It is Our Responsibility To Know What We Eat

We as consumers enjoy our freedom to spend our money as we see fit. We would like to believe that the market at large provides us with safe and healthy product and that they generally have our best interests at heart. We would also like to believe that an organization with the lofty title The Center For Consumer Freedom is looking after our best interest. Don’t you believe it.

There is truth in their title. They are interested in our ability to consume freely. However, they are not interested in consumer protectionism. Most of their funding comes from the restaurant, food and gaming industry, including Coca-Cola, Wendy’s and Outback Steakhouse. And also Monsanto, which might have something to do with why it thinks that groups against genetic engineering are “anti-choice nannies”.

Basically, restaurants want you to think that eating their crap without knowing what's in it is just awesome, and they know that using a nonprofit group as a front is more effective than getting a guy in a burger costume to crash Congress.

If we want to live a healthy lifestyle, it is up to us to research verifiable studies and to question the motives for ‘consumer groups’. They always have an agenda and at the top of that list is invariably money.

Don’t take the easy way out of research when it comes to your health by believing what this or that group says. Read different sources, use common sense based in solid scientific studies and always, always learn who is behind every claim.

How Much Does “Free” Recycling Truly Cost?

Mountains of electronic waste is still being sent from the U.S. to sweatshops and open burn pits in Africa and Asia. This has been reported for a very long time and yet still nothing is being done to stem the flow.

The cost of dumping our leftover poison on the poorest and most vulnerable people on Earth is shameful and because it is preventable it is more shameful still.

“Recycling” electronics may be “free” for U.S. consumers but whole cities and regions are being turned into wastelands of toxic smoke and ash and mountains of debris.

How much longer can our collective conscience bear this terrible onslaught of damage to human health and the environment to third world countries? Can we truly afford to just throw our hands up and say “That’s just the way it is”?

Some will argue that our waste gives these people a source of income, and if that is true then aren’t we as the creators of this toxic material obligated to make the handling of it less deadly?

The incredible amount of e-waste we generate is due in part to our addiction to always ‘needing’ the ‘latest’ electronic gadgets, but a lion’s share of that blame falls on a corporate mindset that generates ‘new’ devices with ever shorter life spans in order to maintain a constant profit margin.

How can we reverse the trend of increasing e-waste?

Consumers need to be made aware when they are adding to the e-waste problem and take action to stop buying ‘new’ while ‘old’ is still useable.

Corporations need to make products that last longer even though it cuts into their profit margin and future sales. In short, they need to develop a conscience.

Below is a very short list of recent media documenting how much e-waste is dumped on third world countries. And this is only from the U.S. There is even more coming from Europe and Australia.

Boston Globe:  Old TVs spark environmental dispute

Business Management:  The global e-waste problem

Business Week:  E-waste:  The dirty secret of recycling electronics

CBC News:  E-waste mounting in developing countries

CNET:  E-waste piles up in Nigeria

CrunchGear:  Guiyu:  E-waste capital of China

Scienceblogs:  What we waste:  A view of e-trash

ShanghaiIST:  Bonfire of the e-salvageries

Dangerous Levels of Lead Still Found in Consumer Products

Isn’t anyone going to do something to stop the spread of this toxic element? We learned about the dangers of lead to our bodies decades ago. Why are we still dealing with this poison today in 2010?

Is lead really such an all-important substance that there is no suitable replacement for it? NO. Is it really so much cheaper to use than some alternative? Not when you factor in the cost of health problems caused by using it, which by the way does affect every single person in higher insurance premiums. But then again manufacturers must consider the health of consumers as secondary to their immediate financial benefits. Could this really be true? You betcha.

It is no surprise that lead is found in toys and other consumer products made before we knew about leads toxicity, but to allow these products to remain on the market is irresponsible.

Here’s where we have to test our desire to truly get rid of lead products. Would we really rather hang on to antiques knowing they poison everyone who handles them? Getting rid of them would harm antique stores, second-hand stores and junk shops world-wide, but these items are poison. Just how serious are we about protecting our children and ourselves? It’s a thorny issue.

There are products with lead concentrations of more than 700 times the federal limit. Some toys were found to have more than 50,000 parts per million of lead. Doesn’t sound like anything I want my kids to play with.

Typically, we have thought the only children at risk for lead poisoning are those who live in poor neighborhoods, where lead exposure has historically been more of an issue. But since the resurgence of decorating with slavage items many middle- or upper-class families are being exposed to the danger.

Children should never be allowed to come into contact with antiques or used products sold by a seller who is not regulated by a government agency such as the Consumer Product Safety Administration or the FDA. Used dishware and kitchen utensils should not be used for preparing, serving or storing food. Construction debris and salvage should be considered to have lead until proven safe.


For more details from the story go here.

Smithfield Threatens Documentary makers Over ‘Pig Business”

A documentary about Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations-CAFO’s due to be shown this coming Sunday at the Guardian Hay festival in London England is facing legal action by the company it criticizes, Smithfield Foods.

Smithfield denies its alleged responsibility for environmental pollution and health problems among residents near its factories.

The film was due to be broadcast on Channel 4 in February but was cancelled because of legal fears. A planned screening at the Frontline Club in London earlier this year was also called off.

Each cancellation emboldens Smithfield to keep fighting to keep it from the public. Residents near the factories could come forward and either validate or discredit the film.

Pig Business shows the cramped conditions in which pigs are reared, similar to those of battery hens, and claims that waste is inadequately disposed off, leaking into the surrounding environment.

Filmmaker Tracy Worcester, pictured here, interviewed people who live near Smithfield farms in the US, where the company started out, who complain of health problems including asthma and digestive illnesses, and fishermen who report that stocks have been destroyed.

The film documents the company's move to Poland, where locals claim to experience similar health problems.

Worcester, who spent four years making the film, said: "It's crucial that consumers are able to watch this so they know what is being done to their food."

Smithfield's poor environmental record was documented in Felicity Lawrence's book Eat Your Heart Out, where she notes that the company was fined $12.6m for illegally discharging pollutants into the Pagan river in Virginia. There is no reason to believe the company ‘cleaned up its ways’.

Since Smithfield is fighting this so arduously, there is probably some truth to what the documentary is trying to get out to us. The funny thing, those of us who have followed CAFO’s already now how damaging they are to our environment. So why is Smithfield fighting so hard to keep it from us? They think the general public is too easily swayed by whatever someone puts in front of them. They don’t give the public credit for thinking for themselves.

The thing Smithfield needs to learn is that the internet can spread the truth without any of their lawyers interfering.

Facts about CAFO’s:
Facts about CAFOs, Local Control, and Health Ordinances
Facts about CAFOs by Sierra Club, Michigan Chapter
CAFOs – Economics, emotion and passion

Photo credit: Guardian News and Media Limited

Eat Less, Enjoy Life More

It seems, despite Barack Obama’s best intentions, the economy is going to get worse before it gets better. This means we may have to all tighten our belts a little tighter. But the up side is that we should all come through this a little healthier.

The reason I feel so upbeat about this is that we have to admit we have collectively been eating just a little too much these past few years and eating less is going to have several benefits for us humans as well as for the planet. It might even put people in a frame of mind to find more ways in which we can be a little more considerate of our planet’s needs.

One of the best things we can do for ourselves that always translates to better health for Earth is to eat smaller portions. Not only will you see a decrease in your grocery bill, your body will reward you with better health and you will find that we are throwing less food away. The latest studies confirm that it's not carbs or proteins so much as the number of calories we consume that influences our waist lines most. Slimming down and keeping the weight off relieves all kinds of stress on vital organs, prolonging life.

Eating processed and refined foods also adds not only extra calories but unnecessary chemical additives and industrialized oils that are used for various non-nutrient purposes such as to color foods, making it taste better, and adding shelf life. These extras are not needed by the human body so why consume them? The extras I refer to are corn oil, soybean oil and too much sodium, which all contribute to high blood pressure. Refined grains raise glycemic levels, a cause of diabetes. Despite these health consequences, corporations such as General Mills and Pepsi think of all kinds of ways to persuade you to buy their products. Not because they are such staunch supporters of a healthier life style, but because the extra money you pay for them earns profits for their shareholders.

If at all possible, buy whatever you can in bulk. If you shun processed foods you will already be on your way to lessening the impact that packaging has on the planet. Many processed foods come in individual, or at least smaller, servings. Think about it, how much packaging does it take to wrap individual items to feed ten people as opposed to the amount of packaging required for one package that feeds those same ten people? Also, much of the packaging is made from plastic or plastic coated paper which comes from petroleum, and it all ends up in the landfill. Even if you are one of the conscientious few who recycle everything, it's far more environmentally friendly to purchase foods that don't have any packaging at all. Plus, you pay extra for the packaging.

Another way that will greatly help our physical health as well as financial health is to buy whole foods. The produce section provides the best source of nutrition in any grocery store and yet it is the most expensive. Many people don’t stop to think about how much the federal government subsidizes (with our tax dollars) the growing of corn and soybeans. These two items provide the lease amount of nutrition for the bulk they provide and they are the cheapest. What this means is that we may spend less but we are not getting any real nutrition for our dollar which leads to higher medical costs. Tomatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, asparagus, cabbage, carrots and parsnips are all loaded with good nutrition. So are of kinds of whole grains and dried beans. If you can afford it, start buying your produce from the local farmers market. Not only will you know exactly where your food is coming from, you will be helping to support your local agricultural economy, not some giant agribusiness a thousand miles away that uses far too much fuel and time to get your so called ‘fresh’ produce to you.

Anyone who has visited this site regularly knows, this next topic is a favorite rant of mine. I promise I won’t rant this time, but we really do need to eat less meat. The biggest reason is that feeding beef cows, pigs and chickens is expensive, both financially and to the environment. Corn is one of the major sources of food for cows and they are not even built for it. Corn is used because it is more profitable for farmers to grow rather than the grass that cows naturally eat. Corn requires an extremely high amount of nitrogen fertilizer and this comes from chemicals which is based in petroleum. Simply because we have used so much chemically based fertilizers in the past, the natural state of our soils in the Midwest is depleted. Excess nitrogen fertilizer gets washed into the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River and is killing off a large portion of the sea life.

In addition to the dangers of using petroleum-based chemical fertilizers to raise the food for these animals, most animals for consumption are now raised on huge feedlots that produce tons of pollution that ends up in our waters and in our air. They and all the fuels used to feed and transport them contribute mightily to global warming.

Hopefully, that rant wasn’t too bad. Trust me, I could go on for pages.

The bottom line is to try to get more of your protein from eggs and beans. Search out eggs produced on pastures instead of giant hen houses. Eggs are still a nutritional bargain, even when they're $4.75 a dozen at the farmers market. Also work more dried beans and whole grains into your diet. Together they make a complete protein and they are much cheaper than meat. The next step up would be chicken. Chickens (look for "pasture raised") are much more efficient producers of protein than cows or pigs.

Fish, while being one my favorite foods, is becoming more and more expensive because there are fewer and fewer fish to be caught. Humans are rapidly destroying the oceans. If you must buy wild-caught fish, check first with a reputable rating agency such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium's "Seafood Watch program to make sure you are buying only fish that has been sustainably harvested. Otherwise, look for fish raised on farms in the U.S., such as catfish, tilapia, striped bass or shrimp. These have the further advantage of being cheaper than most wild-caught fish. Another excellent protein source is farmed shell fish such as clams, oyster and mussels. If you are pregnant, breast feeding or otherwise concerned about having enough Omega 3 in your diet, be assured that there are other sources besides fish.

Bottled water, this is a touchy subject too. If you are fortunate to live in an area of the country where tap water tastes good and is thoroughly tested then by all means don’t buy bottled water. For those of us whose city tap water does not taste good, sorry, but we are going to buy bottled water. End of story. It is true that bottled water is outrageously expensive and Americans throw away something on the order of 80 million plastic water bottles every day, to say nothing of all the fuel being used to make the bottles and transport them from factory to store. But I need water and my tap water is salty.

Stop drinking soft drinks. These drinks, Coca Cola, Pepsi, etc, are loaded with sugar that rots teeth and helps make people (especially children) fat. Americans consume way too much soda. Plus, sodas are a major contributor to our plastic bottle and aluminum can nightmare. Diet sodas are only marginally better, in that you eliminate the sugar. But in the process you consume industrialized chemicals posing as sweeteners. Learn to like water again and watch how everyday foods begin to taste better and your weight begins to drop. I have been there and I know.

Eat out less. Restaurants may not want to hear this but they are a contributing factor to our weight problem. Their portions are way too big. Plus, food from restaurants and especially fast food joints is not particularly good for you. If you are using whole ingredients and healthy oils such as extra-virgin olive oil or canola oil, just about anything you make at home is bound to be more nutritious and likely cheaper than what you get eating out. Making food at home and sitting down to a meal at the dinner table also teaches valuable lessons to children and helps strengthen the family unit. Get your kids out from in front of the TV and into the kitchen helping you make dinner.

The final topic of our discussion today is gardening. There is a rise in the number of people starting their own gardens. At first is was attributed to higher gasoline prices of last summer which lead to higher food prices. Now that we are entering our second year of the economic downturn, your garden should be ready to start producing, provided you added plenty of composted kitchen scraps, animal manure and no chemical fertilizers last year. But it is never too late to get started. Keep feeding the soil and your plants will reward you with a much healthier diet than what you have been eating.

A kitchen garden will solve many of your budget and nutritional issues. Most vegetable seed packets cost less than $3 and typically contains more seeds than the typical home gardener will ever use. There is very little in the produce section or at the farmers market that you cannot grow yourself, including all your most expensive favorites: strawberries, blueberries, asparagus, rhubarb, artichokes. Some of these items will not grow as well in some parts of the country as in others. You need to learn things such as ‘Last Frost Date’, ‘First Frost Date’, your soil type, etc. All of these and many other questions that arise can be answered by following several of the myriad of gardening blogs on the internet. There are many passionate gardeners who are will to answer any question you may have.

It is amazingly easy to grow your own potatoes, beans, peas, and tomatoes. You can fill your pantry and your freezer with enough food for the whole year provided you have the space for enough plants. But even if you can’t grow enough to get through the winter you will have at least added healthful foods to your diet and you will have learned how to grow your own. If you don’t have room to grow anything, there are community gardens in almost any city. And if not in yours, then start one. You will be sure to find neighbors who are just waiting for someone to bring up the possibility.

Food Safety Program Needs Restructuring, Not Another Agency

In the wake of the recent salmonella outbreak that killed 9 people and sickened over 600 others, food safety concerns have become a pressing issue.

The Food and Drug Administration takes the brunt of the responsibility and is the most pressured to find the cause and correct it.

However, at least 15 agencies are involved in making sure food is safe under at least 30 different laws, some of which date back to the early 1900s. it doesn’t matter how old a law is as long as it works. And if those 30 laws work then they should remain in place. However, it seems there needs to be some re-thinking as to how often food gets inspected and by whom.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have been proposing an overhaul of the nation's food safety structure for more than a decade. Food safety advocates agree.

I don’t believe we need another bureaucratic agency to add to the convoluted maze, just shore up practices already in place. The system will work if given enough inspectors with the proper guidelines and abilities.

The Department of Agriculture should inspect anything grown or raised on a farm, domestic and imported. The FDA should cover everything else that enters the human body (drugs, etc), domestic and imported. They need to agree on a schedule of inspections and they both need the ability to shutdown operations if a threat is discovered.

Obviously, an alert system needs to be in place to notify the general public of a possible contamination of food, possible source(s), and where the product was shipped. And this alert needs to take place within days of the discovery not months as is currently the case.

It seems reasonable that if any manufacturer has to face the possibility of a shutdown (cutting into their profits) then it would be in their best interest to ensure their product is safe.

Raw food inspections covered by USDA, this covers growers. Processed foods covered by FDA, this covers processors.

An additional safety net would be provided by the health department to inspect facilities and ensure workers are following safe food-handling procedures.

This means that some foods will be inspected more than once. The bottom line is that all possible sources of contamination needs to be inspected, as the source of all tainted food has come from mis-handling of food and/or contamination of facilities.

EPA gets tough on smog

Everyone has noticed it, it is no secret how the very air we breathe has been slowly deteriorating to the point that many cities now regularly post air quality warnings on their television, radio and newspaper news broadcasts.

After failing to enforce air quality standards imposed by the EPA decades ago, they are going to try again. Obviously, if those standards had been enforced when first introduced we would not be in the mess we are in today.

So, what is the EPA going to do differently this time? To start, they are ordering a multibillion-dollar expansion of efforts to clean up smog in cities and towns nationwide. Sounds like a plan. Corporations will of course not be bothered by it because they will slow-dance around in the court system delaying the requirements crying that they are too cost-restrictive for them, just as they did before, and nothing will ever come of it.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced it was tightening the amount of ozone, commonly known as smog, that will be allowed in the air. But the lower standard still falls short of what most health experts say is needed to significantly reduce heart and asthma attacks from breathing smog-clogged air. Falling short. Sound familiar? It should. The recent attempt to get automobile manufacturers to improve their cars fuel mileage and lower emission levels fell short too.

This government is more about talking a good game than actually taking the steps to do anything about it. All the while insuring that their corporate buddies don’t suffer any loss to their bottom line.

Admittedly it is a very big problem and just writing some stricter standards is not going to change anything.

The ‘most stringent standards ever’ claims EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. But they are only going to be enforced in 345 counties out of the more than 700 monitored. That means that 355 counties are still going to continue polluting at their current rate. Fifty percent seems to be on par with the output level of the EPA. This is what we commonly refer to half-assed.

This new ‘get tough’ policy comes from the same people that refused to allow California and a host of other states to get tough on automobile pollution within their own states.

This administrator is ignoring two of the EPA’s own science advisory panels on air quality and children’s health by lowering the ozone parts per billion from 80 to 75 when the panels have proof that it needs to be lowered to 60. In this move, Administrator Johnson is leaving the most vulnerable members of our society, children, the elderly and asthma suffers to fend for themselves. Then he has the nerve to make the statements that “…I adhered to the science” and the new standard will ”yield health benefits valued between $2 billion and $19 billion."

Sure its going to cost us more to clean up this mess, this is what happens when you allow polluters to not adhere to standards for so long. Since you did not enforce the previous standards what makes us believe you will enforce these?

The utility and oil companies of course opposed stricter standards, even at this very minute level, saying it will increase their costs and therefore ‘hurt the economy’. Give me a break. The oil company is especially being audacious when they claim to care about the economy in light of the fact they are instrumental in raising oil prices to record level.

George W. Bush, in his usual corporate-profit driven mindset, wants to over throw the 1970 federal Clean Air Act that says costs cannot be a factor when setting health standards.

Health experts and environmentalists view the setting of health standards without consideration of cost as essential for assuring public health. As well they should. This clearly shows Bush and Johnson as protecting corporate profit over protecting the public.

Corporations are complaining about the stricter standards now as a preliminary for lobbying for more protection from the government in the form of tax breaks and incentives, which they will most likely get. They care very little about the economy because the government will always bail them out.

The setting of this new standard is nothing more than setting up corporations for getting more money from our government. It has nothing to do with protecting us or our environment.

Once again we see more talk and a little less action.

How green can we be with water?

Do we really, truly care about conserving gasoline, water, electricity? How serious are we about recycling? Are we as green as we want to be? Are we as green as we think we are? Can we even be green as we want with our water?

"Water is the driving force of all nature."
Leonardo da Vinci

This is a continuing series into the exploration of just how concerned we are about caring for our environment when it comes to our personal comforts.

In the previous issue I explored the recycling game and how we abuse the redistribution of useable items. This issue covers the necessary use of water vs. the wasteful use of water and just how safe our water really is.

We toss a few items into the recycle bin, our conscience is tested at the grocery store when asked “paper or plastic?”, we trade our incandescent light bulbs for energy efficient compact fluorescent lightbulbs or LED’s, yet we buy our water in non-degradable plastic bottles by the caseload. Are we just environmentally confused or are we fooling ourselves into thinking we are environmentally friendly? We take energy conservation seriously only around the time we pay our monthly bills. Or do we? Water usage is another resource that we continually use more of than we need to. Gasoline is the other. The difference with water is that it is a renewable resource and gasoline is not.

Water is necessary for the life of every living thing on this planet. We need it to keep our lawns green, to flush toxins out of our bodies, to rid our homes of our bodily waste, to cleanse ourselves, to keep our cars and nuclear power plants running cool, and for recreation.

This resource is finite, in that we cannot create more of it. It has been used over and over in countless billions of cycles, from ocean to clouds to rain to lakes to man-made water filtering systems to our homes to sewer drains to man-made sewage treatment systems and eventually back to the ocean. When man took his first drink of water and then peed it back out onto the ground, he became a part of that cycle and we have been striving to improve the system ever since. Only after our demand for usage of water increased to the point where Earth’s natural filtration system, earth itself, was not cleaning it up well enough before it got back to us to drink again did we realize the necessity to clean it up ourselves and to not pollute it.

Yet we continually find evidence that not all of us are doing our part in keeping it clean.

A recent Associated Press investigation found a vast array of pharmaceuticals contaminate the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans.

Last month, March 2008, Los Angeles shared the honor, with Clearbrook, British Columbia, as having the best tasting water in an annual international contest and yet Los Angeles is on the list of cities where the pharmaceuticals were found. With contradictions like this how can we trust what anyone tells us about our drinking water?

Clean and tasteful are relative terms.

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed.

From this admission it can be concluded that they think the general public is too undereducated to handle the truth and therefore we should remain ignorant.

We live in the information age and yet not all information is readily available to us until a news story spins the facts to appear more sensational than they should be. Then we panic. But only briefly, because after realizing there is very little we can do, we do nothing. Life goes on and we buy more bottled water and lose a little more faith in those who are paid to protect us and those who are supposed to report facts to us.

How much water is available to us?

Water parks, golf courses, residential use, food production, and the booming bottled water industry are putting a very large demand on our water resources. And every year we spend billions of dollars to clean it, to transport it, and to distribute it to where we can use it.

Of all the water this Earth has to offer, an estimated 13.6 billion cubic kilometers (including the oceans and polar ice caps), only 3% is useable freshwater. And rainfall runs off too quickly for efficient use.

Water pollution is a persistent, barely manageable problem, more so in third world countries, but it occurs in every country. Pollution of rivers and lakes reduces accessible freshwater supplies. Each year roughly 450 cubic kilometers of wastewater are discharged into rivers, streams and lakes. To dilute and transport this dirty water before it can be used again, another 6,000 cubic kilometers of clean water are needed - an amount equal to about two-thirds of the world's total annual useable fresh water runoff.

How much do we need?

The amount of water that people use depends on basic needs and how much water is available. Withdrawals of water have grown to meet demand for all types of use - for irrigated agriculture, industry, and municipal (household) purposes. As the world continues to urbanize at rapid rates, the demand for potable water for municipal use is expected to soar, out pacing the capacity of most cities to provide it.

Population growth, globally, is nearly 80 million per year which translates to an increased demand for freshwater of about 64 billion cubic meters a year - an amount equivalent to the entire annual flow rate of the Rhine River.

In 1995, 31 countries, home to nearly half a billion people, regularly faced either water stress or water scarcity. In 2025, 48 countries containing about 3 billion people will face water shortages. By 2050 the figures will be 54 countries containing 4 billion people, or 40 per cent of the projected world population of 9.4 billion.

A substantial portion of the total freshwater supply is needed to sustain marshes, rivers, coastal wetlands, and the millions of species they shelter. As humanity withdraws a growing share of all available freshwater, less is available to maintain these vital wetland ecosystems. Already, over 20 per cent of the approximately 10,000 freshwater fish species in the world are either endangered, threatened or going extinct.

Are we wasteful with our water?

Freshwater mismanagement has created deserts, poisoned millions of acres of land with salt and killed entire lakes (see the Aral Sea disaster).

We are experiencing floods where there never used to be floods. We are experiencing droughts where there never use to be droughts. Are these ‘unnatural’ occurrences due to how we use our water? Building a dam cannot help but alter the environment both upstream and downstream. But are we destroying the environment by doing so?

The way in which we use water to distribute fertilizer and pesticide to our food crop is not necessarily wasting water. After all using the water to produce food cannot be considered wasteful. In fact, since water is a renewable resource, meaning it all gets recycled and we use it over and over countless times, are we truly ‘wasting’ water when we use it?

You can argue that we overspend for the use of water when we look closely at how much water we use in our daily lives. Maybe we don’t need to leave the water running while we brush our teeth, or maybe we take a little longer than necessary in the shower. But are we truly wasting water? It is more accurate to say that we are wasting money.

We abuse water when we throw garbage in our rivers instead of disposing of it in a proper manner. It can be considered wasteful when we take into account the amount of water used to keep a golf course green compared to the number of people who use that golf course and then take into account the amount of water needed to keep a city park clean compared to the number of people who use that park. But in the end, all of the water we use to support golf courses and parks returns to the Earth and is then returned to us to use as we see fit.

I have to confess to allowing tap water run a little too long when I am hand washing pots and pans and when I brush my teeth, etc. These are habits that I am ashamed of but am consciously trying to change.

I don’t use automatic car washes anymore, opting to wash my cars by hand and not as often as I used to. I throw the soapy water on the lawn so the water soaks into the ground instead of down storm drains where it has to be filtered and cleaned. The soap does not harm the grass. Rinsing the car off does send soapy water down the street gutter but I don’t feel I am using as much as an automatic car wash.

How many of us have a dripping faucet that we plan on getting around to fixing some day? Did you know that a faucet dripping just 2 drops per minute can amount to almost nine gallons a month! How many drops of water is coming out of that dripping faucet per minute? In most cases it is a matter of replacing a washer that costs less than one dollar!

Cost of bottled water

I buy bottled water from Costco. I am only mildly ashamed of this fact. My city government has, in the past twelve months, issued three notices about our drinking water. Each notice informed us, 4 months after the contamination, that routine testing had revealed coliform bacteria contamination. Lovely. So, for two very obvious reasons, one being that the bacteria was found, and two, that it took so long for us to be notified, I drink bottled water. FYI, coliform bacteria is used as an indicator of the presence of other pathogenic organisms of fecal origin. Fecal pathogens include bacteria, viruses, protozoa or parasites. In those notices, we were never told what those other pathogens were.

In my family’s case, it is far cheaper for me to purchase bottled water than to take the chance of getting sick.

I learned of another expense of recycling plastic that, while not exactly money out of pocket, still costs tons in wasted water used in cleaning the plastic. During the process of recycling plastic, a variety of harmful acids and detergents are added to the water to separate the labels and glue from the plastic. Deflocculants are then added to pull the solids out of the wastewater. Finally, the wastewater is treated with chemicals to balance the pH level of the water. This process leaves the plastic sanitized and ready to be recycled. Annually, approximately 40 million gallons of wastewater, complete with harmful detergents, chemicals, acids, bases, deflocculants, and contaminants are flushed down the drain and back into our fresh water supply. This system is considered a lesser evil than creating plastic from scratch.

After decades of countless billions of gallons of contaminated water being introduced to our water tables, a new process of preparing plastic to be recycled has been discovered by ECO2 Plastics. Using a biodegradable organic solvent made of sugar beets and corn (in conjunction with liquid CO2). In the entire process now uses no water or harmful chemicals, and the liquid CO2 is distilled and used over and over again, as is the solvent.

Is there more we can do keep our water clean? Is there more we can do to use our water more efficiently? The answer is yes to both of these questions.

We use water to make money, we use it to make other products that make us money, we use it to keep ourselves healthy, doesn’t it make sense to take better care of it?

Since we cannot stop using water let’s think more intelligently about what we put in it.

This is part of a continuing series that explores just how dedicated we are to saving our planet and ourselves from our polluting and energy-wasting ways.

Come back for the next installment when I explore our use of electricity.

And, as always, please feel free to leave comments.

Sources:

Peopleandplanet.net

Bnet business network

EPA Ground Water & Drinking Water frequently asked questions

Honey making a medical comeback

Everyone who did not know honey is an antibiotic, raise your hand or go ‘huh’ or something like that. I am as surprised as I’m sure a lot of people are to learn this.

Ancient Egyptians, creative and curious individuals that they were, used to dress wounds with honey. Whether they thought it was natures glue or understood how it works remains a mystery. Why they started using this in the first place as a band-aid is unknown.

Derma Sciences Inc., a New Jersey company that makes medicated and other advanced wound care products, began selling the first honey-based dressing this fall after it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Their product is called Medihoney, what else, and is made from a seaweed-based material that is saturated with manuka honey.

Manuka honey, to be specific, is collected from the flower of the wild tea tree bush (leptospermum scoparium).

Evidently, the rest of the world has known about its healing, antiseptic properties for quite some time. Australians and New Zealanders have been using it to treat their patients for decades.

Since ancient times honey has been used as a natural medicine in many cultures. The antibacterial properties of honey however have only been discovered a century ago.

Why does it seem the U.S. is always last to learn of these things? I think it is because Americans are too egotistical about their medical professional to think that something natural could work just as well if not better than whatever medical science forces on us. And of course advertisers play a very large hand in this.

Honey in fact inhibits a broad spectrum of bacteria. Some reports even show an anti-fungal activity in honey. Some honeys will work better than others though. The Honey Research Unit at the Waikato University in New Zealand is constantly researching honey as a therapeutic agent.

“The reason that Medihoney is so exciting is that antibiotics are becoming ineffective at fighting pathogens," said Derma Sciences CEO Ed Quilty. This is what happens when our bodies are constantly filled with unnatural chemical agents. The body simply reacts better to natural treatments.

Another big advantage, he said, is that the dressings' germ-fighting and fluid-absorbing effects last up to a week, making them convenient for patients being cared for at outpatient clinics or by visiting nurses. They also reduce inflammation and can eliminate the foul odors of infected wounds.

Regular honey can have mild medicinal benefits. A study published Dec. 3 showed it helps to calm children's coughs so they can sleep. But manuka honey is far more potent, research shows.

Medihoney dressing can also prevent the dangerous drug-resistant staph infection known as MRSA from infecting open wounds.

Manuka honey can kill the toughest bacteria even when diluted 10 times and it is recommended especially for people with weak immune systems.

This is used as a barrier to keep infections out, it won’t work if the infection is already in the blood.

Some U.S. hospitals and wound care clinics are already using Medihoney dressings to treat patients with stubborn, infected wounds from injuries or surgical incisions and nonhealing pressure ulcers on diabetics' feet, which too often lead to amputations.

David Crosby, a retired insurance claims examiner from Hanover, Massachusetts, began using Medihoney two months ago on a 2 1/2-year-old burn on his leg after high-tech treatments did not help. The burn's size has shrunk by half and it continues to heal.

At a military clinic for Iraqi children, Medihoney was used on patients with severe burns from cooking fuels, open fires and explosions. Iraqi families soon preferred the honey over other treatments because it was natural and because the honey dressings don't need to be changed as often as traditional ones. The children also healed more quickly and with fewer complications.

This is yet another example of how nature has what we need to survive if we would only continue to look for it. Just because medicine is modern doesn’t mean it is better.

We need to look more closely at what we can do to preserve what nature is left on this Earth as a means of helping ourselves in the long run.