Household Greening

Better Plastics

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BACKGROUND ON THE ISSUE

Is your water bottle killing you?  First, came the news about the toxic baby bottles and, now, Nalgene and Camelbak and all of my once favorite sports bottle companies are phasing out their polycarbonate lines (all the while denying their products have anything wrong with them).  What this tells me is that consumers are getting educated and what they are learning is scaring them into demanding safer products.

Our lives, however, are filled with plastics. Which ones should we avoid? How bad are they? And what are our alternatives?  Here is a quick and dirty guide.

Green Furnishings

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THE GOAL

Consider furniture made of organic cotton and wool fill by Furniture or The Natural Alternative. Wool is flame retardant and substitutes well for foam. The cost can be high, but no more so than the cost of high quality furniture in general. Futon couches and chairs are a lower-cost alternative.

Buy used cars and furniture (in good condition). By the time they’re yours, they will already have off-gased a large portion of their PBDEs. Vacuum old furniture well to eliminate dust that may contain PBDE residues.

Use cotton or wool mattresses, mattress pads, and crib bedding. Futons are an inexpensive, natural mattress option.

Reducing Your Home's Carbon Footprint

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BACKGROUND ON THE ISSUE

Buildings account for the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption in America, and around the world. (Many city Mayors, such as Chicago’s Mayor Daley, have joined together to set a goal for carbon neutral buildings by 2030.) Carbon, and other green-houses gasses such as Methane, are by-products of both building the structures we live and work within and of the process of living within them.  Almost every thing we buy, everything we eat, everything we wear, ever action we take (from the obvious of turning up the heat to stepping into a car to the less obvious of simply mowing the lawn or going on a trip) has a carbon footprint (or an amount of carbon associated in the manufacture, transport, or use of the item or, in rare cases, that is embodied within the item itself).

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