Ecomental

You try and choose foods that are as free as possible of harmful chemicals such as pesticides. But if you consume canned soups, beans and soft drinks, organic or not, you also may be swallowing residues of a controversial chemical called bisphenol A (BPA) that can leak out of the can linings into your food. Nearly all can liners contain BPA, says Geoff Cullen, director of government relations at the Can Manufacturers Institute in the United States. BPA has also been found to migrate, under some conditions, from polycarbonate plastic water bottles.

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Household, Industry Bisphenol A, BPA, United States

Click the “Version” numbers above to see how different electronics firms have been fairing since 2006 with their move to green.

The Greenpeace organization is helping us all make more informed decisions regarding our electronics purchases - allowing us to make conscious decisions to purchase from ‘greener’ electronics manufacturers, theoretically supporting that firm’s green initiatives. Read more…

Household, Industry Climate change, Electronic waste, Greenpeace, Microsoft, Recycling

By Paul Crossley

Cloth Diapers vs Disposable...a 'rashional' debate

There tend to be two distinct sides to the Cloth Diapers versus Disposable Diapers debate: either you’re ‘for’ cloth and against disposable or the opposite.  You may also have the reasons lined up in your mind with regard to precisely why you’re in one camp or the other.

Common reasons to be ‘pro’ cloth include such notions as, reducing landfill, the bacteria and viruses created from human excrement in landfills, trees and plastics used to create disposables and so on.  The ‘pro’ disposable segment will speak to pesticide use in growing cotton (though organic cloth diapers are now available), pollution through harvesting and transporting cotton (though producing and transporting disposables also causes pollution) and to human waste in the local water supply through laundering (though this water waste goes to the same place as the water waste in your toilet: the sewage system.

This article will look at the pros and cons of the ecological debate and introduce an additional element over and above the well-being of the Earth: our own health. Read more…

Household Children, Earth, Environment, Waste Management, Water