Water | Resources
Wool Carpeting
Question from daisianne
Hi Debra,
We are considering buying wool carpeting for our upstairs to replace very old synthetic carpet (looks about 30+ years old and we know there is lead in this house from testing we have done). I know you will say the best choice is to put in hardwood floors, but the floors are in very bad shape and would cost a fortune, and we are concerned about noise level since the third floor tends to echo throughout the house.
So, carpeting it must be. Yet we cannot afford Earthweave carpeting. I have found some discount wool carpeting in our price range. The customer service rep assured me that all their carpets meet or exceed the Carpet and Rug Institute Green Label standards, but that most carpet does contain mothproofing chemicals.
So.. my question is, given that the most non-toxic choices are out of our price range, what choice would be less toxic to our infant and ourselves: new synthetic carpet, wool carpet with mothproofing, or leaving the old synthetic carpet which may contain lead dust?
My intuition is the wool carpeting with mothproofing, but I’d like your opinion.
Thanks!
Debra’s Answer
I would probably go with the wool carpeting. See if you can find out what type of mothproofing was used before you buy the carpet. There are different types with varying toxicity.
Best whole house water filter for well water? Reverse osmosis or not?
Question from jiwaskow
I’ve read conflicting information about whether reverse osmosis would be good or not for chemical sensitivities and a whole house filter for well water. We need advice. What would be the ideal house water filter system (brand names welcome) for someone who is severely sensitive, and for living on a well system that could have icky stuff in it (e.g. dead animals were in our cistern for a while).
Debra’s Answer
The first thing you need to do is have your water tested to find out what you need to remove. If you are on a well, you don’t need to remove chlorine, or chloramines, for example, because they are not in the water naturally.
Go to the National Testing Laboratories website. Call them and let them help you choose the correct test for your well water. When the results come back, you can then make an intelligent decision about a whole house water filter.
Non-toxic insect control
Question from kendall
Hi Debra:
I teach at a school that uses aerosol bug sprays to kill mosquitoes and other flying bugs that enter the building. As someone with MCS this causes me severe distress every fall and spring. The powers that be at the school said they’re willing to use alternatives but are unaware of any products.
Can you recommend any particular products that are safer than standard insecticides and can be used in a school setting? I’m open to any suggestions–otherwise they’ll continue to use the standard bug sprays.
I’ve heard of non-toxic pheromone based mosquito traps. Are these effective and non-toxic? I appreciate any help/information you can give in this regard. Thank you.
Debra’s Answer
The best answer I can give you on this is to type “green schools” into your favorite search engine and contact the organizations that come up.
There are many folks working to make schools greener, and that would include less toxic pest controls.
Schools may have special regulations or issues I am not familiar with.
Readers, any ideas?
Removing perfume smell from clothing
Question from Margaret
I bought some jeans at the Goodwill last week and when I got home and smelled them in my clean home environment, I could smell perfume (there were too many odors in the store for me to detect it there). I have washed them numerous times, including in baking soda, and put them in the dryer, and I can’t get the perfume smell out. I even tried washing them with Pet Odor Eliminator to see if that would do anything. This has happened to me once before with jeans that I bought at the Goodwill. I finally threw out that first pair of jeans after umpteen times washing them, as I could still smell the perfume. I’m not severely chemically sensitive–I work in an office in downtown Denver and tolerate that–but I don’t want to wear jeans that smell like perfume! I know that can’t be good for me with my mild chemical sensitivities. Why can’t I get this odor out?
Debra’s Answer
I don’t know why perfume smells are so difficult to remove, but there are more things to try at Q&A: Removing perfume from new clothing.
Removing strong perfume smell
Question from Ronda
Hi Debra –
We received a used Wii game system from a friend. They had been storing the Wii in their closet that also must have had some potporri stored in there. The game controllers all smell like potporri. I’ve tried soaking the wrist straps in baking soda and washing down all the plastic parts, but it still smells. What else do you suggest I try? My kids love this and I don’t want to have to get rid of it. Right now we just keep it in a drawer and it doesn’t bother me until they bring it out to play with it.
Thanks so much!!!
Ronda
Debra’s Answer
Readers, any suggestions?
Organic Essentials Menstrual Pads
Tampons made from 100% Certified Organically Grown Cotton. Disposable menstrual pads with an Organic cotton core. Unscented. They are a farmer-owned company and grow the cotton themselves. Site also has organic cotton balls, cosmetic rounds, and swabs, disposable organic cotton nursing pads, and a lot of information on the dangers of conventional menstrual products.
Organic Bouquet
National home delivery of organic, biodynamic, wildcrafted, fair trade, and “green label” flowers (deemed by Organic Bouquet to be socially and environmentally responsible), including roses, lavender, lilies, gerberas, alstroemeria, amaryllis, seasonal bouquets and more. I have received these flowers and they are fresh, beautiful, long-lasting and of excellent quality. They also have a selection of bouquets that benefit environmental organizations. Organic Bouquet is the leader in establishing the market for organic flowers “by encouraging major growers to initiate organic production while creating massive trade and consumer awareness for the need of organic flowers. Our ultimate goal is to help protect the environment and improve farm worker safety by eliminating millions of pounds of toxic pesticides from agricultural usage.” They are also working to establish international standards for responsible growing of commercial flowers. In addition, they sell fresh organic gift-packed fruits, gourmet organic gift baskets, seasonal eco-gifts, and handcrafted artisan vases from around the world.
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Listen to my interview with Organic Bouquet CEO Robert McLaughlin. |
Orange Guard
A water based indoor/outdoor insecticide that may be used around food, humans and pets. Though it kills insects on contact, it is safe to use around food, humans, and pets. It's inventor was inspiried by a magazine articles that reported when someone took citrus hand cleaner and poured it down a fire ant hill, every ant was killed. "If you ever look at oranges, you'll notice that the peels are never bitten into by anything," says the inventor. "Orange peel is a natural repellent."
Purest Babycare Products
Hello Nontoxic Moms ~
I have a question for you.
Having no children of my own, I have no experience with babycare products, specifically those applied to the skin.
I would like to know from you…
What, in your experience are
1) the essential babycare products
2) organic brands you have used and liked
3) homemade substitutes that you have used and liked
Thank you!
Debra 🙂
Nuclear Power
My father-in-law forwarded this to me, from CalPirg.
Over the weekend I was reading a book that suggested one of the best possible ways to approach life was to use the minimum effective amount of anything needed to get the job done.
We just don’t need nuclear reactors to be able to turn on light bulbs.
The danger is greater than the benefit.
Below is a great summary of the issues.
Debra 🙂
Q: Just how risky is nuclear power?
A: Very. Every operating nuclear power plant in the United States has a pool of spent fuel on site, and the possibility of a Fukushima-like loss of coolant—and ensuing release of radiation—is quite real. A worst-case accident involving one of these pools could make more than 2,700 miles of land unfit for human habitation, lead to as many as 143,000 cancer fatalities within 500 miles of the accident site, and cause more than $700 billion in property damage.[i]
Even minor exposures to radiation released during a nuclear accident can cause health problems, including cancer later in life.[ii] Radioactive materials stay dangerous for thousands of years.
Q: Wasn’t the disaster in Japan caused by a combination of events—the earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent power outage—that couldn’t happen here?
A: Between hurricanes, tornadoes, human error, the potential for terrorist attack, mechanical failure, the age of our nuclear reactors and yes—earthquakes and tsunamis—it’s not outrageous to think that a major incident could happen at any one of the 104 nuclear reactors operating at the United States. Each of America’s nuclear power stations share the same vulnerabilities as the nuclear reactors in Japan.[iii]
Q: Don’t we need nuclear power to keep the lights on?
A: Not necessarily. Nuclear power currently generates about 20 percent of the U.S. electricity supply, and it would be difficult to immediately shut existing reactors down. But we don’t need to continue to allow nuclear reactors to operate beyond the 40 years they were originally designed for, and we don’t need to build new reactors.
We have vast safe energy resources that can do a better job of keeping the lights on. And they don’t explode, spill, or contaminate food supplies with radiation. For example, if we improved efficiency, in the next 20 years we could free up as much electricity as 100 new nuclear reactors could generate.[iv]
And America’s entire electricity needs could be met by the sunlight falling on a 100-mile-square patch of Nevada desert, or by the wind blowing across North Dakota.[v]
Q: But isn’t nuclear power cheap?
A: No, it’s expensive and a bad investment. Nuclear power is among the most costly approaches to solving America’s energy problems. You just have to look at the history of nuclear power to understand. Of 75 nuclear reactors completed between 1966 and 1986, the average cost was more than triple the original construction budget.[vi] In 1985, Forbes magazine wrote that “the failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.”[vii]
The industry instead turned to taxpayer support. Over the last fifty years, American taxpayers have subsidized nuclear power to the tune of $145 billion.[viii] That’s more than the entire value of the electricity produced.[ix]
Wall Street investors still won’t touch nukes because the technology is too risky and too expensive. In contrast, investors are lining up to support newer renewable technologies, because they are more cost effective. Per dollar of investment, safe energy solutions—such as energy efficiency and wind power—deliver far more electricity than nuclear reactors.[x]
Q: Isn’t nuclear power better for the environment?
No. Energy efficiency is better. So are wind and solar power. These energy sources are better at preventing the kind of pollution that comes from fossil fuel plants than nuclear reactors because they are cheaper. They also don’t pose any risk of contaminating land, water or food with radioactive pollution.
For more information, and to get regular updates, visit our website.
Sincerely,
Emily Rusch
CALPIRG State Director
P.S. Please feel free to share this message with your friends and family.
[i] (In 2011 dollars.) A Safety And Regulatory Assessment of Generic BWR and PWR Permanently Shutdown Nuclear Power Plants, Brookhaven National Laboratory for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, August 1997.
[ii] According to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a single dose of 0.1 Sieverts would result in approximately 1 person in 100 developing cancer over their lifetime. Lower doses produce proportionally smaller risks. For example, a single exposure of 0.01 Sieverts would cause 1 person in 1,000 to develop cancer during their lifetime.Health Risks from Exposure to Low Levels of Ionizing Radiation, National Academy of Sciences, 2006.
[iii] U.S. Nuclear Plants Have Same Risks, and Backups, as Japan Counterparts, New York Times, March 13, 2011.
[iv] The High Cost of Nuclear Power: Why America Should Choose a Clean Energy Future Over New Nuclear Reactors, U.S. PIRG, March 31, 2009.
[v] Wind: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, 20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply[pdf], DOE/GO-102008-2567, July 2008.
Sun: Bernadette del Chiaro, Tony Dutzik and Sarah Payne, Environment America Research & Policy Center, On the Rise: Solar Thermal Power and the Fight Against Global Warming, Spring 2008.
[vi] This figure actually underestimates the degree to which nuclear projects exceeded budget targets. It excludes escalation and finance costs incurred by construction delays, and does not include data from some of the most over-budget reactors. See Congress of the United States, Congressional Budget Office, Nuclear Power’s Role in Generating Electricity[pdf], May 2008, based on data from U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, An Analysis of Nuclear Power Plant Construction Costs, Technical Report DOE/EIA-0485, 1 January 1986.
[vii] J. Cook, “Nuclear Follies,” Forbes, February 1985.
[viii] Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable without Subsidies[pdf], Union of Concerned Scientists, February 2011.
[ix] Federal energy subsidies: Not all technologies are created equal [pdf], Renewable Energy Policy Project, July 2000.
[x] The High Cost of Nuclear Power: Why America Should Choose a Clean Energy Future Over New Nuclear Reactors, U.S. PIRG, March 31, 2009.
