chemical industry asserted it was.

In choosing these two studies for its decision to bless BPA as safe, Layton writes, the FDA "ignored more than 100 published studies by government scientists and university laboratories that raised health concerns about BPA. Recent data found health effects even at low doses of BPA -- lower than the levels considered safe by the FDA."

In response, a representative from the American Chemistry Council stood by the study results due to the convenience and usefulness of BPA: "Plastics made with BPA contribute safety and convenience to our daily lives because of their durability, clarity and shatter-resistance. Can liners and food-storage containers made with BPA are essential components to helping protect the safety of packaged foods. . . . ACC remains committed to consumer safety, and will continue to review new scientific studies concerning the safety of BPA."

While BPA is used in a wide variety of products, you do have alternatives if you choose to question the chemical industry's two self-serving studies, and prefer to follow the weight of scientific evidence and the FDA's belated advice to avoid exposure.

Here are just a few tips to help you and your family stay safe:

• Shop naked - buying naked produce, that is, not wearing your birthday suit. For one thing, you'll be able to see all sides of your fruits or veggies; for another, you'll be keeping those Styrofoam trays and shrinkwrap plastic covers out of landfills....and avoiding the BPA in food wrap.
• Store food in Pyrex, Corningware or other nonporous, chemically inert materials rather than plastic, especially if it is still warm.
  
• When you buy reusable water bottles, choose stainless steel rather than plastic or aluminum.
• If you microwave food, use wax paper to cover it rather than plastic wrap.Don't microwave food in plastic bags or cover hot foods with plastic wrap.
• Before you buy pacifiers, teething rings, bottles, nipples or other baby gear, check to be sure it has "BPA-Free" on the label.  Look for stainless steel sippy cups rather than plastic.

 For a good guideline to the materials that do and do not contain BPA, check out this article from the Environmental Working Group.

Simple Steps for an Eco-Friendly Holiday

Ahh, the holidays...time for family gatherings, warm wishes and.thoughtful remembrances...

...frenzied shopping, gift-wrapping, card-sending, tree-trimming, over-spending....

...and tons upon tons of trash! Shopping bags, packaging, giftwrap, envelopes, catalogs, not to mention the forests' worth of Christmas trees on the curb by December 26.

The good news? With some simple, affordable alternatives and a little advance planning, you can reclaim the meaning of the season, cut back on the expense, the stress and the waste, and have a happy holiday that's easy on the planet.

Here are a few tips to get you started....

Plan Your Gift List

The holidays are a time for reconnecting and appreciating the people in your life...what can you give them that's more personal than the latest mass-produced tchotchke?

• Time is a gift. For the elders on your gift list, consider giving a day's outing, a weekly visit, or a monthly dinner. For working parents, a weekend's babysitting could be a blessed breather. Use programs like Avery Design and Print Online to set up simple coupons to tuck in a card.
• The value of a gift doesn't depend on brand names or store tags. If you have the skill, think of offering handmade items like homemade bread, herbal delights from your garden, or  your own handcrafted accessories.

Sending Cards? Think "E"

Writing holiday cards is a time-honored tradition that's growing increasingly pricey as postal rates rise. Not only this - but what should be done with the cards after the holidays?

• E-cards have come a long way. Artists like Jacquie Lawson and sites like KatiesCards.com offer stunning, dynamic designs for a subscription fee; and the Spirit Card Center,  Hallmark.com and AmericanGreetings.com (among others) offer beautiful free designs. 
• Recycled - but recyclable? Holiday greeting cards, while they may be on recycled paper,  are often not recyclable - particularly those that are deeply colored, embossed with metallic ink or glitter, or backed with metallic foil. On the other hand, companies like FlowerSeedPaper.com offer beautiful, gift-worthy holiday cards that can be planted in the spring as a lasting remembrance.

Shop Sustainably

Instead of spending travel time and gas on holiday shopping trips, and bringing home innumerable plastic and paper bags from the stores, try these strategies:

• Save gas - use mass transit. Support your local MTA - you'll save gas and force yourself to consider your purchases (who wants to schlep a trunk's worth of bags on the light rail?).
• BYOB - bring your own bag, You bring 'em to the grocery store - take them on your holiday shopping trips as well.
• Research online, then call ahead and map your route.. As the holidays near, time pressures can send us zig-zagging madly across town in a search for the perfect gift. Instead of wasting gas and time on the road, call ahead to find out which store carries which product, and cluster your trips geographically.
• Buy local. What do the stores in your own community offer? Are there local farms selling trees or wreaths? Local crafters selling their products at holiday festivals? Many schools, churches and civic groups have holiday fairs - consider supporting them with your purchases, rather than anonymous corporate stockholders.

Give Green

That doesn't necessarily mean giving cash (though it fits all sizes and matches all colors)but giving in a way that benefits both the recipient, and the planet and people.

• Push the envelope. Gifts like concert tickets and gift certificates to reduce packaging waste and the need for wrapping material.
• Give a green nudge. Consider giving products that will help your loved ones go green. Green Irene offers a wide variety of practical, eco-friendly giftables, as well as gift certificates for green home and office makeovers, and 5% of the profit from each purchase is donated to a related nonprofit.
• Consider the source. If you're buying imported goods, look for certified Fair Trade products from companies like Ten Thousand Villages or other members of the Fair Trade Federation. You're helping the handcrafters and farmers who made or grew those products to support their families on a living wage.
• Batteries not included? Parents will appreciate a complete set of hybrid rechargeable batteries, complete with charger - they can be loaded into toys right away, and last 3x longer than the average rechargeable.
• For the person who has everything? Charitable donations in the recipients’ names make great gifts. Heifer International and Seva Foundation are just two of the organizations that offer this option.

Decorate Au Naturel

Many people have their own decorating traditions and boxes of heritage holiday ornaments, collected through the years - but if you don't, consider some zero-waste alternatives.........

• Cut tree? Artificial? Or live? If you don't like sacrificing a living tree for the holiday, consider investing in a live, balled tree that can be replanted after the holiday. It will take some extra TLC - see Forestry.About.com for tips. Why not artificial? Manufactured trees are made from mainly non-renewable plastics, often containing PVC. They are non recyclable and non biodegradable.
• String for the birds. Spend some time stringing cranberries and popcorn...then, once the tree comes down, set it up outside with your handiwork for the birds.
• O the Holly and the Ivy... Look outside in your garden for decorating ideas: this is a good time to prune your evergreen trees and groundcovers. Spent seed-heads make interesting accents for tabletop decorations.
• Recycle your lights...With energy-saving LEDs available this year, it's time to replace your gazillion miles of holiday lights...but how? HolidayLEDs will happily take and recycle your strings of lights and give you a coupon for 15% off the price of any product on their site.

Tame the Wrapping/Unwrapping Frenzy

We've all seen (and lived!) the cartoons where paper, ribbon, bows, tape and scissors are flying in all directions...and we've all seen the bags upon bags of giftwrap that get toted out to the garbage after the celebrations are over. This year, try some other tactics....

• Fill up a basket. Gift baskets add a decorative touch and can be used again and again. 
• Try textiles. If you have handcrafter friends, consider wrapping their gifts in holiday-themed fabric and securing them with cloth ribbons.
• Gifts within gifts. Antique shops often offer inexpensive decorative tins, hatboxes, and canisters that will be cherished and used long after your gift is extracted.
• Reuse boxes and bags. If conventional wrapping is really necessary, buy with an eye to reuse: decorative boxes and durable print bags. To recycle these later, avoid deep colors and metallic papers.

Celebrate Sustainably
Even when your house is bulging with guests, you can stay green...

• Loads of dirty dishes? Not! If you’re the host this year, consider renting reusable plates, cups, utensils, etc.In most cases, the company will take care of the cleanup for you. If worst comes to worst, remember - a well-loaded Energy Star dishwasher is far more efficient than a team of humans could ever be.
• Compost scraps - Keep a bucket on hand to compost vegetable scraps, plate scrapings, and paper towels with food juices (no meat, dairy, or chemicals).

Above All - Enjoy!

Remember, the heart and soul of the holiday is about - well, heart and soul. Giving, sharing, and connecting with loved ones, Spirit...and the Earth. It doesn't take much effort to create a celebration that's light on your budget AND on the planet...just a little extra thought and planning. Have fun with it - and have a stress-free, green holiday!

Small Steps or Big Vision to Go Green? Both.

Whether you're looking at going green as a way to reduce your ecological footprint, or simply as a means to reduce costs, the question is always - where to begin?

Do you start with a transformational vision that draws everybody together and affects every aspect of your routine, or do you start small, with one simple change at a time?

Quoth Walmart's senior vice president of sustainability, Matt Kistler - Both.

Quoted by Rebecca Cole in the GreenBiz blog today, the word from Walmart is to "just do it." Companies should “do the small things, look for the big ones, but just get started,” says Kistler.

It may be a bitter pill to agree with Walmart, but as a Green Irene eco-consultant, I must admit - they're spot-on. Green practices at The Biggest Box have evolved from a small experimental step with light bulbs to an overall sustainability index that nudges product suppliers like HP into line with earth-friendly practices.

Whether you're a homeowner or a business owner, it's wonderful and important to have an all-encompassing green vision - but don't hold off until you have the time or resources or buy-in to pursue it. Instead, choose an immediate, measurable goal and plan the simple, affordable steps to achieve it now. For example:

• Cut your electricity consumption by 50% just by swapping your incandescent light bulbs for CFLs. Just changing 14 incandescent lightbulbs to CFLs can save you more than $100 per year in energy costs and nearly $1150 over the life of the bulbs, in addition to keeping more than six tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Just one CFL can yield $185 in lifetime savings.
• Reduce your heating fuel consumption by 30% or more per year just by getting your HVAC unit tuned and ductwork cleaned. Adding to your water heater insulation can reduce standby heat losses by 25%–45%, saving you around 4%–9% in your yearly water heating costs and keeping roughly 1000 pounds of CO2 out of the atmosphere.
• Save more than 40,000 gallons of water, $1150 in energy costs, and 1500 pounds of CO2 over the next five years by installing one spa-quality low-flow showerhead.
  

If you need a hand in identifying your most-needed changes, you can schedule a Green Home or Office Makeover. Your local Eco-consultant will walk through your property with you and help identify the simple, affordable changes that will make the greatest difference right now:

• cutting your electricity, heating/cooling and water bills
• cutting your medical costs by eliminating common indoor toxins
• getting the greatest value out of the things you buy by reducing, reusing and recycling
  

When you're ready to take the next step, your Eco-consultant will refer you to local eco-professionals who can support you in green property improvements or a full-scale green transformation.

You can also get a good handle on the hidden ways in which your property may be losing energy (for example, through cracks in your foundation or thinly-insulated walls), by scheduling a home energy audit through your power company or through LEED-certified consultants. Investing in a comprehensive audit can yield a long list of simple, often do-it-yourself changes that can save you thousands of dollars.

Whether you reach for support or do it yourself, though, don't wait. Even the smallest changes can yield big results. Imagine what you can achieve when you do more!

How Can You Recognize a BPA-Free Bottle After the SIGG Scandal?

They were supposed to be one of the greenest green companies...their signature bottles sold in organic groceries, yoga studios, health centers and more. But today there's a national uproar over the BPA found in the liners of SIGG baby bottles made before 2008.

Sigg Aluminum Baby Bottles Has Trace Amounts of BPA - ABC News
Shared via AddThis

If the first lesson of green marketing -- transparency -- needed to be demonstrated, there couldn't be a better case study.

• While SIGG was aware of the BPA in the liners since 2006 - and was evidently developing a BPA-free liner - they continued to imply that their bottles were safe and eco-friendly (though they claim they never specifically said they were BPA-free).
• Now, knowing of the contamination, they are giving consumers information to identify and return the pre-2008 bottles for exchange, though customers must pay shipping charges, and SIGG will not refund the purchase price. News stories emphasize - this is not a recall.

The key question of the story, however, is not just SIGG's downfall and questionable ethics, but also the impact on green companies producing similar products with similar claims of safety. Who can be trusted? What level of safety is necessary for consumers to feel comfortable?

The answer, again, lies in transparency: who is willing to provide complete documentation for their claims of safety, and whose claims stand up under questioning?

As an eco-consultant, mom, and health-minded consumer, I advise clients to follow three steps to know if the bottles they purchase are indeed safe for themselves and their children:

• First of all, exercise a healthy curiosity and skepticism regarding unsupported claims.
• It may be tempting to buy a beautiful lined bottle - but do your homework first. Read the product information, ask the tough questions
• Find companies you can trust, who are dedicated to transparency and provide full documentation regarding their products.
• Finally, to seek out companies that have found healthier alternative to using any liners at all in their bottles.

For example, like SIGG, Green Irene offers water bottles....but there's a difference. SIGG's bottles are aluminum, decreasing their weight but also involving the possibility of a chemical reaction with their contents - thus making liners necessary.

Green Irene, on the other hand, offers a selection of food-grade stainless steel bottles that are inert and completely non-reactive to the acid/alkaline level of the water you put in them. And for this reason, they do not need any liner of any kind.

Not only this - one of Green Irene's stainless steel bottles also features a carbon filter that can remove organic and inorganic impurities including harmful organisms, chemicals and heavy metals. (pesticides, detergents, aluminum, radon 222, mercury, etc.)

There's even a Safe Sippy Cup of stainless steel with a lid made of #5 plastic or polypropylene (the safest and most stable of all plastics). All plastics used have been independently tested free of BPA and phthalates.

There is no excuse for companies that misdirect their customers to believe that products are safe when they're not. Every consumer has the right to honest answers to their questions - and safe and healthy products for themselves and their children.

Let's face it: all companies that offer reusable water bottles will - and should - face increased scrutiny in the wake of the SIGG scandal. Only those companies that demonstrate transparent dedication to the consumers' best interest, and provide solid documentation for their claims, will rise to the top.