Canary’s Cry for Sunday, Nov. 16

In light of the recent fires in California, The New York Times says “In Fighting Wildfires, People Concerned About Chemicals.” The concern is about the fire retardant dropped from planes. “Yet while many residents praise — and even demand — the use of retardant to protect their homes and neighborhoods, the potent mix of chemicals in the most common type can leave scars of its own, hurting watersheds and the fish and other animals that live in them. Increasing concerns over retardant are prompting opposition to its use in certain situations and further stirring the debate in the West over how much is too much when it comes to fighting wildfires.”

DelawareOnline reports on “Study: Steel mill dust may be toxic.” A preliminary report measuring specific air pollutants near the Claymont Steel mill confirms what some residents have long suspected: Metallic soot that settles every day on cars, windows and porches might be hazardous to their health.

The Canton Rep says “Outdoor wood burners raise a stink.” Legislation that would severely restrict, essentially banning, outdoor wood-burning appliances is expected to get a vote at Monday night’s City Council meeting. Councilman James Griffin, D-3, introduced the legislation in an effort to help deal with what he considers a neighborhood nuisance — smoke coming from an outdoor wood-burning appliance at 336 Arlington Ave. NW. Griffin said he also wants to prevent more of the outdoor furnaces from cropping up throughout the city.

The New York Times has a report on “Exxon, making the case for oil.” Exxon has moved away from its extreme position debunking CO2 emissions as the cause of climate change and has stopped financing climate skeptics this year. One of Exxon’s ads says the company aims to provide energy “with dramatically lower CO2 emissions.” Yet even though the company acknowledges that climate change is a risk to the world, it dismisses most green alternatives and continues with hydrocarbons. The report says, “Ultimately, the biggest test for Exxon’s long-term business model is the fact that rising energy use — whether in the United States or in China — will eventually have to be reconciled with reducing carbon emissions and finding low-carbon energy sources.”

JS Online says “BPA leaches from ’safe’ products.”

Products marketed for infants or billed as “microwave safe” release toxic doses of the chemical bisphenol A when heated, an analysis by the Journal Sentinel has found.

The newspaper had the containers of 10 items tested in a lab - products that were heated in a microwave or conventional oven. Bisphenol A, or BPA [link added], was found to be leaching from all of them.

The amounts detected were at levels that scientists have found cause neurological and developmental damage in laboratory animals. The problems include genital defects, behavioral changes and abnormal development of mammary glands. The changes to the mammary glands were identical to those observed in women at higher risk for breast cancer.

The newspaper’s test results raise new questions about the chemical and the safety of an entire inventory of plastic products labeled as “microwave safe.” BPA is a key ingredient in common household plastics, including baby bottles and storage containers. It has been found in 93% of Americans tested.

For the Exxon and BPA stories: Thanks, Linda!

Photo by Kevitivity.

HELP! How can I get ozone out of my house?

I received an emergency question in my email this morning from one of our flock. Who can help?

Does anyone know how to get ozone (from sanitizing/ionizing) out of your house?  Will opening the windows do it permanently? (it didn’t yesterday)  Is there a charcoal treatment?  If so…what form does that come in?  Anything else you can think of?  ..I’m horribly ill.

Hoping to get responses quickly - I’m not tolerating the house, just got back yesterday, working at finding way to stay….  The new furnace filter (the big hope solution) creates ozone as well, but not to the degree that we created in sanitizing it from the furnace installer.  Tell me anything you know, even if what you tell me is bad (ie: someone got ozone in their home and couldn’t remove it).  I just need to know how hard to keep trying tolerating this.

Thank you my excellent friends…thank you.
C

Five green Obama dreams from Zaproot

From Zaproot.

Yes, we can change. Obama wins the presidential election and here are our top 5 green dreams for 2009. Zero Pollutions Motors creates the car of the future, and it runs on air. And, check out the latest in Green Gadgets.

Be a smart cosmetic shopper

Yesterday’s post in Enviroblog entitled “Tips from the make-up artist” makes a good point about the importance of paying attention to the ingredients in our personal care products. Those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity are probably more concientious than the average shopper, but I have to admit that up until very recently, I relied more on what my nose and body told me than what was on the label.

But now, I not only do the sniff test for all my cosmetics and personal care products, I also check labels and consult the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database, the bible of concientious shoppers. I do this because it’s not just the toxic chemicals that trigger MCS symptoms that I need to eliminate from my life, it’s all toxic chemicals and products.

Here are some practical shopping tips from Skin Deep, most of which I’m sure you are already following, but it never hurts to review, especially for those of you who do not have MCS but are interested in living a healthier lifestyle:

Use our What Not To Buy list to avoid especially problematic ingredients - like mercury, lead, and placenta - and the products that contain them.

Use fewer products. Is there something you can cut from your daily routine, or a product you can use less often? By cutting down on the number of chemicals contacting your skin every day, you will reduce any potential health risks associated with your products.

Use the “Advanced Search” feature of Skin Deep to find products that have fewer potential health issues. Choose a product category and exclude the hazardous ingredients - carcinogens and neurotoxins, for instance - and Skin Deep will generate a custom shopping list for you.

Read labels. Marketing claims on personal care products are not defined under the law, and can mean anything or nothing at all, including claims like organic, natural, hypoallergenic, animal cruelty free, and fragrance free. Read the ingredient label carefully to find evidence that the claims are true.

Use milder soaps. Soap removes dirt and grease from the surface of your skin, but also strips away your body’s own natural skin oils. Choosing a milder soap may reduce skin dryness and your need for moisturizers to replace oils your skin can provide naturally.

Minimize your use of dark hair dyes. Many contain coal tar ingredients that have been linked to cancer in some studies.

Cut down on your use of powders; avoid the use of baby powder on newborns and infants. A number of ingredients common in powder have been linked to cancer and other lung problems when they are inhaled. FDA warns that powders may cause lung damage if inhaled regularly.

Choose products that are “fragrance”-free. Fragrances can cause allergic reactions. Products that claim to be “fragrance free” on the packaging may not be. They could contain masking fragrances that give off a neutral odor. Read the ingredient label - in products truly free of fragrance, the word “fragrance” will not appear there. Find “fragrance”-free products with our advanced search.

Reduce your use of nail polish. It’s one of the few types of products that routinely contains ingredients linked to birth defects. Paint your toenails and skip the fingernails. Paint nails in a well-ventilated room, or outside, or avoid using nail polish altogether, particularly when you are pregnant. Browse our custom shopping guide for advice on nail polishes that contain fewer ingredients of concern.

Link

Photo by smcgee

Breast cancer survivor battles pesticide overspray

OMG, look at what this poor couple has to put up with! And the husband says his wife is chemically sensitive (I think the plea below is written by the wife). I feel so sorry for these people! If this is happening to you, you need to call the authorities, call the cops, call your local pesticide control authorities. Find out what the law in your state says about overspray and then take action. No one should have to put up with this!

HELP! Our neighbor values a green lawn more than a life! They constantly have their yard, trees and shrubs sprayed with pesticides. Pesticides that are on the EPA’s list of endocrine disruptors.

We have a pesticide free yard and organic garden. Every month, we have to cover my garden and fruit trees to keep the lawn care company from over-spraying onto our garden and fruit trees. This last time, I caught them spraying full blast and it coming through the fence that clearly divides our property lines. I stopped them just short of spraying my honeysuckle vines that cascade over the fence.

They know I am pesticide sensitive and am trying to keep the spray off my yard. The lawn care company boasts they have the right to do this!!! And that they can spray anything that is on the neighbor’s side of the fence and that our concern for over-spray is not substantiated. They are saying I do not have the right to a pesticide-free yard!!!

We must go cry out to our city, county, state and federal governments to get over-spraying to be illegal. Every homeowner in America should have the right to NOT HAVE HARMFUL CHEMICALS SPRAYED ON THEIR LAWNS VIA THEIR NEIGHBOR! Help me start this fight! After all, the tomato you pick from your organic garden may have the pesticides from your neighbor on it. Do you feel safe feeding it to your children?

Contact the Governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter and tell him Bev Veals wants Residential Pesticide Use Guidelines! I am a 9-year, two-time, advanced stage breast cancer survivor. PLEASE HELP ME OUT!!! E-mail: beepesticidefree@mac.com

Link

UPDATE: Drat! Their email beepesticidefree@mac.com is not working, the email I sent them was rejected by the recipient domain.

Canary’s Cry for Tuesday, Oct 28

Blacksmith Institute in collaboration with Green Cross Switzerland issued a Top Ten List of the world’s most dangerous pollution problems [Urban Air Quality at left]. The report names pollution as one of the leading contributing factors to death and disability in the world and highlights the disproportionate effects on the health of children.

The Top Ten list includes commonly discussed pollution problems like urban air pollution as well as more overlooked threats like car battery recycling. The problems included in the report have a significant impact on human health worldwide and result in death, persistent illness, and neurological impairment for millions of people, particularly children.  According to the report, many of these deaths and related illnesses could be avoided with affordable and effective interventions. “Our goal with the 2008 report is to increase awareness of the severe toll that pollution takes on human health and inspire the international community to act,” said Richard Fuller, founder of Blacksmith Institute. “Remediation is both possible and cost-effective.”

Army Times reported that “Burn pit at Balad raises health concerns.”

Troops say chemicals and medical waste burned at base are making them sick, but officials deny risk.

An open-air “burn pit” at the largest U.S. base in Iraq may have exposed tens of thousands of troops, contractors and Iraqis to cancer-causing dioxins, poisons such as arsenic and carbon monoxide, and hazardous medical waste, documentation gathered by Military Times shows.

The billowing black plume from the burn pit at 15-square-mile Joint Base Balad, the central logistics hub for U.S. forces in Iraq, wafts continually over living quarters and the base combat support hospital, sources say.

Reuters INDIA picked up the Reuters Washington story “Does mold make you sick?” Fungus expert Joan Bennett did not believe in toxic mold — the cause of “sick building syndrome” and many lawsuits — until her New Orleans home was flooded during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. When she got a whiff of the foul air that the black goo had created in her home, she decided to change her research focus and try to find out how and if the fungi that took over most of the flooded homes on the Gulf Coast might make people ill. “The overwhelming obnoxiousness of the odor and of the enveloping air made me start to believe in something that I had never believed in before — sick building syndrome,” Bennett, of Rutgers University in New Jersey, told a news conference.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, still relevant in 2008

It was the ruthless destruction of that idyll of rural America that formed the basis of a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.

It’s nice to see Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring (1962) still being reviewed and heralded as an important work, “a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.”

It’s bittersweet reading a review given in the context of 2008, and the reviewer’s assertion, “If Rachel Carson’s book has a central message today, it is that every action has its consequences, for in poisoning the world, we poisoned ourselves.”

Rachel Carson was a marine biologist who was only reluctantly drawn into researching [the impact of pesticides being aerially sprayed across North America], and at the time she penned her epic work, she was already suffering from the cancer that would, just two years later, take her life.

She begins Silent Spring with these words: “There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.”

It was the ruthless destruction of that idyll of rural America that formed the basis of a work that has been rightly hailed as giving birth to the modern environmental movement.

Carson’s ability to make science understandable was formidable.

I have never read as simple or elegant an explanation of chemical composition as she provides for the organochlorides, the group to which the 200-odd chemicals that were then destroying her country belonged.

It was not just nature that was suffering.

Carson carefully details many instances of fatal human poisonings. A farmer’s wife was poisoned after her husband sprayed. A baby and a small dog died after returning to a house where endrin had been used to kill cockroaches.

In some programs, half the men who sprayed DDT for the World Health Organization suffered convulsions and death.

Link to full book review

New York to restrict use of bug bombs

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation moves to classify pesticide foggers as a restricted-use product in New York State, meaning that only certified pesticide applicators, rather than the general public, will be able to obtain them.

This is good, but not good enough. This highly toxic crap should be totally banned, not just restricted to use by certified commercial pesticide companies.

News from New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

Action Follows New Federal Report That Shines Light on Hazards, Injuries Linked to Indoor Foggers

ALBANY, NY (10/17/2008; 1226)(readMedia)– New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis announced today that the state will be taking action to address the risks posed by total release foggers, also known as “bug bombs,” in the wake of a new federal report detailing hazards and injuries related to the product.

DEC will move to classify foggers as a restricted-use product in New York State, meaning that only certified pesticide applicators - rather than the general public - will be able to obtain them. Simultaneously, DEC will explore the need to further limit fogger use and encourage the adoption of better pest management strategies. (DEC categorizes pesticides and regulates their use through its pesticide registry program.)

Total release foggers have caused numerous explosions and acute illnesses due to pesticide exposure. According to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were 123 cases of bug bomb-related illness or injury in New York State (58 in New York City alone) from 2001-06. Information on New York’s incidents were part of a larger study published today in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which illuminated the hazards of total release foggers using data from several states. The most commonly reported acute health effects from bug bombs were respiratory problems and gastrointestinal reactions, such as nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In editorial comments accompanying the study, the CDC notes that these figures are most likely underestimated.

“The CDC report has shone a spotlight on foggers,” Commissioner Grannis said. “Over the past year, DEC has been in discussions with the New York State Department of Health and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene regarding the problems with these products. Fortunately, we have the authority to address these hazards and protect New Yorkers.”

“The CDC study makes it clear that we cannot wait for the federal government to restrict the use of foggers,” said New York State Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines. “We must act to protect the health of New Yorkers. Pest control should be accomplished without harming people.”

In each of the past several years, total release foggers have caused at least four to eight serious explosions in apartments in New York City, according to Fire Department data. Just last month, an apartment building in Manhattan was evacuated after a fogger caused an explosion. Ten people were treated at the scene, including six who were brought to the hospital.

“We commend the Department of Environmental Conservation for taking action on this issue,” said New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas R. Frieden. “By getting these products off the shelves, we will prevent avoidable illness and injury. There are far safer and more effective methods of controlling pests that do not put people’s health at risk.” The city health department recently created a guide to safe pest control for New Yorkers, available online at http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/pest/pest-bro-healthy-home.pdf.

To learn more about foggers and better pest control practices, go to:

http://www.health.state.ny.us/environmental/pests/insect_foggers.htm

http://www.health.state.ny.us/environmental/pests/docs/insect_foggers.pdf

http://home2.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/pest/pest-bro-healthy-home.pdf

http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/8531.html

http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/materials_minerals_pdf/pm2.pdf

Link

Photo by wonderous22

UPDATE 10/18:

Story also covered at chron.com and timesunion.com.

The Pesticide Trap

Unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable.

The story of Anan, a peasant farmer in southern India caught up in the vicious cycle of pesticide-dependent cotton growing.

Link

Plastic sucks

I was raising a stink about plastics way before any of us knew about the dangers of BPA. I’ve carried my portable water with me in glass bottles for over 15 years because I cannot tolerate the taste of water that’s been stored in a plastic bottle, pleh!

But that’s not the only problem with plastic. Beth over at Fake Plastic Fish is dedicating her blogging life to the elimination of plastic because it’s not only bad for people, it’s bad for the planet: every scrap, every single molecule of plastic ever made still exists somewhere on the planet, a huge amount of which is floating around in the ocean as a big huge gross Plastic Island. Beth says:

What’s wrong with plastic anyway?

Good question. Here are some answers:

• Plastic is made from oil… This post lists the main problems with plastic from creation to disposal and beyond.
• Is your water cooler messing with your hormones? A post about the problems of #7 polycarbonate plastic.
• Woman Drinks Wine… Why plastic wine corks and screw caps are problems for the environment.
• …The Perils of PVC. What’s PVC and why should we avoid it?
• And here’s a link to a PDF version of the IATP Smart Plastics Guide, which lists the different types of plastics and explains which ones are the most harmful and why.

Link

Video snitched from Fake Plastic Fish

Keep yourself safe from fire retardant

News out this weekend says researchers found Californians to have higher levels of flame retardant PBDEs in their blood than people elsewhere, and levels in California homes can be 10 times higher. This is a story of unintended consequences: while trying to protect people from risk of fire by implementing the strictest fire retardant laws, California lawmakers exposed the public to PBDEs, a highly toxic chemical. The Envionmental Protection Agency has been very slow and very lame in responding to the growing research showing PBDEs “in human breast milk, fish, aquatic birds, and elsewhere in the environment.”

I have a horrible reaction to flame retardant: my eyes itch, my throat gets scratchy, my chest hurts, and then brain fade and confusion kicks in. And it stinks! Not fun. I’ve known for years that the stuff is toxic, my body tells me so, and if you’re a canary, I’ll bet your body tells you the same thing. The most common exposures I encounter are from living room furniture in other people’s homes, but I’ve also had bad experiences from night gowns that were given to me as a gift and new TVs when they heat up.

My living room furniture is a futon couch and chair, with solid wood frames and cotton stuffing with organic cotton covers. I searched high and low to get quality frames at a good price, and the stuffing and covers were not cheap, but well worth the expense to keep the house nontoxic. I stay away from any fabric with flame retardant (or other chemical additives), and my last new TV was put in a well ventilated room until the chemicals burned off.

Here’s some info on fire retardants from MomsRising.org:

THE FIRE RETARDANT TOXICS LOWDOWN:

Recent tests have found that highly toxic fire retardant chemicals are present not only in furniture throughout California, but in baby products such as portable cribs, strollers, playpens, swings, nursing pillows, high chairs and changing table pads—items that infants and young children come into repeated intimate contact with on a daily basis. These products are required to meet California’s flammability standard, Technical Bulletin 117 (TB 117).

This standard, which regulates all furniture products (including children’s products), has led to the annual use of tens of millions of pounds of brominated and chlorinated fire retardants (BFRs and CFRs) in California since 1975.

Brominated and chlorinated fire retardants have been linked to endocrine disruption, neurological and developmental impairments, cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities such as attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity, and a host of other health disorders.1,2

Today, virtually every Californian tested has been found to have these fire retardants stored in their bodies, with babies showing the highest levels. High levels have also been found throughout the food chain, including breast milk, dairy products, meat, poultry, and fish. 3,4 AB706 seeks to modernize TB 117 through the use of safer chemicals and fire safety methods that not only protect human and environmental health from fire, but hazardous chemicals as well.

THE PROBLEM:

Toxic flame retardants threaten human health & the environment:
• Children are at greatest risk from exposure to brominated and chlorinated flame retardants.

In 1977, brominated Tris, which had been used to make children’s sleepwear fire resistant, was banned after it was found to be carcinogenic in animal tests and to leach into children’s bodies.5 Its replacement, chlorinated Tris, was also phased-out after it was found to be a mutagen, meaning it changed DNA. Today, chlorinated Tris is the second most-used fire retardant in furniture, and was recently cited by the Consumer Product Safety Commission to be “a likely carcinogen that could pose both cancer and non-cancer chronic health risks”.

• Brominated fire retardants known as PBDEs have been found in breast milk, in humans and animals.

PBDEs have increased 40-fold in human breast milk since the 1970s. Women in North America on average have ten times the levels of women in Europe or Asia. Recent studies found that pet cats in the U.S. have very high levels of PBDEs in their blood. Researchers have identified an association between PBDEs and the spike of hyperthyroidism rates in cats which emerged after PBDE’s began to be used in significant quantities in the consumer marketplace.

Link to full information

Mac Pro emitting toxic benzene?

Mac Pro owners, listen up.

Nothing is confirmed on this, but I just wanted to red flag it. I’ll try to track for you as things progress.

A french newspaper Liberation.fr has published a report (English translation) stating that Mac Pro owners run the risk of getting diseases as dangerous as leukemia (blood cancer) simply by using their computer. The newspaper was warned by a national agency scientist that the smell (already detected by many Mac Pro users on Apple forums) is actually toxic, composed of several toxins, including benzene.

An Apple Core reader requesting anonymity, sends the following details:

Here’s a proof that the smell problem was previously known, check this page.

The real news here is that the smell is toxic… but still no official answer from Apple. I’ve submitted this piece of news to let english-speaking Mac Pro users know about it (since it was published in french). Libération is a very well known newspaper in France, it’s not a blog or anything like that, so normally you should be able to trust this article.

I just called AppleCare (in France). They confirmed the problem but they told me it only concerned Mac Pros built before 2008 (without mentioning if being built in China was a condition, as suspected by users on the Apple forums). Mine is early 2008 so I should not worry they said.

When I asked them to send me this answer in written form, even by e-mail, they refused. They put me on hold for 40 minutes to forward me to the customer relations service, but apparently they didn’t want to talk to me so I got instead a level 2 technical agent who told me the exact same thing: don’t worry, we guess your Mac Pro is safe, but we can’t confirm in written form which Mac Pro have toxicity problems until Apple decides to communicate about it. Apple did nothing since they knew of this problem, which may be in the beginning of 2007, so we can still wait very long for any change in their policy…

Link

Swimming in chlorinated pools “increases asthma risk five-fold”

Children who swim regularly in chlorinated pools are five times more likely to develop asthma, research has found.

When I was a little kid, I was always in the ocean or a swimming pool. On Kauai, my mom owned a surf shop on Wailua Bay, and when I wasn’t with my horses, I’d be swimming in the bay (sometimes mixing it up: on the horse in the water!). I used to sneak into the pool at the Coco Palms hotel, next door to our neighborhood, and swim until my finger tips were prunes. During the summers, when I visited my dad in California, we’d go to the country club pool every day (yes, I lived simultaneously in two totally different cultures!). In fact, I have a cap on my left front tooth from smacking my face on the edge of the pool while goofing around in the deep end. I was, in essence, a fish.

But chlorine is nasty stuff, and since I developed chemical sensitivity some 15 years ago, I cannot tolerate it at all. When I’m around chlorinated pools, it affects my eyes, nose, lungs, and makes me feel like crap. If I drink chlorinated water, it tastes (and smells) like chemical soup. That’s why the water in my house is filtered for chlorine at the point of entry; there are no chlorine fumes coming from any pipe in my home.

I know chlorine is toxic. I didn’t develop asthma, but my body tells me it’s toxic. I understand the need to keep public water free from contaminants, especially drinking water, but there are alternatives for swimming pools, and household water needs to be filtered at the point of consumption. We should not be exposed to the stuff!

So here’s a report just out of London about research showing the high incidence of asthma in kids exposed to chlorinated pools:

Swimming is recommended as a good form of exercise for asthmatics because the warm humid air is less likely to trigger attacks than other physical activities.

But mounting research is suggesting that the chlorine used to keep the pools clean could be contributing to the development of the condition.

Researchers in Belgium studied the effects of swimming in outdoor pools regularly from a young age and found a strong link.

Previously the same team have found that indoor pools may also increase the risk of asthma in children.

It is thought the chlorine fumes floating around the surface of the pool may help to trigger the condition by irritating the upper airways.

Link

Interested in alternative swimming pools? I posted about it here, with a great video.

Link to photo by Tom@HK at flickr

How to handle the problem of a co-worker’s perfume

Attack the problem, not the person

Office etiquette experts Cheryl Stinski and Karen Dorn, in their column Alternative Resolutions found at postcrescent.com, offer some good advice on how to talk to a co-worker about his or her offensive fragrance.

I think the recommendations given are solid, but the last paragraph on further “options” is too vague to be helpful. I would say that if the co-worker does not respond to the kind and educational approach suggested here, that you go to your supervisor and on up the food chain until you get results–”results” meaning that either the person stops wearing the toxic fragrance, or you be given an alternative work space.

Know that the trend is toward no-scent policies in the workplace (also conventions, public meetings, etc) and your proactive participation in moving your management toward creating policy that supports a safer work environment for everyone will make you feel very good!

Here’s the advice:

Q: A new person recently started in my office. She’s a good addition to our team, with one huge exception - her strong perfume is making me and others sick. One of my co-workers already missed work because of allergy problems heightened by her perfume and

I’ve had to use my asthma medication much more frequently on workdays.

I told her that her perfume is too strong but she insists it isn’t a problem. My manager says that because the employee handbook doesn’t address perfume, there’s nothing he can do.

We’ve resorted to opening all the windows and doors to air the place out, but the weather will soon take away that option. She may have started wearing a little less of the stinky stuff but when we have to close the place up I’m afraid we’ll be right back at square one.

Do we all need to sign an anti-perfume petition or can something else be done?

A: There can be a fine line between an individual’s personal choices and what gets in the way of his/her co-worker’s ability to be productive employees. Most people really do want to be sensitive to the needs of their co-workers, but they also don’t like being told what to do.

Employee policies create guidelines but they can’t cover every circumstance. And, as you’ve discovered, perfumes and odors can raise all kinds of sensitivity issues, both in the health arena and in how the problem gets handled. Instead of further escalating the power struggle with a petition, let’s look at how to handle a sensitive problem with sensitivity.

Frame the problem accurately: The problem isn’t your co-worker’s perfume, it’s the health impact it’s having on some of her co-workers and the resulting loss of productivity; in another environment with other people, there may not be a problem at all.

Attack the problem, not person: Instead of pointing the finger with a You Message like “your perfume is too strong” try this: “I am concerned about the perfume you are wearing to work because several people are having health reactions.”

Be specific when stating the facts: Don’t just say “you’re perfume is making people sick.” Give as much information as you can without violating privacy rights of other employees - “one person has had to increase medication on workdays,” or “we have doctor verification that a medical condition is aggravated by prolonged contact with strong perfume.”

Be open to options: The obvious solution, which may seem like the easiest solution, may not necessarily be the best solution in the long run. Taking the time to listen to each other and explore options will ensure that all are involved in finding a solution that meets everyone’s needs to the best of your ability.

Cheryl Stinski or Karen Dorn 920-993-1490 with questions you’d like answered in this column and to learn how Alternative Resolutions Inc. can help with your workplace needs. Sign up at newsletter@alternativeresolutions.biz for a free subscription to their monthly e-newsletter, The Toolbox.

Link

Link to photo by lecanu mickael on flickr

Perfume is an air pollutant

Letter to the editor at Kingston This Week:

When it comes to perfume, please, a little goes a long way

We hear so much today about clean air and pollutants. Recently, we experienced what I consider something to be a definite air pollutant.

We were shopping at the Cataraqui Canadian Tire when a lady passed us wearing so much cologne or perfume it made me feel sick, but much more to the point, it made my husband almost pass out. He suffers from a disease known as COPD, where at times it’s very difficult, almost impossible to breathe.

This event really affected him and I thought he was going to pass out, as has previously happened. One kind lady offered to get him a chair. We quickly made our way outside to the fresh air and after a while he was all right.

This has happened several times before and we really appreciate the scent-free zones. (Now, if only everyone would abide by these requests, it would be a much more comfortable world for all of those having breathing problems).

When I was in KGH several months ago, a patient in my room had a visitor drenched in perfume. My roommate had to have oxygen administered and my husband had to leave the room. The fragrance lasted for quite a while.

Please be considerate of others when applying anything with fragrance. As in most things, a little goes a long way. It is certainly no fun watching anyone, especially someone you love, fighting for each and every breath.

Jacqueline Neilson

Kingston

Link

Link to photo credit at National Heart Lung and Blood Institute

Dryer Balls to the rescue!

One of the most problematic products for people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is scented dryer sheets. If I am anywhere near one or someone who is wearing clothes that have been dried with one, I’m a goner: my brain is off in lala land, my eyes burn, and I lose all energy. You, too?

Several canaries have written me about the horrors of dryer sheets. So I was delighted when Missy Gluckman, whose mold exposure story we have followed on The Canary Report, wrote to tell me about a completely different type of product she uses that gives her the same result as dryer sheets but without toxic chemicals: Dryer Balls!

Here’s what Missy wrote to me:

Friends,

I stumbled across this product and want to share it with you. For those of you who don’t know, the dryer sheets that you put into the dryer with your clothes have toxins in them. For people like me who have multiple chemical sensitivity (in my case, from mold exposure, but others may simply have an allergic reaction to the smell they emit), the smell of your clothes impacts the quality of my day. I can smell your laundry detergent…your hairspray…your scented lotion…but most of all, I can smell your dryer sheet! Walking anywhere near your dryer vent does the same. (I have to dodge across the street, cover my nose/mouth, try not to inhale while I escape the smell.)

This product is a non toxic way to keep your clothes from static cling without spreading toxins. (Especially important if you have children - you work so hard to have them and then don’t realize that what the market positions as “putting soft and nicely smelling clothes on your kid” is actually potentially poisoning him/her!)  Tony and I used the 2 dryer balls last week and they work wonderfully! We aren’t spending money on dryer sheets that will end up in a landfill somewhere now also.

Here is the link. They offer a deal if you buy 2 sets …. so pick one up for a friend! (Note: I have no financial benefit if you do or don’t buy this).

Missy

Here’s the Dryer Ball description:

Designed to reduce drying time and soften fabrics without the use of chemical fabric softeners, Dryer Balls are an eco-friendly solution to landfill-clogging dryer sheets and chemical-laden liquid softeners. As your wet laundry tumbles in the dryer, these bumpy balls lift and separate fabric to make it soft and fluffy, and allow air to flow more efficiently.

Link

Thanks, Missy!

Article in Salon: Now smell this

There’s a frightening story in Salon on Scent Marketing. The article will make you go nutz, but read through to the comments, they are fascinating.

Note that one of the “experts” quoted is Avery Gilbert, a synthetic fragrance industry hack who recently published a book in which he says Multiple Chemical Sensitivity is a psychosomatic problem. I wrote about it here (comments are pretty interesting on that post).

Link

Thanks, Eloise!

Link to photo by betsymartian at flickr

Call the Manufacturers: We Want Toxic Cleaners Clearly Labeled!

On September 23, join women and men across the country to call on the cleaning products industry to reveal their hidden ingredients.

A call to action from Derek Markham at Eco Child’s Play:

You deserve to know if there are toxic chemicals in your cleaning products. For the last year Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE) has been working directly with manufacturers and industry representatives to get this critical information to the public:

Read the first letter from WVE: First request to cleaning companies

Read the responses from the companies: Company responses

Read the second request from WVE: Second request from companies

Read Household Hazards, highlighting two health risks associated with chemicals in cleaning products, asthma and reproductive harm.

Because no laws exist requiring cleaning product companies to disclose their ingredients, we still don’t know if the products we use every day will cause long-term health impacts.

Women’s Voices for the Earth is asking for your help.

The Soap and Detergent Association (SDA), the industry group that represents most major cleaning products manufacturers, is holding their fall conference in Washington, DC from September 23 - 25. One topic of discussion could be the hundreds of calls they get from people like you demanding to know what ingredients are in your cleaning products

Pledge now to make a call on Tuesday, September 23.

What happens next Tuesday?

On Tuesday, September 23, we urge you to call the SDA at 202-347-2900 and leave the following message for SDA President Ernie Rosenberg:

“I’m a consumer and I want the SDA to support ingredient disclosure on cleaning product labels so I have the information I need to make informed choices.”

I took the pledge to call. Will you join us on September 23?

Let’s make sure they hear us loud and clear!

…

Related posts about household cleaners:

Make Your Own Cleaning Products

How to Clean Toys Naturally

I’ve Switched to Non-Toxic Cleaners: Do I Still Need Poison Control’s Number?

Image: katiebate on Flickr

Link

Link to more about blogger Derek Markham, he writes some very good stuff!

Link to Women’s Voices for the Earth

Shower curtain dilemma

It’s time to buy a new shower curtain and it’s causing a dilemma.

Last June, I posted a report showing that vinyl shower curtains are highly toxic. In the post, I said that when my current curtain died, I might buy a nontoxic Envirocurtain made from recycled polyester materials.

It all sounded good when I was only thinking about toxicity. I’ve always had to hang new vinyl shower curtains out on the line for a week or so until they out gas, but the report made me decide that I don’t want them in the house at all. I’d tried a hemp curtain awhile back, but it was very expensive and rotted very quickly. I thought the poly was a good alternative: nontoxic, recycled and long wearing.

But now that it comes down to buying one, I’m having second thoughts. I’ve been reading Fake Plastic Fish, where Beth Terry talks about plastic materials NEVER breaking down in the environment. Well, doodie. Why would I only care about myself and not the environment on the back end, too? It’s bad enough carrying around the guilt of all the vinyl curtains I’ve added to our island’s landfill.

So the question is: Do I buy the recycled poly curtain or do I find a cloth alternative that is more expensive and won’t last as long, but is friendly to both me and the planet?

Fire and smoke in Ookala

Okay, first, I was awakened yesterday at 5:30 a.m. by the kitchen fire alarm going off. Half asleep. No fire. Had to get the ladder out of the back shed, etc, etc.

Then, at 10:30 a.m., my photog friend calls to ask about a huge fire in the forest up above my community in Ookala. WTF. Then I noticed I could hear helicopters swarming, but I couldn’t smell anything because the trades were taking it the other way. I knew the fire wasn’t close enough to cause me worry, but still, there’s a eucalyptus tree plantation up there and the idea of that forest getting torched is not good. It was very windy.

Early in the afternoon, I got word that there was about 50 acres burned, including some of the eucalyptus. The helicopters were still buzzing, dumping water. I also heard that the fire was contained but not totally put out. As darkness fell, I could still hear the helicopters.

Here on the Hamakua Coast, the wind does a shift every night and then a shift back again every morning; during the day the trades blow in from the northeast, then every night as the temp drops, the winds are drawn down off the mountain and out to sea in the opposite direction. So at about 11:30 p.m., as the wind shifted down off the mountain, the smell of the fire engulfed the house. Ugh.

I’d been dreading that possibility all day. My nose started to close up and I could feel the eucalyptus menthol in my nasal passages and in my lungs. My eyes started burning. Yuk. It was a cornucopia of smells: the euc, the fire, the wet smoldering ash. I wasn’t having the same reaction that I have to synthetic chemicals, but still, not fun. Luckily, though, the wind brought the fire residue my way only briefly as it completed its shift, and within an hour it passed.

Today, the fire is out. I know there were a lot of firefighters up there working very hard, unsung heroes. They got it contained and put out, losing only 200 acres to the flames. Bravo! Here’s this morning’s report in the local paper, Hawaii Tribune-Herald, covered by Peter Sur:

Blaze in eucalyptus forest could have been much worse, no one is injured

ABOVE OOKALA — Firefighters believe they averted a major fire Friday, containing a brush fire near a eucalyptus forest.

Fed by stiff 12 mph winds, the fire grew to 200 acres and reached into the forest, but Battalion Chief Bob Bailey said crews were able to establish a firebreak and halt its advance. He was worried it could have gotten worse.

“If it got up into the crowns (of the eucalyptus trees), it would be a major fire. It didn’t get up into the crowns, fortunately,” Bailey said.

The first calls came in about 8 a.m., and when the first units arrived, “it was just a few acres,” Bailey said. “But with the wind blowing it uphill, it got large.”

No homes were threatened, Civil Defense Administrator Quince Mento said.

“We seem it be getting on it now,” Bailey said around 2:20 p.m., shortly after firefighters contained the fire. He said the cause was not known, but an inspector was on scene.

“We have three bulldozers working and found three helicopters. I think we got about five brush trucks and a couple tanker trucks,” Bailey said.

“The fire did get into the eucalyptus forest,” he said, but he said the break would hold — and it did. Burning areas outside the line were extinguished.

“We have other personnel coming out to continue the operation through the night,” he said.

Throughout the day, three helicopters dropped water on the blaze. Because the trees made it difficult to extinguish the flames from the air, ground crews had to reach it on foot. White steam and gray smoke rose high in the air as seen from the staging area on Ookala Road.

Link to Hawaii Tribune-Herald

EVENING UPDATE: A news report this afternoon said they’ve put out only about 90% of the fire. I guess there’s still some smoldering going on. It’s almost 9:00 p.m. right now, the wind is shifting already, and I can smell it. Not too bad though. Things of course could have been a lot worse, so all-in-all everything is AOK. Thank goodness the crowns didn’t catch.

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