Paint Stains

CFLs contain mercury. They cannot work without mercury. At this moment, this is little hope of there ever being a mercury-less compact florescent bulb because the light produced by them comes partly from exciting mercury atoms.

Please do NOT, NOT, NOT, under any circumstances, throw compact florescent bulbs into your trash. Look up how Household Hazardous Waste is disposed of in your county, and follow those instructions. OR, bother your local hardware store or Wal-Mart (*cringe*) and ask them where their CFL disposal/recycling collection box is.

One compact florescent bulb contains about 4 mg of mercury. (As CFLs keep being pushed, sorry if I'm worried that this stuff'll add up. Plus the fact that there'll be more and more of it indoors.)

Half a gram of mercury (the amount in a traditional thermometer) in a 10-acre lake would warrant a fish advisory. One gram in a 20-acre lake will render all its fish unsafe for consumption for a year.

Mercury vaporizes. Commonly. It has a shitload of disastrous effects on people's health.

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Sorry for my peevishness, but all the pushing of CFLs lately do not mention safe disposal of these bulbs for my taste. I almost got into a comments skirmish on DailyKos because of this subject when it came up some months ago that California wanted to ban incandescents... and while I think that's all fine on paper, IMHO it would be STUPID to undertake such legislation, in CA, NJ, Australia or anywhere without some MAJOR education campaigns on how CFLs need to be disposed. naturalliving only made it painfully clear how much this education and knowledge is lacking.

Do your fucking job, mainstream media. I don't want more of this crap in my air in addition to being poisoned by it in my food.

And while we're on the subject of mercury, screw GE. There is no such thing as "clean" coal energy. Are you kidding me?

How do people NOT know that Compact Florescent Bulbs contain neurotoxin mercury and need extra careful disposal?!?!

Flame retardant study raises red flags for health risk
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/070129dust.html

Flame retardants in indoor air and dust. Great. I already knew it before this story but still...

Several months back, there was a local TV reporter who thought he was doing a public service by doing a story (no more than 20 seconds, IIRC) about how flame-retardant children's pyjamas were absolutely required to make sure kids slept safely without catching on fire. Otherwise, kissing them goodnight may be the last time you saw them. (I swear to god, he said something to this effect.) He implied, quite urgently, that if children (and only children) went to bed without flame-retardant treated pyjamas, they would burn to a crisp quietly in the night without ever making a peep to alert you to the fire.

There are so many ways of pointing out what stupid journalism this was, that I'm not going to guide you through the obvious.

How Environmental Pollutants Are Causing Reproductive Problems

It's a bit late, but months ago I culled all my cosmetics/toiletries down to 4 items: a natural shampoo, a natural soap, an organic facial soap, and an organic moisturizer. It decluttered the bathroom cabinet considerably. Unfortunately I did it so quietly that my birthday came and I received more of the stuff I wasn't using anymore, and I struggled with what to do with those kinds of gifts. (I donated them.) I hadn't voiced my change that much, because truth be told, not everyone has understood my pthalate/chemical paranoias when I've spoken about them, and when in those situations, I would simply clam up, and keep my opinions and research to myself.

Until the topic gets a brilliant article in Alternet, anyway.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/9/95436/30123

My tags were: environment, sustainability, boycott, path to 9/11, global warming, water wars, ABC, Disney, Burger King, corporations, shopping, diet, vegetarianism, Buddhist economics, voluntary simplicity, MSM, pollution, toxins, health, GMO, GE foods, organic

I mighta missed a few.

Forgot to post this yesterday:

Plastics chemical alters female brains

Are you guys reading my "Healthy Green Artists" column at EMG Zine? Are you, are you? (I covered plastics in March.)

But I can't really claim an "I told you so" here, because I was just covering phthalates in general and not BPA. And now looking back, I could have made the column even scarier. (Though at this point - does anyone still read it when it's so alarmist? Oh well. I'll probably keep just keep on at that and wait for more scientific studies and literature and environmental documentaries to redeem my content after the fact. Haha.)