Category Archives: Environmental Health

12/20/09

A Frog's Dream…Save Our Home

As the year ends, and before we take a short break for the holidays, we’d like to show you the new poster we’ve created to promote our cause. Proceeds from the sale of the poster will go toward amphibian conservation organizations and toward developing free and inexpensive educational materials for kids.

Poster designed by Susan Newman, Illustration © Sherry Neidigh

Poster designed by Susan Newman, Illustration © Sherry Neidigh

The poster is a unique collaboration between my partner Susan (who is a graphic designer when she isn’t saving frogs) and illustrator Sherry Neidigh. Sherry approached us after seeing our blog and offered to donate one of her illustrations for our use. We were thrilled to receive this exquisite illustration to promote our cause.

Susan played around with various ideas, but what struck her about this illustration was its dreamy quality. She came up with the text, “A Frog’s Dream….Save Our Home.” I think these words are perfect. That frog looks so content immersed in his pond, surrounded by dragonflies and lily pads.

A bit about Sherry:

Sherry has been drawing animals since she was 2 years old. She attended the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, and has worked for Hallmark Cards.

Sherry’s clients include the National Wildlife Federation (Your Big Backyard), Highlights for Children, Sylvan Dell Publishing, and NorthWord Publisher. She works in gouache, watercolor, colored pencils, airbrush, and pen and ink. Her latest book is Count Down to Fall by Fran Hawk, published by Sylvan Dell Publishers. Sherry lives in Simpsonville, South Carolina, outside of Greenville, with her two dogs, Harper and Bisbee. You can learn more about her by visiting her charming website.

Susan and I are so grateful for the use of Sherry’s beautiful illustration. We hope you love the poster as much as we do. Susan also designed a t-shirt with the illustration. Both are available in our store.

Happy Holidays!

12/13/09

Happy Holidays and THINK GREEN!

At this time of year, we’d like to stop and say thank you to all the visitors we’ve had, and to those who’ve joined our cause.

While you’re shopping for loved ones in the next week or so, we hope you’ll remember all the great organizations that need your help in this challenging economic climate.

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11/16/09

Frogs Love Autumn Leaves

The falling leaves drift by the window

The autumn leaves of red and gold

—from the song Autumn Leaves

Recently we had a post about how “messy backyards” help wildlife. Since I wrote that post, I came across a wonderful article, “Leaf litter is an Environmental Windfall,” by Master Gardener Vera Strader. She explains why autumn leaves are a boon to wildlife and help enrich the soil.

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Leaves provide shelter to insects such as earthworms, pillbugs, millipedes, which provides food for toads, frogs, and other small animals. Birds require protein from insects to feed their young. Leaf litter also fosters living soils with huge numbers of soil bacteria, fungi, and nematodes. Strader writes that, “leaves provide a down-like comforter for small animals.”

This past summer, I saw this process occur in my own backyard. I had to clip back all the grape vines on our building’s fire escape for safety reasons. I didn’t get around to getting rid of the pile of leaves and vines until a month or two later. I went to bag the material to throw it away and found dozens of earthworms under it. So I left the pile for the earthworms. Next spring these earthworms will go in my garden (and I’m sure will be a nice snack for some birds, too).

Strader offers practical tips for dealing with fallen leaves. Here are a few:

  • Blow or rake leaves to an unused part of the yard or compost the leaves. (Note: I recently received the Gardener’s Supply catalog, which has a simple wire box that can be used for composting leaves).
  • Keep litter and mulch away from plant stems and stalks to prevent crown rot.
  • On the lawn, use a mulching or rotary lawnmower to shred the leaves, then leave them on the grass to nourish it.
  • Dispose of leaf litter below diseased plants, such as roses, peonies, irises, etc
  • Avoid sending leaves to landfill. Yard waste consumes a huge amount of space and creates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

As Strader writes, “Leave the leaves to save time and money, enrich soil, help sustain wildlife, and benefit water and air quality. Mother Nature will thank you.”

By the way, we’ve received some great photos of wildlife-friendly backyards. Just click on the gallery on the right of this post for the wildlife backyard gallery. Feel free to send in photos of your backyard and we’ll post them in our gallery.

11/10/09

Green Books Campaign: Chasing Molecules

This review is part of the Green Books campaign. Today 100 bloggers are reviewing 100 great books printed in an environmentally friendly way. Our goal is to encourage publishers to get greener and readers to take the environment into consideration when purchasing books. This campaign is organized by Eco-Libris, a green company working to green up the book industry by promoting the adoption of green practices, balancing out books by planting trees, and supporting green books. A full list of participating blogs and links to their reviews is available on Eco-Libris website.

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In CHASING MOLECULES: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry (Island Press, 2009), Elizabeth Grossman, an acclaimed investigative journalist, chronicles the effects of petroleum-based synthetic chemicals in ordinary consumer products on human health and to the environment. These chemicals may even change, at a molecular level, the way our our bodies work. The consequences range from diabetes to cancer, reproductive and neurological disorders.

These synthetic chemicals are ubiquitous in the products we use every day:

  • flame-resistant plastics
  • waterproof coatings for textiles and food packaging (like popcorn bags)
  • children’s plastic toys
  • flexible plastic tubing
  • nail polish
  • nonstick pans
  • plastic food and beverage containers
  • sunscreen
  • carpets and furniture

Chemicals from these products make their way—through the air, water, and soil—in our environment, our food, and our bodies. In addition, toxic chemicals that were once frozen in Arctic ice are now being released into the air and water as the ice melts because of global warming.

The chemicals can even alter one’s genes in a process scientists call epigenetics. The introduction of a chemical foreign to the body may change the way the gene interacts with other molecules in the cell’s nucleus. Exposure early in life—particularly before or just after birth—seems to be the prime time for these kinds of changes to occur. But epigenetic screening is not part of routine chemical testing of a chemical.

One example that surprised me was the effect of the chemical tributyltin, which is used as a wood preservative, glass coating, and many other uses. In animal studies, it was found that exposure to tributyltin increased the number of fat cells, thus possibly setting into motion a genetic propensity at birth for obesity.

Despite this gloomy scenario, Grossman offers hope in the burgeoning field of green chemistry. She argues that we don’t have to do without these products. Rather, industries need to create products that are “benign by design.” These new compounds will mimic rather than disrupt natural systems. Through interviews with leading researchers, Grossman gives us a first look at this radical transformation.

Don’t be put off by the word “molecules” in the title. I’m not a chemist, yet I found Chasing Molecules to be an extremely absorbing, but not a highly technical, read. It’s a 21st-century Silent Spring, very readable but sometimes shocking. Her message is an urgent wake-up call for industries to invest in green chemistry and to create products that won’t harm people and the environment.

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NOTE: Along with the review copy, we received a hand-out written by Grossman with information about the safety of various consumer products. Grossman is careful and measured, never hysterical. We thought it might be useful to share her suggestions (buying children’s toy, plastic containers, etc) with FROGS ARE GREEN readers in the next couple of weeks.

11/7/09

Frogs: Angels of the Forest

In early September, we wrote a post about The Prince’s Rainforest Project contest to name its rainforest frog mascot. I’ve just learned that they picked a name: Orifiel, which means angel of the forest.
Meet Orifiel

Meet Orifiel

I did a little research because I had never heard of this angel. Orifiel is an archangel, one of the angels that are part of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions. Unlike the more charismatic angels like Gabriel, Rafael, or Michael, Orifiel is a bit more mysterious. In fact, I could only find information about him/her on a couple of angelology sites. On these sites, Orifiel is described as the angel of the wilderness who helps save the wild areas of earth.

We like the image of frogs as angels of the wildnerness!

07/20/09

There's a frog disruptor in your shampoo!*

Last week I wrote about Atrazine, an endocrine disruptor used widely in pesticides. These chemicals, which mimic human hormones, have been connected with genital deformities in fish, frogs, and possibly newborn baby boys.

This week I’m writing about endocrine disruptors in products a bit closer to home: skin creams, shampoos, deodorants, sunscreens, and other cosmetics and personal-care products. According to the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics site, endocrine disruptors such as phthalates that are used in cosmetics, “interfere with reproductive functioning by reducing the levels of sex hormones, which are critical for development and functioning of the sex organs. Additional research suggests that these same mechanisms may link phthalates to breast cancer.”

In his book Safe Trip to Eden, David Steinman writes about phthalates:

Because phthalates aren’t always strongly bonded to the materials to which they’ve been added, they can be absorbed through the human body through inhalation or the skin. The body’s largest organ, the skin is an exceptional vehicle for absorption of phthalates via cosmetics and personal care products, enabling their passage into the body without passing through the harsh environment of the gastrointestinal tract or without first passing through the liver, the body’s main detoxifying organ.

I decided to take a trip to CVS to see if I could find products without these chemicals. But virtually every cosmetic and personal-care product I found from shampoo to skin moisturizers, nail polish to sunscreen contains these or other similar chemicals.

I use a shampoo called Aveeno, Active Naturals with Nourishing Wheat Complex and Blue Lotus Flower. It’s in an earthy brownish bottle with images of wheat stalks on it. So it’s natural, right? No. It’s full of chemicals—a real chemical soup actually.

I also use a skin cream called Origins: A Perfect World, Intensely Hydrating Body Cream with Green Tea. The cream came in a very upscale-looking box wrapped with twine and recyclable green packaging. This cream isn’t as natural as it claims either. It’s manufactured by Estee Lauder and gets a so-so rating on the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database. (You can search almost any product here.) In fact, I found that some of the budget generic CVS skin creams get a better rating on the database than the pricey Origins.

I finally found some products at CVS that didn’t have chemicals—the Burt’s Bees products—but they weren’t in the cosmetics aisle. Feeling virtuous and frog-friendly, I plopped down $17.99 for Burt’s Bees Radiance SP 15, Day Lotion with Royal Jelly. On the container it says, “Never any Sulfates, Parabens, Phthalates, or Petrochemicals.” Great, right? Well, I used it and, unfortunately it contains a chemical-smelling fragrance, which to my sensitive nose, was so strong I couldn’t use the cream. Evidently cosmetic companies aren’t required to list ingredients in fragrances. So beware when it says “fragrance” as one of the ingredients.

I finally gave up and went to the local health food store. I found lots of chemical-free cosmetics and personal care products there. I ended up with Aubrey Organics, Rosa Mosqueta, Rose Hip, Moisturizing Cream. It has a nice almondy smell that reminds me of Jergens. Ingredients include aloe vera, sweet almond oil, and rose hip oil—and not one chemical!

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I’m not saying you have to throw out all your cosmetics, but I would at least be aware of how products are marketed to seem natural or organic when they aren’t at all. Read the labels. Check your cosmetics in the Skin Deep database to see how they rate (note: they also have user reviews of cosmetics). And consider switching to chemical-free organic products. I welcome any feedback about natural cosmetics you’ve used and can recommend to others.

For more information: from Scientific American magazine, “Saving Face: How Safe Are Cosmetics and Body Care Products” and from The Daily Green, “How to Go Green: Nature Skin Care.”

*I got the title of this post from a post by John Laumer on Tree Hugger,”There’s a Frog Disruptor in your Soap,” which discusses the possible dangers of the chemical triclosan in soaps and other products.