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Use your spending power to create a cleaner, greener world.
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A million women are pledging to use their purse power to have a BILLION DOLLAR IMPACT on the environment. Please join us!
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Safe and Smart Hair Dye
Do you color your hair but worry about the impact hair dye could have on the environment - let alone your own health and safety? I wish I could completely reassure you, but the truth is we don't know much about hair dye. Washing any additional chemicals down the drain isn't good for our watershed; that's just common sense. It's also likely that when you dye your hair, a small amount is absorbed into your system. According to a 2001 study, women who regularly color their hair with permanent hair dyes are at a greater risk for bladder cancer. However, in 2004 the American Journal of Epidemiology reported that a recent study showed no increased risk of cancer among women who started using hair-coloring products in 1980 or later. Confusing, isn't it?
We do know that dyes containing ammonia and p-Phenylenediamine can irritate the skin and cause painful rashes. So be smart about dying your hair:
Delay. Don't start coloring your hair until you feel you really have to! Highlight rather than dye your entire head.
Use a color stick (available at many cosmetic supply stores) to cover up grey at the hair line without resorting to dying your whole head.
Check the safety of all your hair coloring ingredients the Environmental Working Group's cosmetics database, where you can also find alternative, safer products.
Read the Label: Avoid products that contain ammonia, PPD, and phthalates, all of which could irritate the skin.
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Tampons: Planet's Most Extreme Case of PMS
If you're like most women, you'll use as many as 11,000 tampons during your lifetime. Add to that a couple of thousand pads and panty liners, and the ecological impact of your monthly cycle really starts to add up. Particularly egregious are the plastic applicators that come with some tampons. The darn things are so indestructible even a car can run over them and not destroy them.
Conventional products may contain a mixture of rayon and cotton. Rayon has been implicated in toxic shock syndrome, particularly for superabsorbent tampons. Cotton is highly pesticide-intensive; 25 percent of pesticides used globally are devoted to growing cotton. To look as white as possible, conventional pads and tampons are usually bleached with chlorine, a process that can create dioxin, a known carcinogen.
The alternative?
Tampons, pads, and panty liners made from organic cotton and more safely bleached paper. Here's a list of brands to look for, available online or in your local drugstore or supermarket.
Want more eco-friendly personal hygiene tips? Click here.
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How Eco Is Your Coffee Pot?
Consumers buy more automatic-drip coffeemakers than any other small kitchen appliance, so it's no wonder they use about $400 million worth of electricity just brewing coffee every year. To make an energy-efficient but still high-voltage cup of java, start with the pot:
French press. Bodum Chambord's elegant but inexpensive model (pictured above right) makes delicious coffee; the Columbia design keeps the beverage warm in a thermal carafe so you don't need an electric hot plate.
Chemex manual drip coffeepot. This hourglass-shaped flask can use recycled paper filters or reusable options made from cotton or stainless steel. Make as little as one cup of coffee, or as many as ten.
Chef's Choice electric French press plus. This technology combines the French press and an energy-saving electric kettle in one pot.
One-cup coffeemakers. These efficient pots can brew coffee in less than a minute. Check the housewares section of Target, Wal-Mart, or your local department store.
Still want an electric-drip appliance? Choose one that shuts off automatically.
And if you like to grind your own beans, try:
Danesco manual coffee grinder . A stainless steel grinder with a clip canister, it lets you grind coffee beans fine or coarse using no kilowatts but your own.
Wondering what kind of coffee to buy? We've already figured it out!
Continue reading to find out how eco your mug is... | |
By the way, are you on Facebook, Linkedin, or Twitter? Let's connect! I twitter@ DianeMacEachern and @ biggreenpurse. You can find me here on Facebook and Linkedin. Where are you? I also want to ask you to invite your friends and colleagues to take advantage of all we offer. To pass this newsletter along, just click on the Forward button right below my signature.
Talk to you again soon,
Diane MacEachern
Big Green Purse
email: diane@biggreenpurse.com
web: http:www.biggreenpurse.com
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