Recycling commitment

Over the last year or two I have been a lot more conscious about what gets recylced in our house. Like many of you I feel like it's our responsibility as citizens to figure out how to better deal with waste in this world. I realize there is still space left in this country but for some reason it feels like it's closing in quicker than I'd like it to, partly because we are filling up the space with our trash. Trash that takes hundreds of years to decompose.

I think twice about everything I put in the trash. We have a compost bin in the backyard which is wonderful, except that I haven't quite figured out how to get it produce compost quickly enough so that it can hold all of our food waste. Currently it's full and I am likely going to have to wait until next spring to dump it in my garden and clear it out.

We have a great outfit here in Boulder called Eco-Cycle that will recycle a lot of the items that our weekly trash service does not accept. Recently we got rid of an old computer and I took it there to be recycled, of course only after paying a $25 fee. Even though that felt costly it definitely felt better to pay the fee and know that it's going to get handled appropriately.

Kevin is also showing a growing concern for recycling but when I put 3 "components" (old VCR, satellite box, etc) in his car to go to Eco-Cycle and he found out that it would cost us $8 a piece to hand them over, he definitely hesitated. So I went out there myself and paid the fee and disposed of them. I knew that they would sit in his car for months and months if he didn't 100% buy off on the idea of paying to get rid of them.

The other day I had a bunch of plant containers from Home Depot and elsewhere from a few plants we had put in the ground recently. I had seen some of the containers at Eco-Cycle the other day with a sign that said "we accept the #2 plant containers", which led me to believe I probably should not have been putting these in our weekly plastic recycling (most of the things that Eco-Cycle takes, Western Disposal does not). I think that a lot of the time I probably put things in my weekly recycling that end up in the landfill. How many of us actually read all the in's and out's of exactly which numbers your recycling center accepts!?!?

Anyway, it turns out that a bunch of my containers had no number on the bottom and some of them were #5. I was left feeling very frustrated that I had gone out of my way to do some good only to find that one of my eight containers could be put in the Eco-Cycle bin. What am I supposed to do with the other pots?!? I feel a lot of guilt about throwing away such a big plastic item but then I don't have any use for them and have zero space in our yard to store them.

It leads me to the point that sometimes it's hard to do good and save the planet, when I feel like there is no consistently or ease in recycling. I'm not asking for the world, I would just like to ask manufacturers to start using the type of plastics that recycling centers readily accept. Is that too much to ask? I also think about those trash centers around the country (the more rural areas) that won't even pick up recycling. Imagine how I'd feel if I lived in one of those places?

I will keep up my commitment as much as possible, but realize that every now and again I'm going to put something in the trash that doesn't belong there. Maybe if more people start to feel guilty about it slowly we will make change.

Parents pilgrimmage to Maine and hippy products

We just wrapped up a little visit from my parents. My dad was here for 6 days doing various projects around the house. My mom flew out for only 2 nights and one day, and they left this morning at 5am to make their annual May pilgrimmage to Maine.

Delaney loved having her grandparents here and every morning the first things she asks is where Grandpa or Moma are, and then quickly asks if she can go see them. She was very sad this morning to see their room so empty.

I posted a huge post about Sodium Laurel Sulfate a few weeks ago and I was telling my family about the research I'd found and the conclusions I'd come to on the subject. I told my mom that SLS is in toothpaste and if you read your toothpaste tube you will notice that it clearly suggests you contact your Poison Control center immediately if you were to accidentally swallow any toothpaste. How crazy is that? This is something you put in your mouth daily and if you are to accidentally swallow a little you should contact Poison Control? My mom thought that SLS might be causing all of her problems and vowed to immediately go purchase some of that "hippy toothpaste".

We got on the subject because of the recent controversy around Bisphenol-A (BPA) in plastic bottles. It's in plastic water bottles, Nalgenes, and most prevalently in baby bottles. Sure enough the bottles we've been giving Delaney since birth are full of this nasty BPA chemical crap that supposedly mocks estrogen and can cause developmental issues, breast cancer, and a few other nasty things.

I told Kevin that I had tried to purchase some "cancer free" baby bottles for little JaMarius(working name) last weekend at Babies R Us but they were all out. So I then went to Amazon and used some gift certificates sitting around to purchase a whole cabinet full of these "hippy bottles". Man o man were they expensive. One sippy cup is $10.99. Seriously?!?! The guilt is pretty overwhelming, though, when you read the articles and then think about potentially harming your tiny little child every day through BPA-made bottles. Maybe this recent string of bad press around BPA will make enough of an impact that Avent and Dr. Brown's will actually find ANOTHER way of making plastic.

Sometimes I get very depressed when I think about all the chemicals in our world today, and wonder how much damange I've already done to my body through soaps, lotions, tupperware, plastic wrap, water bottles, etc. It's like nothing is safe anymore. Sigh. I hope this is not the only legacy we leave our children.

Am I killing myself through my hair?

Sodium Laurel (and Laureth) Sulfate are the topic of the day. A week ago I happened to catch the Oprah show as they were doing an Earth Day segment on hygiene and beauty products, and the chemicals used in common products. They brought up a number of issues (some of which I hope to post about at a later date) but one in particular piqued my interest. It's about Sodium Laurel Sulfate. Oprah's green guru pointed out this is an ingredient used in almost every toothpaste, shampoo and other product where foaming occurs. They cautioned to stay away if possible.

So the next time I was in my shower I peeked at my ingredient list for my Dove shampoo and sure enough, there was SLS as the second ingredient. Then I was dismayed to grab Delaney's Aveeno hair and body wash and see it as the second ingredient. I looked at the front of the bottle and noticed it was promoting itself as a "natural" shampoo and soap. Yikes! I reached for my other set of shampoo and conditioner and was pleased to see that my Giovanni shampoo did not have any SLS ingredient listed. I was now more curious than ever because the Giovanni shampoo foams up just as well as my Dove shampoo. So I decided before I started panicking about the idea that I was killing myself by washing my hair every day, I should do more research.

Here is what I learned.

Sodium Laurel Sulfate is a "sulfactant," which is essentially an agent that helps water be more effective. It is created by joining sulfate and lauric acid, two compounds widely found in nature. As mentioned previously it is what creates the foam in your products. From what I could learn there is a myth going around that says that SLS and it's cousins cause cancer. Sodium Laurel Sulfate is one form, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate is another, as well as Sodium Laureth Sulfate.

I learned that these cautions against SLS were likely started by a natural products company and that the reason they can make this claim is that SLS is often used as an ingredient or component of cancer experiments. However it seems like this link was made without counting that SLS is what is being used to solubilize OTHER ingredients and is mixed before it is injected into animals or tested on humans. In other words they weren't doing tests to see if SLS was causing cancer, and instead it was an agent used to help experiments to learn about other ingredients.

The American Cancer Society has posted a number of items debunking the cancer link with SLS, one of which can be found here:
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/NWS/content/NWS_2_1x_Debunking_the_Myth.asp

One claim made by anti-SLS websites is that sodium lauryl sulfate is carcinogenic because it produces nitrosamines when it reacts with formaldehyde. From what I could find, and you can do more searching if you like, it seems like this is chemically impossible due to the fact that neither compound contains a nitrogen atom (thus making it possible to create a nitrosamine).

It has been proved that SLS is an ingredient which causes skin irritation. But in most instances it's in very high quantities and in higher quantities than you would see in your daily hygiene products.

I visited a number of sites that will scare the piss out of you in regards to SLS and make you want to pour out every product you own that possesses it as an ingredient. A few of those can be found here:
http://www.healthy-communications.com/slsmostdangerousirritant.html
http://www.natural-health-information-centre.com/sodium-lauryl-sulfate.html

Then I visited some great sites that tried to look at both sides of the argument, found here:
http://www.tomsofmaine.com/toms/ifs/sls.asp
http://www.treasuredlocks.com/noname7.html
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/common_ecomyth_sls.php

Also most interesting is that this has made it all the way to Snopes, a site I visit regularly when someone emails me some crazy claim about some consumer product killing humans or pets. They have debunked the cancer link as well.
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/shampoo.asp

So what is the take away from all of my research? It seems like high concentrations of SLS or any of it's cousins are not good for your skin and not enough research has been done yet to determine if there is any cancer link (really no research). My guess is that the concentrations we use on a daily basis are probably ok and won't kill me.

HOWEVER... I think I will be more wary of seeing where SLS falls into the ingredient list and if I can find a comparable shampoo that lists it as an ingredient further down the list, it seems like it would be wise to lower the concentrations whenever possible.