On thing I know is that kids love flashlights, or torches, as they say in England. They like to play with them, especially under the sheets, in the dark. The regular flashlights we’ve had throughout the years have been victims of my kids abuse, because when one of my kids get their hands on them, they either get misplaced or left turned on. Not good for when there’s a sudden power outage or when the plumber needs to look under the sink. Nor is it good for the environment when you think of how many used batteries there are that go in landfills and are not disposed of properly.

So when I found the Powerplus Penguin, I was thrilled to bits, and so were my kids. Firstly, its not always that you find an eco-friendly toy that REALLY appeals to older kids, second, this was very good value (most eco-toys are NOT cheap), and third, it also has a great practical function and won’t just sit there in the playroom after they’ve played with it a few times.

This cute little penguin has no need, I repeat, no need for batteries. It’s a clever invention from the U.K., which is charged by simply pumping the wings (a light squeeze from your child). When charged, the ultra bright LED has a lighting distance of twenty meters which is just right for kids purposes.

Although I bought it for my 7-year-old girl (the packaging said it was recommended for kids 6 and above), my 4-year-old eyed it enviously (he said it was Pablo from the Backyardigans, his favorite, which meant it was for HIM) and definitely wouldn’t have much trouble using it too. Oh, and the packaging was fantastic too – made from attractive recycled materials, it was really simple and easy to open, without all that extra awful plastic, sharp bits and twisty metal things you find with most toys.

You can purchase the penguin at Nigel’s Eco Store for £5.99, but you can find it a little cheaper at other shops if you search.

In the news again were some chilling findings that a slew of everyday bath products made for kids had dangerous levels of carcinogens. Like any Mother, my reaction is deep resentment and anger for these big companies that let things like this happen for years, and how lethal ingredients like formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane is found in every day items we put on our bodies. Both substances are known to cause cancer, so when you think about it, it somewhat explains why so many people in the world today have the terrible disease.

What I find especially disturbing is that in the list are brands that most families like mine have trusted for years, believing they were safe for our children. Products like Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, which my husband still loves! The group who uncovered the dirty facts were non-profit Campaign For Safe Cosmetics, and here’s some of what they said:

” Despite marketing claims like “gentle” and “pure,” dozens of top-selling children’s bath products are contaminated with the cancer-causing chemicals formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, according to the March 2009 Campaign for Safe Cosmetics report, “No More Toxic Tub.”

This study is the first to document the widespread presence of both formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane in bath products for children, including baby shampoos, bubble baths and baby lotions. Many products tested contained both chemicals.
The chemicals were not disclosed on product labels because they’re contaminants, not ingredients, and therefore are exempt from labeling laws.

Formaldehyde contaminates personal care products when common preservatives release formaldehyde over time in the container. Common ingredients likely to contaminate products with formaldehyde include quaternium-15, DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea and diazolidinyl urea.

1,4-dioxane is a byproduct of a chemical processing technique called ethoxylation, in which cosmetic ingredients are processed with ethylene oxide. Manufacturers can easily remove the toxic byproduct, but are not required by law to do so. Common ingredients likely to be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane include PEG-100 stearate, sodium laureth sulfate, polyethylene and ceteareth-20.

The key bit there I think is: “Manufacturers can easily remove the toxic byproduct, but are not required by law to do so.” So when the group conducted the study, they found that there were still large amounts of the toxins which meant that the companies didn’t bother to remove the poisonous byproducts. WHY?

Around the world, several countries have already taken measures to ensure that their baby products are safe, like in China, where they are being removed from supermarket shelves and undergoing more testing. Japan and Sweden have already banned formaldehyde from personal care products.

Aside from 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde, watch out for these baddies too:

peg-100 stearate, sodium laureth sulfate, polyethylene and ceteareth-20, quaternium-15, DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea and sodium hydroxymethoylglycinate.

For the full list of tested products as well as more information, check out the article here.

In changing your ways to greener living, the key thing to remember is:

“little things mean a lot”

Meaning, you don’t have to go out marching in Washington or move your family to a yurt in the wilderness to save the earth.

Take your weekly trips to the grocery store, for instance. Just by being aware of what you buy can make loads of difference. For me, the main thing I’ve done in my home is to switch the cleaning supplies I use from the nose-burning, toxic, chemical-laden stuff to non-toxic, bio degradable brands. It was the smell that actually bothered me the most (especially when I was pregnant), so switching to the lovely natural stuff I use now as a surface cleaner, which uses orange oil, is such a great thing.

A small local company in my area makes most of the stuff I buy now (more points for saving on transport fuel) , but even the bigger guys are starting natural, eco-friendly lines now, like Clorox Green Works, which launched early this year. Did you know they bought Burts Bees too?

Here’s a part of a good article I found which should help you in the grocery. Read and heed.

Buy local. When food doesn’t have to travel far, it requires less packaging materials, fewer preservatives and often fewer pesticides. Not only are these processes bad for the environment but they also take away from the taste of the food. Another benefit to buying locally grown food is the shorter distances the produce needs to travel, which results in less damaging greenhouse gases.

Buy environmentally friendly products. Many companies are trying to be more environmentally conscious so look for brands that offer natural products in recycled packages.

Take fewer trips. Car emissions continue to be a major contributor to greenhouse gasses in Canada making carpooling and fewer trips to the grocery store a must. Making a grocery list in advance can help cut down on trips to the store for one-off forgotten items. Organizing a grocery store carpool with friends or neighbours is also a fun way to spend time with people while reducing the number of cars on the road.

Cut down on plastic bags. Canadians use approximately 10 billion plastic bags each year. Reducing that number means bringing reusable grocery bags with you to the store. If you don’t already have some, most stores have their own brand of reusable bags you can purchase while you are there. Another alternative is to use cardboard boxes to carry your groceries or paper bags that can be recycled.

With housing prices slumping all over the world, Gerd Niemoeller’s invention, The Universal World House, couldn’t have come at a better time. Primarily designed for refugees and migrants in the third world, the prototype costs just $5,000 for 36 sq.m, weighs a mere 800 kilos and can be set up virtually anywhere.

Gerd Niemöller said recently in Der Speigel:
” From the very beginning, our goal was to create practical, environmentally sustainable, and, most importantly, cheap living quarters for the slums of the Earth….Now, that is possible.”

So if it’s paper, will it blow away? And what exactly is it made of? Well, the answer is NO, it won’t blow away. It’s made of resin-soaked cellulose made from recycled materials – cardboard and newspapers. The material actually resembles a honeycomb and is extremely resilient to the weather when an air vacuum fills each of the units. Its being flexible also means it is virtually earthquake-proof!

Niemöller’s company who patented the house reported that thousands of orders have already been made, mostly from Africa, through organizations like World Vision. The paper house is a much better alternative to the tin and plywood shanties seen in many developing areas of the world, especially as it used recycled materials. According to an article in the London Times, it was built so that families can slaughter their dinner on the veranda, and conveniently hang the meat out to dry in the bathroom’s line:

“The house has eight built-in single and double beds and a veranda with a sealed-off area housing a shower and a lavatory. It has been designed together with the German development aid agency GTZ, and with the architect Dirk Donath, from the Bauhaus University in Weimar.

Apart from the sleeping area, there are shelves, a table and benches. It has been designed so that a family can slaughter an animal on the veranda, wash it in the shower and hang it, along with fish, on an integrated washing line. The whole wall of the kitchen can be tipped open to let air in and to blur the distinction between inside and outside. “

Surrounding your home with chemical-fighting houseplants is a wonderful thing to do for your family – not only does it rid the air of some major toxins (like I mentioned in my post), but it also makes the house much more attractive.

Just one large houseplant produces enough oxygen (through photosynthesis) to clean about 100 square feet of space, so depending on the size of your rooms, it is easy to work out how much you need. An average size home or apartment, for instance, will need just one large plant (like the easy-to-care for spider plant pictured above) in the main living area.

Here’s a quick guide to what plant does what:

Plants that remove Formaldehyde:
The philodendron, spider plant, and golden pothos

Flowering varieties that remove Benzene:
The gerbera daisy and chrysanthemum (mum)

Plants that remove Trichoroethylene:
The peace lily and the chrysanthemum are the most effective. Also useful are English ivy, Chinese evergreen, bamboo palm, snake plant (mother-in-law’s tongue), and several types of dracaena, including marginata, corn plant, and Janet Craig.

Tips On Caring:
- Most of these houseplants are relatively easy to grow in moderate to bright indirect sunlight or under florescent – Avoid windows or glass doors where sunlight shines directly on the plants, except for flowering mums and gerbera daisy, which thrive in sunlight. Ivy, palm, philodendron, spider plant, and dracaena are all susceptible to spider mites.
-To prevent infestations, mist often and avoid hot, dry air. The pots may be set in trays of pebbles in water to provide moisture around the plants.
- Make sure the bottoms of the pots are above the level of the water.
- Beware of overwatering any plant, the most common cause of houseplant deaths. Golden pothos, Chinese evergreen, and snake plant should not be misted and should be allowed to dry out between watering to keep the roots healthy.

To learn more about how houseplants can clean the air around you, a good book to read is How To Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants That Purify Your Home Or Office“>How To Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants That Purify Your Home or Office.

Effects Of Cell Phone Radiation With Green Planet Armour

For years, my spouse, an anti-technology dinosaur, has been preaching the danger of cellphones. He’s always owned one though (pre-paid), rather begrudgingly, never turning it on unless absolutely necessary, much to my annoyance. Well, the other day he told me it was time I did some research on the dangers of cellphones and do a post on it on YURTO as he reckoned most people use their cellphones at home even if it was invented for use outside of the home.

What I found was basically that cellphones emitted radiation, which when given in large doses, is indeed dangerous. In fact, I read this very disturbing article in the UK Telegraph, wherein a noted brain specialist says that “mobile phones are more dangerous than smoking” and was the reason for the rise in brain tumors.

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take “immediate steps” to reduce exposure to their radiation.

The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks.

It draws on growing evidence – exclusively reported in the IoS in October – that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.

Obviously, the mobile phone people has dismissed the professor’s claims as baloney, and a large study in the UK has shown little evidence, BUT it also said:

Professor Challis, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Nottingham, said: “It all sounds pretty reassuring and that is good. But we cannot rule out the possibility that cancer could appear in a few years. The epidemiological evidence is not good enough and most cancers take longer than 10 years to develop.

So I am inclined to agree with hubby, but am not quite prepared to give up my phone (what if there was an emergency with the kids while I was out?). Luckily, there is a company addressing this, and their product is something we should all get, short of giving up your portable.

Green Planet Armour is a nifty little product you can easily connect to your electronic device which uses nano technology to combat the ill effects of radiation. Check out their website today.

Global warming or climate change means that the Earth is being affected by the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere largely because of man, industry and globalization. Think of the carbon like a thick wooly blanket that keeps the hot air in, making the Earth hotter than it has been in 650,000 years, resulting in shocking images we’ve all been suddenly exposed to – like polar bears clinging onto tiny patches of ice because so much has melted. And have you noticed that there seem to be an awful lot of tropical storms around the world, more violent and more widespread than you remember growing up?

Do you find the picture above as disturbing as I do?

Here are some of the shocking facts, according to the National Geographic:

• Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century’s last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.

• The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average, according to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004.

• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.

• Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting—for example, Montana’s Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.

• Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching—or die-off in response to stress—ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 percent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.

• An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires and strong tropical storms, is also attributed in part to climate change by some experts.

To become more active and do your bit to stop this, visit Stop Global Warming.

Enter “Eco Balls”, amazing little balls which, when thrown into your wash, do all the work your regular soap does (and claim to kill bacteria too) without any chemicals, detergents and the like. When you work out what you save on soap, the savings are enormous, with something like 6 cents a load with the balls, to approx. 80 cents with detergent, more depending on what brand you buy. You can buy kits which come with refills, stain remover (it doesn’t do that great with heavy stains) as well as dryer balls for “fabric softer” role.

So does it really work? While I wait for my order to arrive, I found a good review worth checking out. The verdict? Some liked it, others were disappointed with its cleaning power. There was also one complaint about how the ball came apart and broke her washing machine. Either way, its a product I think worth trying out for yourself -because I think eliminating detergents would be a great thing.

The sisters at the Holy Wisdom Monastery would prove our perceptions wrong, though. Their priority is to live a green life. Indeed, they consider green living a spiritual calling!

Run by three Benedictine sisters, the monastery aims to establish the most eco-friendly and sustainable building in the United States – no small feat! According to Sister Mary David Walgenbach, “People who know us see it as falling out of our mission. They see it as something they would expect from us. People who don’t know us, who come into the building, are surprised by its elegance and simplicity. And they ask the same question: ‘Why would a small community of women do such a thing?’” But when we talk to them about who we are and why we think it’s important to do this, and, in our day and age, why it’s even more important that our religious people think about caring of the Earth, then they’re very open to that.”

Their building is up and running and holds the distinction of getting 63 out of 69 points from the U.S. Green Building Council. I think heaven’s on their side!

More than the music and the fun, the experience has highlighted some green practices in my mind. Since I walk to work, I never really appreciated the idea of car pooling. This practice is one of the most preached axioms in green living. Fuel consumption is reduced, carbon emissions decreased. If you do not go out much, try going out on a Friday night and you just might be surprised at how many cars are out there! Worse, many of them have only one or two passengers. This week, we car pooled like never before. The advantages?

1. We saved money on gas and/or cab fare.
2. We spent time together on the road, and it was fun!
3. We contributed to the cause for the environment.

Another thing about going out at night is the trash. I couldn’t help but notice that the place around the bar is littered with cigarette butts. Smoking in itself does not really help the air quality, but do you really have to throw your butts wherever when there are trash cans or ashtrays around the place?

Think about it – going out is so much fun but it doesn’t mean that we should totally overlook the environmental aspect.