Environmental Intersection by George Lindemann

We know the mantra well: "Reduce, reuse, recycle." We often start by repairing, selling or donating our unwanted stuff but eventually, we must figure out how to recycle that old refrigerator Grandma gave you in 1980. And recycling can even be cost effective when its energy use is taken into account because outdated products are often less energy efficient than newer models -- even when you include the embodied energy cost of producing the new one and disposing of the old.

Recycling certain household items may be trickier than you think. Proper recycling of appliances, electronics, fluorescent bulbs, and rechargeable batteries is a must. It reduces pollution in two important ways:

• Recyclable materials, such as glass, plastics, and metals, are kept out of landfills.

• Hazardous waste is handled appropriately.

Let's get busy recycling the safe way!

Household appliances

Properly disposing of appliances helps keep harmful chemicals, such as refrigerants, mercury, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) out of the atmosphere and landfills. It saves energy too, because recycling existing materials to create new products uses less energy than making new products from virgin materials.

According to the Steel Recycling Association, nearly 90 percent of household appliances in the U.S. are now recycled since disposal systems have become more effective at salvaging the plastic, steel, glass, refrigerant, oil and blowing agent found in old appliances for use in new products.

Consumer Reports explains that when you buy a new large appliance, most retailers will haul away the old one. Some utilities will even pay you to dispose of an energy-wasting appliance. Find out whether your town or county government offers an appliance-recycling program or locate one on the Steel Recycling Institute's website.

E-waste

How many electronic products become obsolete before we can even blink? America has an ever-growing pile of unwanted electronics, or "e-waste," and electronic discards are one of the fastest growing segments of our nation's waste stream. Check the EPA's e-cycling database to find information about electronics recycling programs in your area. Also, many computer, TV and cell phone manufacturers, as well as electronics retailers offer some kind of take back program or sponsor recycling events.

CFL's and fluorescent light bulbs

Energy Star compact fluorescent light bulbs last longer and use up to 75 percent less energy than standard light bulbs, but they need to be disposed of carefully because they contain trace amounts of mercury. Several states have banned the disposal of CFLs in household trash, so you may need to dispose of them at your local household hazardous waste collection site. To find out what programs are available in your state or region, go to www.epa.gov/bulbrecycling. Proper recycling prevents the release of the mercury into the environment and the glass and metal parts can be reused.

Don't forget about that old fluorescent fixture flickering away in your basement either. If it was manufactured before 1979, it may contain PCBs in the ballast and should be disposed of responsibly. You can go to www.lamprecycle.org for a list of national lamp and ballast recyclers.

Rechargeable batteries

Consumers use an average of six wireless products in their day-to-day lives, and the average cell phone is replaced every 18 to 24 months.

Improperly disposed batteries can pollute water sources, leach from solid waste landfills, cause burns or danger to eyes and skin and expose the environment to hazardous lead and acid.

Safely disposing of batteries has gotten easier in recent years. Many stores that sell batteries, phones or electronics will take used batteries back for recycling. And through programs like Call2Recycle, all materials are used to create other goods, including new batteries, stainless steel products and more. They make the process so simple that there are no excuses for not doing it!

Follow Sloan Barnett on Twitter and on her Facebook page.

Books by this author

-->

This Blogger's Books from

Green Goes with Everything: Simple Steps to a Healthier Life and a Cleaner Planet
by Sloan Barnett

Follow Sloan Barnett on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sloanbarnett

We spend a lot of time providing a healthier life for our family. This month we've talked about cleaning up our water, cleaning products, mattresses, our paint and even our bodies. But now it's time to worry about another important member of the family, and one who is often forgotten -- Fido!

Pets are especially impacted by the dangerous chemicals in your home because they live so close to the ground, both indoors and out. So where should we look for the greatest dangers?

Start by thinking about fleas, ticks and mosquitoes. Our pets are exposed to the insecticides we spray on the yard, and the flea shampoos we bathe them in. Many of these treatments contain chemicals that are linked to cancer, allergies, asthma and are suspected endocrine disruptors. For example, many concentrated "spot-on" flea medications contain a pesticide called permethrin, which can cause skin and eye irritation, rashes, inflammation and neurological symptoms. In fact, the EPA is set to begin reviewing these product labels and developing stricter testing requirements for flea and tick treatments that are applied to a pet's skin.

It is obviously still important to prevent infestations, but it is also possible to get the job done using safer methods. Some require more time, but your family will benefit from the lower pesticide exposure as well. Try these tips for safer flea and tick control:

• Groom your pets with a flea comb.

• Trim the lawn frequently.

• Wash pet beds and blankets often.

• Vacuum your home regularly.

• Check the NRDC's GreenPaws Flea and Tick Products Directory before deciding on chemical treatments.

We can keep mosquitos from dominating our dog's turf naturally too. The key here is prevention -- catching them before they grow from larvae into adults. If you've already got a flying mosquito population to deal with, it's best to combine several natural remedies. Here are some pesticide-free ideas:

• Get rid of potential breeding grounds from your landscaping by removing standing water: water buckets, empty plastic growing pots, gutters, clogged drains and bird baths.

• Add bacillus thuringiensis (BT) to the water in ponds, fountains and birdbaths to kill larvae. BT is a harmless natural substance that is safe for pets, fish, birds and wild life but is deadly to all kinds of larvae. It's available at most gardening stores.

• Spray the entire yard (including shrubbery) at least once per month with a mixture of natural pyrethrums, bacillus thuringiensis and neem oil. The mixture also helps to manage fleas and ticks and will destroy sneaky mosquito hideouts in smaller pockets of standing water.

• Enlist the help of a good old bug zapper for flying adult mosquitoes.

By focusing on Fido, you're also addressing yet another source of toxic chemical exposure in your home!

Follow Sloan Barnett on Twitter or on her Facebook Fan page at https://www.facebook.com/GreenGoesWithEverything.

Books by this author

-->

This Blogger's Books from

Green Goes with Everything: Simple Steps to a Healthier Life and a Cleaner Planet
by Sloan Barnett

Follow Sloan Barnett on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sloanbarnett

Down among the pipes and pumps and gauges, amid the incessant cacophony of the water works, talk of rising sea levels no longer resonates as some distant and esoteric political squabble, irrelevant to a city’s delivery of basic of public services.

Two more feet, said Hollywood City Commissioner Dick Blattner, and his city’s water plant no longer functions. Hollywood’s waste water treatment plant, he said, has 20, maybe 25 years before the projected sea level changes render it useless.

Those are the realities that ought to trump mindless chatter about global warming on cable television. Of course, city and county commissioners trying to fill the holes in this year’s piddling budgets aren’t particularly anxious to contemplate a massively expensive crisis a couple of decades away. Nor do they want to get drawn into the ferocious U.S. debate between climate scientists and climate deniers over whether the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to global warming.

Except, no matter the cause, the earth’s getting hotter. Ice caps are melting. The warming ocean’s expanding. South Florida, built to 20th Century sea level specifications, can’t simply ignore the water lapping at its infrastructure.

Just last week, Richard Muller, a physics professor at the University of California, a revered climate skeptic, funded in part by climate-denier sugar daddy Charles Koch, admitted that his Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature team’s study of global temperature readings had come up with findings that coincided with research he had previously doubted.

“Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warmingÿ values published previously by other teams in the US and the UK.,” Muller wrote in the Wall Street Journal. “When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn’t know what we’d find. Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been very careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that.”

“Even if people don’t accept the science, there is plenty of evidence that something is going on. Just look at the facts,” said Blattner, a member of the Broward County Water Resources Task Force. “I have been bringing this up for months.”

The Hollywood commissioner said the older cities clustered along South Florida’s coastline must start planning for the inevitable problems. Low-lying neighborhoods will be inundated unless local governments find some new way to get rid of storm waters. Blattner worries that his city’s most prestigious neighborhood, the Lakes area, faces perpetual flooding.

Cities must find new well fields in the western reaches of South Florida before the encroaching sea pushes salt water into the local aquifer. “Plans should be developed now,” he said.

Without some planning, and soon, coastal cities like Hollywood, with waste-water plants on sites that were chosen back in the middle of the 20th century, are headed toward an utter dysfunctional system, without the means to treat or get rid of its own sewage.

Not much help will be coming from Tallahassee, where climate denial has been embraced as a political truism. But local governments can’t dawdle, hoping the skeptics are right and the thermometers are wrong.

Last week, Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions released a study on the specific effects higher temperatures and the rising sea would have on coastal towns and on city services. FAU, using Pompano Beach as a model, calculated that the costs to salvage water and sewer services would be counted in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Hollywood may be even more vulnerable.

The water task force is composed of elected officials and technical experts from around the region. “The technical folks get it,” Blattner said. The politicians, he said: not so much.

Among the political leaders (with the notable exception, he said, of Broward County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs), “I have not seen any willingness to address this.” Blattner wants city and county governments in South Florida to devise regional water and sewer plants designed to deal with the rising sea levels. Instead, individual cities are planning and building separate utilities, oblivious to the coming crisis. His committee has seen plans for water treatment plants that will be located, he said, in areas that are clearly “doomed.”

“Buildings will go up, plaques will be installed to recognize the vision of local officials,” he said. Except that vision will be very short sighted.

One of the most pressing problems facing South Florida today...

Doing the laundry is simple enough, right? Sort by color, choose your water temperature, add the detergent, set the cycle -- and then off you go to brew a fresh cup of tea, for a job well done.

Except that as you sit and sip, you recall the rash on your arm a few days earlier after you wore your dark green blouse to work. Or what about the itchiness that your son started complaining about a few weeks ago after wearing his favorite t-shirt? On an impulse, you walk back down to the laundry room, reach for the laundry container, look at the ingredients -- and wonder what is actually in that product that gets your whites so dazzling, and gives everything that fresh smell.

Maybe it's time we all took a closer look at what we're adding to our laundry.

Clean Laundry Naturally

It's only natural to want our clothes to be clean. The problem is that what we use to clean them is anything but natural. When I talk with people about switching to healthier household cleaners, they're most reluctant to change their laundry detergents -- they're just too hooked on the smell to make the change. But what if they knew what was in that smell?

Recent findings in a study done by the University of Washington show that air vented from machines using the top-selling scented liquid laundry detergent and scented dryer sheets contains hazardous chemicals, including two that are classified as carcinogens. Analysis of the captured gases found more than 25 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including seven hazardous air pollutants. Of those, two chemicals -- acetaldehyde and benzene -- are classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as carcinogens, for which the agency has established no safe exposure level.

So make the change today. Switch to a non-toxic, biodegradable, plant based detergent. I promise you won't miss the old stuff.

Toss the Dryer Sheet

The "fresh" scent of fabric softeners usually serves as a disguise for a surprising array of toxic chemicals. In fact, recent studies reveal that among all household products, one of the most toxic is fabric softener.

Dryer sheets often contain toluene, trimethylbenzene, and styrene -- which are neurotoxins according to the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. To make matters worse, dryer sheets are exposed to heat from water, dryers or ironing, which can make them emit hazardous vapors. So you see, it's not the spin cycle that's making your head spin...

Adding a quarter cup of baking soda to the wash cycle will soften your clothes nicely, and a little white vinegar will prevent static cling. Of course if you prefer a sheet, many green alternatives exist on the market.

Green Your Washing Machine, Too

While you're greening your clean, don't forget to consider your washer. Look for a front-loading, Energy Star machine the next time you're in the market for a new one. New washers on the market today can cut your energy, water and detergent use, which saves you money in the long run.

Top-loading machines use about 40 gallons of water per load, while Energy Star washers use only about 25 gallons. Top-loading washers have to be filled to keep the clothing wet while the agitator works the water around. Front-loaders, on the other hand, work their magic on a horizontal axis that saves both water and energy.

By the way, many cities will give you a rebate when you buy one of these machines because of the water and energy savings. You might check out the Department of Energy's Make a Clean Change -- Recycle Your Old Washer program, which promotes rebates on energy-efficient models.

Follow Sloan Barnett on Twitter and on her Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/GreenGoesWithEverything.

Books by this author

-->

This Blogger's Books from

Green Goes with Everything: Simple Steps to a Healthier Life and a Cleaner Planet
by Sloan Barnett

Follow Sloan Barnett on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sloanbarnett