Plastic Free??

I’m a bit obsessed by plastic at the moment. After reading Plastic Free – How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can too by Beth Terry and Plastic – A Toxic Love Story by Susan Freinkel, plastic has moved back onto my radar.

As you can see here and here, we started removing plastic nearly 3 years ago after I read Chemical Free Kids & Slow Death by Rubber Duck. But after reading these two new books plus blogs like Mummy Footprint, I’m renewed in my horror at the pervasiveness of plastics in our bodies and our lives. I thought I was pretty up with plastics but have found that in some ways I am so not!! Then I saw this episode of Catalyst and was again inspired / had renewed energy to make further plastic free changes to our lifestyle.

This is a photo of my plastic waste for the last week (though it doesn’t include anything that could go into the recycle bin). Beth Terry really makes you think about what to do with this trash.

So what to do?? I really enjoyed Bec’s post today on A Less Complicated Life. How we do some things simply because they make life easier so that we can spend time on the things we want to do and think are important like gardening, bread making and the like and it made me think about the things I do (along with the trash) and about the things I could change…

:: I’d fallen into thinking our 1 tin of canned tuna per week was ok because a) Little B didn’t eat it (no BPA exposure for him) and b) because we bought Fish 4 Ever which is sustainably fished. After watching the Catalyst episode we no longer eat canned tuna.

:: I’ve also packed away our breadmaker into the shed. I make all our bread by hand (using a bulk River Cottage recipe) but if I ran out of time or we had a busy week, I would resort to making the dough in the breadmaker and shaping by hand and baking in our oven. After re-reading about Teflon and its effect on brains, this is a thing of the past. Now I buy bread by Phillipa’s as a last resort as it is made by hand.

:: Which leads to the unrecyclable plastics in my photo. Phillipa’s bread comes in a plastic bag :-( but I have discovered these great recycle bins by Red Project outside a local Coles where you can recycle plastic bags not accepted by your local council. Think bread bags, pasta bags, cereal bags, fresh produce bags, reusable green bags. These are then made into recycled outdoor furniture for schools. So I feel much more comfortable recycling my photographed plastic rubbish this way rather than sending it to landfill.

:: I’m also rethinking (yet again) what I purchase and aiming for products packaged in paper or glass. Plus we now keep all glass jars/ bottles that come into our house.

And oddly enough, I think this avoidance of plastic just encourages me to keep living the way we do – cooking from scratch, visiting local farmers markets, supporting local business, growing our own etc. Plus to be honest, why go to all the effort of growing my own organic vegies, if I’m poisoning my family in worse ways.

Do I think we need yet another thing to beat ourselves up about?? No - because as Bec covers beautifully, sometimes you just need to focus on the things you think are important. Little B has co-ordination disorder that was caused by a change to his neural pathways either in utero or early in life - knowing that these plastics can change brains, neural pathways and the like makes removing plastic something I feel is important. Did all those meals I reheated in plastic for lunches at work whilst pregnant make a difference? What about all the baby food I reheated in plastic because I was industrially making my own? I'll never know but I can make different informed choices now :-)

So for now, I’ve also decided to try one new thing a month from Beth Terry’s book. Her blog My Plastic-Free Life is also a great support. So for September, I’m decided to document all my plastic as a visual aid for me to know how much actually comes in the door and why I’ve made that choice.

Detoxing your hotel room

Picture courtesy of holiday-rehoboth.com

Our two recent stays in a self contained apartment motel really opened my eyes to the issues of fragrance / deodoriser, asthma and toxic chemical cleaners. The apartment motel deodorised the hallway carpets every second morning by pouring on a thick powder (that stank) and then slowly vacuumed it up. They also used deodoriser when servicing the rooms.

Both Little B and I suffered nose bleeds the whole time we stayed. And the smell was overwhelming even to the friends who visited us.

So what to do if you have asthma / allergies / or just are chemically sensitive? Create a mini detox kit of course!!

* First and foremost, try and call the hotel / motel etc beforehand and ask them if its possible not to clean your room with chemicals (always worth a try if you ask me) and tell them that you prefer no fragrances or deodorisers to be used in the room.

* Take along a vinegar / water spray or buy some vinegar when you reach your destination. This can be used on carpets or surfaces as a) a cleaner and b) a deodoriser

* Again take along or buy some bicarb soda. This can be sprinkled onto the carpet with no ill effect (and is easily vacuumed up again by housekeeping). It is a great deodoriser.

* We refused housekeeping daily and instead requested it every 2nd day and then only to empty the bins and vacuum the floor without deodoriser.

* We also took along some brown paper bags with coffee granules in them. An old boss recommended this me as a way of removing scent from cars and it works really well in a confined hotel environment. We used these in the bedroom.

* Lastly open windows and doors when you can to get fresh air in (unless fresh air sets off your allergies / sensitivities)

For our last stay, I sprinkled bicarb on the carpet and brushed lightly with a small broom, had a cup of vinegar in each room and used the coffee. We also requested a room with an opening window and left it open when we were there. Both Little B and I had a much better experience this time around - zero nose bleeds, little asthma and the smell did not knock our friends out when they visited.

I'm impressed that in the US some hotels have a certain number of rooms set aside as allergy free rooms, that have air filters, are cleaned with fragrance free non toxic cleaners and dont use any air fresheners / deoderisers. I think this is a much more green and sustainable option for staying away from home and I can only hope that more hotels / motels in Australia follow suit.

Healthy Home, Healthy Family

I recently read Healthy Home, Healthy Family by Nicole Bijilsma as it gives some great tips on things to look for for when buying/renting a house. Admittedly I was focussed on mold but she also covers electromagnetic fields (EMF's), dust mites, mold, pesticides, building materials and so forth.

Now until I read this book, I didnt know too much about EMF's. I'd seen some interesting posts on Sarah Wilson's blog about her experience with EMF's and autoimmune disease. After reading the book  though, we did change a few things around in the house (namely moving Little B's bed as it was too close to the fridge) and I'm careful to keep the powerpoints of some items off at all times unless we are using them.

Last week, a Council of Europe committee called for a ban on wireless internet modems, mobile and cordless phones in schools due to the potential health risks to children. Interestingly, cordless phones are considered as dangerous as mobile phones to the brains of children. We originally abandoned cordless phones to save $$$ but seeing this, the good old analog phone is a bonus twice over. I also keep our modem off unless we are actually using the computer but it is in our main living area next to the lounge. After reading Healthy Home, Healthy Family, I now refuse to sit on the lounge unless the modem is off, but after reading the above article, I now refuse to have the modem on if Little B is playing in that room.

This might seem a little pedantic, but I figure in this day and age when kids are being diagnosed with multiple behavioural issues, it doesnt hurt to avoid the things that are proven to alter the brain. Especially when I have a child so young. These things didnt exist when I was young and nobody has lived an entire life time in the presence of all these new whizz bang technologies, so I figure better safe than sorry.

Anyways, this is a great book and well worth a read if you are interested in building biology. The bits on dust mites made great reading as well.

Is your house killing you???

Is your house killing you?...because it turns out that for the last 8 months our new house has been killing me…literally. As some of you would know, I have been battling unwanted weight loss since we moved into this house. Now I know for some this would be a good thing, but for me it’s been a progressively bad thing.

It started off as losing half a kilo every fortnight. Then I would manage to gain a little, then lose it and some more. Now it has accelerated to half a kilo a week, and the maintenance weight I strive for just gets lower and lower. It doesn’t matter that I currently consume 3000 calories per day, lots of proteins, fats, do zero exercise….the weight just falls off week after week.

I have also suffered ongoing bone numbing fatigue, headaches, numbness in my arms and hands (which has been getting more aggressive), severe postural hypertension including momentary blindness (hence my recent broken nose) and a general fogginess in my thoughts. There are days I feel like I’m swimming under water – slow and sluggish, and other days where I quite literally cant get off the floor.

My local GP’s were at a loss, so I was sent off to a series of specialists, who have also been at a loss. They all agreed that there was something seriously wrong with me, but could only rule out cancer, and problems with my endocrine system to name a few. Finally, someone recommended contacting a mold toxicologist to assess our house.

Little B has also been sick, quite literally, every 8-10 days since March. He, who has never had a cough, has had many coughs plus colds, plus major congestion. He is also always tired (unrelated to the amount of sleep he has had).

When we moved in we discovered the previous owners had hidden a substantial mold problem in two of the bedrooms. We removed all the said walls and ceilings and replaced them with new plasterboard. Had subfloor ventilation put in to dry out under the house as it seemed to be a bit damp. Problem solved or so we thought.  It turns out there is a major mold problem under our house.

The mold is in the bearers, in the earth, and we have water pooling in odd places under the house (not from leaking pipes). Anything we have under the house grew mold but that didn’t seem odd. But now we have mold growing in the house in weird places – smack bang in the middle of a glass window that get’s full sun. Our toilet brush rotted, our washing machine grew horrid black mold on the door seal that wouldn’t come off and microscopic mold was all over my clothes and I was breathing it in (the worst bearer was under my wardrobe).

Our lovely wooden floors are bringing these mold spores in via osmosis. No room is immune.

After speaking to a mold toxicologist, and a building biologist, Little B and I have moved out of the House of B for the time being. I’m currently undergoing round after round of tests to see how much damage this mold has done to my body. You see it turns out that mold can be so toxic that it can induce autoimmune or neurological diseases, damage your lungs, and even in some cases cause permanent damage to your body.

We still don’t know what the future holds for us or this little house.

Mold - 1, The B Family – 0

Cloth Pads

Wemoon natural menstrual pads

In recent years, more people are turning back to cloth nappies in a bid to save money and reduce their environmental foot print. And some mums on considering these options for their children, start to contemplate the use of their own disposable menstrual products and it’s environmental impact. After all a child is only in nappies for roughly 3 years, whereas a woman may menstruate for 35 years.

Approximately 20 billion pads and tampons are discarded each year in North America alone. That has a massive environmental impact when you apply it to multiple countries. It’s also estimated a woman may use 11,000 tampons in her lifetime . So let’s assume there are approximately 3.5 million women in the world (currently WHO says there are 1.07 women to every man) . That means 37,997,784,000 tampons / pads are used in their lifetimes.

Obviously this isn’t a realistic figure as there are women who use cloth, have gone through menopause, are pregnant, too young or too old. But still that figure is staggering. In one household with 3 women alone, they will use 33,000 menstrual products in their lifetime.

But there is another key reason to use cloth pads or cups such Lunette cup, and that is exposing your nether regions to a cocktail of chemicals. Using disposable pads / tampons can expose you to dioxin and the cotton used to make these products has been sprayed with insecticides. Dioxin is part of the bleaching process and has been linked to cancer, endometriosis, immune system suppression, heart and liver disease and hormonal disruption.

Scary thought if you are putting it month by month on your girlie bits.

Conventional cotton is the most pesticide sprayed crop in the world. Pesticides are endocrine disruptors and your ovaries are part of the endocrine system. 

So what to do?? There are so many different options in cloth pads and menstrual cups. The most well known menstrual cup is the Diva Cup with the Lunette Cup following not far behind . Both are easy to use once you get the hang of them. Cloth pads are just like using a cloth nappy. They do need soaking the same as cloth nappies. There are so many different kinds out there and which you prefer will be an individual choice. Again much like cloth nappies.

I’ve been using a lunette cup and cloth pads since my period returned when I stopped breastfeeding Little B. They are so easy to use. I soak the pads in a bucket of cold water, and then throw them into the wash. They dry really quickly. I started off buying a few different kinds to see which ones I preferred and then bought the rest when I settled on my choice. The change was easy, painless and I felt better reducing my environmental impact.

But if you’re not up to making a change to cloth, then at least use organic products such as Jolie Tampons  or Natracare to reduce the impact on your girlie bits.

Beans, beans

Beans, beans, good for your heart..I usually cook from dried beans but as any parent will know there are times that you need meals in a hurry. You need those meals yesterday. That’s where canned beans are handy but nearly all canned foods have BPA in the can lining.

What’s a little BPA in can lining going to do, I hear you say? Unfortunately A LOT!! In 2007, the Environmental Working Group tested canned food bought across America, and found BPA in more than half of them at levels they call "200 times the government's traditional safe level of exposure " within single servings (Lloyd Alter, 2008).

There is growing awareness about BPA's toxicity, and laboratory links suggest it contributes to trends in human diseases -- a chilling list including breast and prostate cancers, increases in urogenital abnormalities in male babies, a decline in semen quality in men, early onset of puberty in girls, metabolic disorders including Type 2 diabetes and obesity, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (Nena Baker, The Body Toxic: How the Hazardous Chemistry of
Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Well-being, 2009).

Luckily you can get Eden Organics here in Australia. Now I’m all for buying locally as much as I can (I shop for everything in my little locale including Eden’s Organics) but I now prefer my food toxin / poision free. Thus this opens me to consuming imported foods. Eden’s Organics stopped using BPA in their cans in 1999, so are a great back up for your cupboard.

The catch? They cost $1 more than standard organic canned beans which do have BPA. For me, I save money wherever I can but don’t compromise on the things that are important to me. Eating more whole foods, and cooking from scratch means I save money with our food shopping, and that we can buy these beans and still not compromise our meagre weekly budget.

$1 in my mind means that I am not poisoning myself, my son or my husband with hormone disruptors. So dried beans, canned beans are all great options in a healthy diet and if I can avoid BPA than it’s a bonus!!

“Beans, beans good for your heart, the more you eat the more you fart. The more you fart, the better you feel, so lets eat beans for every meal”. After all girls don’t fart do they (wink, wink).

Slow death by rubber duck

"A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushed down remorselessly all that stands in its path".

- Miss Marple

I'm currently reading "Slow death by rubber duck" and if "Chemical free Kids" hadnt put me on the path to making our house plastic-free then this has made me hit the ground running to ensure it occurs yesterday.

By Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie, this book is a must read. Each chapter deals with a different life experiment of another toxic nasty. Since I was already avoiding PVC, Triclosan, Teflon and BPA, the chapters I found most shocking were those on the levels of mercury we absorb (goodbye canned tuna) but also the insidiousness of BPA.

"Picture a drop of water, in which BPA is present in a concentration of one part per billion. Now tell me how many individual molecules of BPA would be in that water drop".

"A few hundred thousand?"

"Not even close. Try 132 billion. And each one of those molecules is able to turn cell receptors on and off just like hormones do"

- Slow Death by Rubber Duck (Smith & Lourie, 2009)

I knew the obvious things that some of these nasties were in but others surprised me (like my glasses lenses - vomit, vomit). Also the fact that people have known that these chemicals are toxic for 70 years in some cases, and that we have still gone ahead and produced things for both ourselves and our children is horrendous.

But it's not all doom and gloom. They have a great chapter with a roadmap on how to detox yourself, your house and your lifestyle, which I think is both very upbeat and helpful.

I believe this toxic pollution of our bodies, our health, our home environment and our children is as important as climate change. We are poisoning ourselves, the ones we love and our planet, so if you agree about even one of those areas, then you must read this book.

Organic & Fair-trade

It used to be that if I couldn’t get organic, then I’d be happy to buy fair-trade instead. But now I find my opinion has changed, in that I’m really not happy unless it’s both. Especially where food is concerned.

Easter is a good example. Last year I was happy with fair-trade eggs from Oxfam but this year I would only settling for organic and fair-trade. Luckily I came across Organic Times easter eggs – these are organic, fair-trade and made with rapadura sugar so not highly processed or refined. They were delicious!!

A combination of factors has influenced my decision. The more I read about the chemicals used in and on our food, the more I become more staunchly organic across all facets of the House of B. Plus the more I read about the chemicals used in growing food overseas and the fumigants used on fabrics / clothing / wood items that are imported into Australia (methyl bromide in particular), the less enamoured I am with some fair-trade items.

Methyl Bromide is a fumigant that is banned in Australia but an exception is made for quarantine use. It is highly toxic, can cause cancers and a myriad of other symptoms, and they are only required to set the products aside for 9 days before people can touch it. It is heavily used in the quarantine industry in Australia and New Zealand.

This doesn’t stop me buying all fair-trade items, it just means I am much more selective about what I do purchase. I also donate directly to organisations in need (such as Ki Kati and Carpets for Communities).

I also support organisations such as Oxfam and Plan International due to their programs that help encourage and support small industry within countries of need. I love the concept of Kiva as well (lending to small entrepreneurs to combat poverty - a bit like micro-loans) and have just started participating there as well.

What can I say, I love to help with community building, and supporting small industry (especially those that help women) but I am equally committed to living as toxic free as possible and giving Little B the best possible chance to be healthy and poison free.

OMG :-o

If you only ever read one book, then it has to be this one:

Chemical Free Kids: Raising healthy children in a toxic world, by Dr Sarah Lantz

It is profound. Even Mr B who doesn’t like to read outside of work, read this from back to front in one evening.

You’ll never want to use plastic again!!