The Mess We Made

Yesterday I was visiting the Airport and there was of course a whole line of cabs waiting for customers.  I noticed that all those cars where idling and at that time point there was not to much happening at the airport so i guess they all needed to idle at least 5 minutes before they would get a customer (i think even longer).

And that fact made me wonder. How much bad fumes would there be ending up in the atmosphere because of all the taxi’s waiting for customers?

Isn’t it simple to just turn you engine off? it doesn’t only help our air but it also helps you getting a lower gas bill and with the oil prices going out of hand i would try to save where ever i could specially if i was relying on my car.

Many of us like their glass of Orange Juice and of course we wonder how healthy it really is.  And with healthy I don’t only mean for you but also for the environment.

Lets start with the two most common preproduced Orange Juices the frozen one and the packaged one.  I didn’t look at what was healthiest for you in a way of nutrients because that seems to vary a lot based on the brand so if you want the most healthy version check the label.

But what is best for the environment. Of course frozen juices take way less space than a package but to get the juice concentrate in a frozen can you need to lose most of the water and to do that of course you need to spend a lot of energy. And based on that it is clear that the packaged juices are better for the environment BUT having said that it of course only means the juice that is not made from concentrate because that is the one that is the least thinking of the environment.

But what about Juicing you own oranges?

First of all we can easily say that making you own juice is not the best way for the environment or for you. first of all there is of course the transport of the oranges transporting an orange takes more then juice. Then there is the pesticide and fertilizing issue. Oranges grown for juicing need less pesticides then the once that you and I buy in a store. And that means that less of the pesticides will end up in your body.  And the last negative for doing it yourself is the waste. Juice producers get way more juice out of the orange and use the left over stuff for other means like animal feed.

The conclusion I get after reading all this is that i can best buy a packaged juice as long as it’s not made from concentrate.

Helpful Resources:

Carton vs. Canister 

Pesticides and Oranges

You know it is not so difficult to help to save our planet. For instance I love books but do i really need to own them all?

I guess not and that made me get a Library Card. First of all it is cheap and by getting you books from the Library you save money because now you don’t have to throw away the books you didn’t like and in my case I end up buying the books I like.

By doing this you save a lot of trees from being cut and a there is less pollution to because less books need to be printed. And often libraries offer more then just books. My library has Cd’s and DVDs too, so also there I save money and the environment.

Think about it! It is a simple way for us all to help this planet.

Last night when I was watching TV I saw the ad for a washing detergent and they where saying that now is more concentrated so the package is smaller but you can do the same amount of laundry with it.  After seeing that commercial i was thinking if more products would do that then we could save a lot for the environment.

Let me list what i thought:

• Less space on a truck so less gas used
• Less space on a truck also means less bad pollution in the air for this one product
• Less space on a truck means more space for other products meaning less trucks on the road
• Less space in the store so we could make smaller stores meaning less electric, lighting, land and so on
• Smaller products also means less packaging and that means less garbage in the landfill
• At home a smaller product needs less space to so the same rules as the store apply here

I guess there are a lot more things that would be less if more products would be smaller. But luckily there are already a lot of options for us to buy stuff that have less packaging. Think for instance of IKEA that wants you to build your own furniture and that means that it is packed small and that makes them and us and the environment better.

But there are also examples how not to do it. For instance I got myself a Mac Book Pro last year and that one came in a nice cardboard box with noting on it and that made me feel good.

BUT then when i came home and unpacked the box I was not very happy because in the nice brown cardboard box there was a new box nice and glossy with a picture of the computer on it. First of all why two boxes? and then why does the printing on that other box be so bad for recycling of it?

I guess we can all try to do our best to buy products that use less packaging and lets hope that the manufacturers do some thinking so it can save them money and it will definitely be better for our planet!

We all heard stories about how bad calling with you cell phone is and the changes to frying your brain.

But now there is a new study that says that your cordless home phones are even worse.

The research shows that some base stations for the cordless phone transmits twice the amount of radiation as a normal cell phone transmitter mast. And imagine that this radiation is just bouncing of the walls in your home. It is almost like living in a microwave.

Of course if you think about it a bit more close then you have to agree that all the electronics we seem to have in our home are not adding to our health. If i look at my home i use a wireless router for the internet my mouse is wireless to and then i am not talking yet what other electronic appliances produce.

But if all this electric interference was healthy for our body then there would have bin a manufacturer by now that would have made a machine to make some more specially to make us healthy.

The Cordless phone research makes me wonder if it would be smarter to put a corded phone at least in the bedroom.

Helpful resources:

Powerwatch News 

Daily Mail 

These days we hear all these stories about how bad this plastic is and how bad that plastic is but what does it all mean and where can I see what kind of plastic it is?

Let me start by telling you how you can distinguish the type of plastics out there. Plastics are put in different classes each given a different number, and that number is placed on every plastic product.

A product will carry a symbol, similar to the one depicted on the left here, that tells you what kind of plastic it is, this way it is possible to decide if you want this plastic and it makes it easier for the recyclers to see what kind of plastic they are dealing with.

And with more and more bad stories about plastics it is important to know what the numbers mean and if the plastic at hand is safe.

Here, we have tried to collect as much information as we can on plastics, their symbols and safety. We are aware that this list is not perfect and that there is more to know, however it provides a good starting point for you to make some kind of judgement based on the information.

let’s sort them out based on numbers:

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET / PETE)

This plastic seem to be one of the safer ones. The PET plastic is used for things like pop (soda) bottles so most us us come in contact with them on a regular basis. There are stories about leaching of chemicals with these bottles but the main concern here seem to be when you reuse the bottle.

Online there are some stories about them leaching phthalates and bisphenol A and they carry serious health risks.

High Density Polythylene (HDPE)

This plastic is used in things like Milk and Juice Jugs and till now seem to be fairly safe to use. I didn’t find bad stories about it yet. Although leaching is also an issue for this plastic so be careful what you store in it.

Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)

PVC doesn’t have a good reputation at all but still it is used in all kind of things around the house. From plastic window frames to plastic shower curtains. It is also used in food related items such as like meat packaging which could do direct harm to you. PVC plastic seem to be extremely bad for your health with all kind of cancer related effects to your body.

Low Density Polyethylene(LDPE)

This plastic seem to be safe till now or let me say it like this I didn’t find any bad rap about it.

LDPE plastic (nr 4) is often used for things like bread bags, milk bags and grocery bags. Of course they fill up our landfills so even though these are not directly harmful, they hurt the environment, please recycle your plastics!

Polypropylene (PP)

Although most of the information out there states this plastic as safe, some information I ran into states that there are health risks with the nr 5 plastic. Polyproylene can be a risk for disease related with the  gastrointestinal tract, liver and respiratory system.

Polypropylene is used in products like margarine tubs, ketchup bottles and for more durable uses in products like appliance parts, etc.

Polystyrene (PS)

A commonly used plastic for instance in the famous styrofoam cups and boxes in restaurants to serve as doggy bags. Polystyrene is known for leaching it’s toxins into the contents of the container, and the chemicals used for polystyrene plastics are known to be damaging to health and the reproductive system in humans.

Plastic number 7 refers to all “other plastics” and that makes it also one of the most dangerous of all the plastics. Often the plastics in this category contain the chemical Bisphenol A BPA and this man made chemical and acts like a synthetic estrogen (a reproductive hormone found in both men and women). Surprisingly, metal cans are often lined with the nr 7 plastic to afford durability.

This plastic is often used in strong colorful plastic products such as  water bottles, plastic cups and storage containers. It is probably one of the most harmful plastics on the market specially because of Bisphenol A that has the tendency leach out of the plastic the more you use it or heat it.

Conclusion:

After reading about all those plastics one can basically only come to one conclusion and that is to use plastics in items involving foods and drinks as sparingly as possible. In my opinion glass is the best replacement but it has some obvious disadvantages, as it is is more likely to break or chip. For water bottles you can look at metal bottles they are not so handy as the plastic ones, but for me my health is more important then how cool my water bottle looks.

In summary, the general trend states that plastics 1, 2, 4 and 5 are OK and plastics 3, 6 and 7 are bad.

I hope this article helps you decide what to do with the plastics in your life, however be cautious, the information about what is good or bad seems to change from day to day.

Helpful Resources:

Green Learning: Plastic by the Numbers

Bottle Racket

Plastic Chemicals found in Canned foods

Plastic bottled water bad for the planet

Another Plastic Story

You wonder how much we would change the world if we would take a walk instead of driving to some short by destinations.

For instance it is not really that hard to walk to the grocery store that is like 5 minutes walk away. First off all you don’t have the hassle to find parking then you don’t use the pricey gasoline and 3e you get a free workout to.

Then there are more extreme ways of doing it. Like if you live like 5km from work you could just walk there and back. Again you save on parking and Gas and your get a workout twice (when you walk back to) and you will clear up your mind and get to work all fresh.

I guess it is worth a try although i normally walk to the grocery store and I work from home

update:

Didn’t I forget something important here.

If you walk the bad fumes fill also be less so the air will become cleaner and the global warming less.

I wonder about TV advertisement for medication on TV.

For instance there is a commercial on TV for Aspirin it go’s as followed.

Two girls just finished a workout class and are changing and then one complains about muscle pains and the other says she should take an Aspirin.

And to me that sounds so wrong. First of all isn’t it a good thing to have some muscle pain after your workout? To me it just doesn’t make sense to pop a pill after a workout session.

There is a concern about plastic baby bottles.

As you may well know is that plastic bottles that contain Bisphenol A are not very healthy for you, but now there is evidence that if you heat your baby bottle it will leak even more  Bisphenol A.

Bisphenol A is linked to lots of damage that it could do to your body from reproductive damage to cancer.

Of course there are things you can do about it. One of them is to check if you plastic bottles contain Bisphenol A and that should be easy to find out. Just check under the bottle and look for a small recycle triangle and in that triangle it has a number if that number is 7 then the product contains  Bisphenol A.

My advice try to feed you baby with glass as in my view it is the best and safest alternative.

links:

plastic baby bottle concerns article

Some articles about Bisphenol A

You know for months and months I had a teribla sleep. I could just not sleep at all just a couple of minutes here and there and that was it.

And then one day I read an article in a Dutch online newspaper about cell phones and sleeping problems. The story said that if you keep you mobile phone close to you bed at night people have problems with the deep sleep. OK I was skeptical but still what harm would it do if i would try?

So i tried and from the first night of sleeping without my cell phone i slept better and over the next days it became better and better till i got back to my normal nights sleep.

And then I started thinking and i came to the conclusion that my sleeping became bad when i started to keep my Cell phone on my night stand.

Doesn’t that makes you wonder what the radiation of electronics do to your body?

A well I sleep better now so if your sleep is not what it use to be then give it a try, it’s free