HealthyHome Blog

HealthyHome Moves to a New Location

Like most people, I hate moving. I'm a pack rat by nature so it is painful to rummage through all the stuff that accumulates over the years in order to prepare for a move. On the other hand, it has been a good exercise in sorting what we really need to keep before packing up the store and warehouse.

We've had to tighten our belts to keep going in this economy. And the easiest way to do that is to move to a slightly smaller space with a significantly smaller rent. As hard as it is to physically move all the stuff and try to manage all of the details, it feels good to have a new and more efficient space to call home. And as moves go this one was at least fairly simple since we only moved 2 blocks away.

Our new address is 2028  28th St N., Saint Petersburg, FL 33713. Since we only moved around the corner, our phone and  fax numbers are not changing. The phones are being installed on Monday, November 23rd and we hope to be open on Tuesday, November 24th. We'll still be unpacking and arranging things for a few days. Look for an announcement about our Grand Re-Opening/Open House coming soon.

Thanks for your support for the last 16 years. We're happy to be able to continue helping you make your home a Healthy Home.

Gimme 5

Are you as annoyed as I am when you do everything in your power to recycle but your recycling center won’t take the #5 plastics that are all too often the choice of manufacturers? I also have some prescriptions which I fill regularly and have been stock piling those little #5 plastic bottles hoping to be overcome with a particularly clever creative use for them rather than toss them.

 

Well I finally came across Preserve Products. I don’t know why I didn’t know about them sooner but I’m glad I do now. Go to PreserveProducts.com to see what they are doing. Preserve products are made from 100% recycled plastics and 100% post-consumer paper. I love what they are creating, or should I say re-creating?

But the best news for me was their Gimme 5 program. They know that a lot of communities don’t have recycling capabilities for the #5 plastics. No problem. Their Gimme 5 efforts have made it possible for everyone to recycle those pill bottles, butter tubs, yogurt cups, hummus tubs and other food containers.

 

There are two methods to Gimme 5.

 

1 - You can drop off clean #5 plastics at participating Whole Foods stores. The Preserve Products website has a state by state listing of the participating Whole Foods stores. If you live near a Whole Foods store that isn’t yet involved, make a suggestion that you want them to get with the program.

2 - If you don’t live near a Preserve Gimme 5 location you can send them directly to Preserve Products.

 

Send Gimme 5 shipments to:

Preserve Gimme 5
823 NYS Rte 13
Cortland, NY 13045

 

If you have any questions about the Gimme 5 program or have a large shipment you’d like to send, call them at 888-354-7296.

 

Here’s a note from Preserve Products about the impact of shipping your #5 plastics to them:

 

“Before starting the mail-back Gimme 5 program, we wanted to make sure that we were taking a positive step for the environment. We produced a single factor Life Cycle Assessment to analyze the impact of the Gimme 5 program. The results showed the benefits of keeping #5 plastics out of landfills and remaking them into new products outweigh the environmental impacts of shipping them back to us. We hope that the success of our program will help convince local recyclers of the value of taking #5 plastics back in more communities across the US.”

 

Finally a solution for a problem that has been bugging me for a long time.

Greenwash Watch: Sherwin Williams GreenSure Label

From TreeHugger.com

Greenwash Watch: Sherwin Williams GreenSure Label

by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.23.09

Business & Politics (news)

We learn from Inhabitat that Sherwin-Williams has introduced a new line of paints, and has invented a new label, GreenSure, to go with it. They list a whole pile of standards and requirements that their paints must meet to get GreenSure; no doubt they will mean something to chemists. But what does it mean to the public? Not a whole lot. But let's look at one of the standards, perhaps the most important for paints, the Volatile Organic Compounds or VOCs. As is shown above, Sherwin Williams' standard for VOCs is 50 grams per litre.

Now I don't know it that is high or low, but I do know that there is an independent third party standard, GreenGuard, that tests products for VOCs and gives its label to products with VOCs lower than .5 milligrams per cubic metre. For some unknown reason Sherwin Williams uses a different metric unit and there are a lot of zeros involved.

I did not believe my results so I used an online calculator and it confirmed that 50 g/l is 50 Million milligrams per cubic metre, or a hundred million times as high as Greenguard permits. Now a hundred million times almost nothing can still be almost nothing, but that is fifty kilograms per cubic metre; if paint has roughly the same density as water then it is up to five percent pure VOCs.

When you look at the four paints that have GreenSure certification, two are GreenGuard and two are not. The Greenguard ones have zero VOCs; the two that do not have GreenGuard certification have VOCs right up there near the GreenSure limit.

No doubt Sherwin Williams had good reasons for putting the VOCs in; people demand a certain level of performance, coverage, speed of drying, they probably couldn't get the paint to perform they way they wanted with no VOCs

But that doesn't mean that they can call it green. Just because you don't want to comply with the established third party standard doesn't mean that the customer has to accept your own dubious invention of one.

Unless my mathematics are off by about six zeros, this product is greenwashes in a number of ways:

-it isn't third party verified.
-it is rated against a meaningless standard that is incomprehensible to the public.
-it is designed to confuse, listing "chemical component restrictions" like lead and mercury that haven't been allowed in paint for years.
-it creates a pretty "GreenSure" graphic to give consumers a false confidence.
-it blows past the standard that anyone else in the industry considers the green standard.

Really, lets cover the earth with real science and real standards, not slick marketing. As Andrew Pace of Degree of Green said so well in Inhabitat:

Their program was internally created by their own marketing people, so there is no third party verification of the claims. This is akin to Phillip Morris saying that nicotine is not addictive.”

Or as we might say, inside-job green labels aren't worth the recycled paper they are printed on.

Business & Politics (news)

Now I don't know it that is high or low, but I do know that there is an independent third party standard, GreenGuard, that tests products for VOCs and gives its label to products with VOCs lower than .5 milligrams per cubic metre. For some unknown reason Sherwin Williams uses a different metric unit and there are a lot of zeros involved.

I did not believe my results so I used an online calculator and it confirmed that 50 g/l is 50 Million milligrams per cubic metre, or a hundred million times as high as Greenguard permits. Now a hundred million times almost nothing can still be almost nothing, but that is fifty kilograms per cubic metre; if paint has roughly the same density as water then it is up to five percent pure VOCs.

When you look at the four paints that have GreenSure certification, two are GreenGuard and two are not. The Greenguard ones have zero VOCs; the two that do not have GreenGuard certification have VOCs right up there near the GreenSure limit.

No doubt Sherwin Williams had good reasons for putting the VOCs in; people demand a certain level of performance, coverage, speed of drying, they probably couldn't get the paint to perform they way they wanted with no VOCs

But that doesn't mean that they can call it green. Just because you don't want to comply with the established third party standard doesn't mean that the customer has to accept your own dubious invention of one.

Unless my mathematics are off by about six zeros, this product is greenwashes in a number of ways:

-it isn't third party verified.
-it is rated against a meaningless standard that is incomprehensible to the public.
-it is designed to confuse, listing "chemical component restrictions" like lead and mercury that haven't been allowed in paint for years.
-it creates a pretty "GreenSure" graphic to give consumers a false confidence.
-it blows past the standard that anyone else in the industry considers the green standard.

Really, lets cover the earth with real science and real standards, not slick marketing. As Andrew Pace of Degree of Green said so well in Inhabitat:

Their program was internally created by their own marketing people, so there is no third party verification of the claims. This is akin to Phillip Morris saying that nicotine is not addictive.”

Or as we might say, inside-job green labels aren't worth the recycled paper they are printed on.

2009 Green New Year Resolutions

(by Daniela Swider)

A new year is an opportunity to break away from the past and that's especially true for 2009. We couldn't wait to say good bye to the turmoil of 2008. As we look to our future, whether with renewed hope or trepidation, we make resolutions to do better in the new year. 

We are days away from January 20, when our new president will officially take the lead and try to pick up the pieces of this great country of ours. The task couldn't be more daunting and we are going to have to pitch in.

But what can we do? The answer may be quite simple. Think greener, live greener, be greener - lighten the load on the planet. Make a conscious effort to reduce, reuse and recycle. It is better for the Earth and our wallets. 

Speaking of wallets (and yes, many of them are lighter these days), use yours wisely. Even as we reduce our consumption, we still have to buy necessities. We vote with our wallets on a daily basis but we rarely think of it that way. Each purchase we make is a vote of confidence for the retailer and/or the manufacturer of the product or service we buy. As we spend our hard earned dollars we should ask ourselves: 

* Does this company deserve my vote?
* Will it use the money I give it wisely? Will it put my money towards research into greener, more efficient products or will it go to senior management bonuses and luxury retreats?
* Is this company a good corporate citizen/steward of the environment?
* Will it help steer the economy out of the current downturn and in the right direction?

Our purchase decisions alone have more power than we realize - so let's make them count. Look at the shift taking place in the power industry - more and more consumers are installing solar panels in their homes. Demand for power generated by alternative sources is higher, the long-term economics make more sense and as a result more utilities are adopting net metering and investing in solar, wind, geothermal etc.

Imagine being part of this type of transformation in every industry!

What else can we do? 

We'd love to hear from you.

Hope your 2009 is safe and prosperous!

Who knew shower curtains could be dangerous?

by Daniela Swider

Well, I guess people with sensitivities did. They could never "stomach" that new vinyl shower curtain smell. The rest of us, however, didn't suspect that the unassuming vinyl shower curtains and liners sold at retailers such as Bed, Bath & Beyond, Kmart, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart came loaded with toxins. The media recently exploded with reports, according to which the new vinyl (a.k.a. PVC) curtain smell can carry with it high concentrations of toxic chemicals that may cause respiratory irritation, damage to the central nervous and reproductive systems, liver and kidneys, nausea, headaches and loss of coordination. According to a study conducted by the Center for Health, Environment & Justice new vinyl shower curtains contain high concentrations of phthalates (suspected carcinogen and reproductive toxin) and organotins as well as measurable quantities of as many as 108 volatile organic compounds (VOCs), some of which persisted for nearly a month! 7 of those chemicals - toluene, ethyl benzene, methyl isobutyl ketone, xylene, acetophenone and cumene - have been identified by the EPA as hazardous air pollutants. 

 What can you do?

• Use non-vinyl shower curtains. Fabric alternatives are widely available at retailers across the US and Canada. If you chose to go organic, we at www.HealthyHome.com offer a shower curtain made of 75% organic cotton and 25% natural, untreated and undyed linen that you can find here. We are looking into adding more safe options.
• Read labels and packaging. One way to be sure if the packaging or a product is made from PVC is to look for the number “3” inside or the letter “V” underneath the universal recycling symbol.
• Vote with your wallet. Retailers are already phasing out vinyl (PVC) shower curtains but nothing will motivate them more than the consumers refusing to buy vinyl products and creating demand for safer alternatives.

In case you didn't know, PVC is not just in shower curtains. It is in many products ranging from cables to apparel, upholstery (that "new car smell" anyone?), pipes, flooring, roofing, siding, hoses, packaging, medical and office supplies, baby, children's and adult toys (not that any of us use the latter), and many others. Particularly dangerous are the soft or flexible reincarnations of PVC. They are the ones that contain the most unstable (volatile) toxins and as a result are responsible for the dangerous smell products made of soft PVC emit. Generally speaking, PVC is cheap, durable and easy to produce, which is why it is considered the most "valuable" product in the chemical industry (in terms of revenue generated). Those advantages of PVC may lead one to assume that it is a good all-around material. Not so much. PVC is nothing but trouble cradle to cradle - its manufacturing causes pollution, its use is dangerous and there are no good ways to recycle it due to the many different toxic additives used to soften and stabilize it. So, buyer beware!

Top image by Alfred Hitchcock/Janet Leigh.