Eco Green Tips

We shop every day… Be it for groceries, furniture, magazines or simple life pleasures such as shoes or clothes (for man tools or cars would be more likely) but have you ever thought what impact simple shopping has on the environment? What it takes to make the furniture we so crave or grow the food that billions of people require? What is the cost of sustaining the ever-needing population of human beings?

One of the biggest costs of civilization is deforestation, which has a number of negative effects both on the environment and the humans themselves. In our ever-burning consumer desires we don’t stop to think what it means to satisfy them. Every year large amounts of forests (the size of Panama) are cut down, and if this rate continues the rain forests will disappear in about a hundred years!

The main reason for deforestation is agriculture. Farmers cut down trees to make room for growing crops or grazing livestock. Logging industry (which provides paper and wood) comes second, clearing countless trees each year. Some of deforestation happens unintentionally, mainly because of the wildfires or overgrazing, which prevents young trees from growing.

The biggest negative impact of deforestation seems to be loss of natural habitat for millions of species. 70% of the planet’s animals live in the forests and a lot of them are not able to survive in a different environment, which is the effect of deforestation. Moreover, deforestation has an enormous impact on the climate changes, e.g. trees help maintain the water cycle by returning moisture into the atmosphere and by blocking the sun, help soil stay moist; the destruction of forest canopy leads to drastic temperature changes that can harm the flora and fauna. And most importantly, trees play a big part in absorbing the greenhouse gasses and releasing oxygen back into the air, so fewer forests mean more gasses being trapped in the atmosphere therefore increasing the rate and magnitude of global warming.

One question begs to be asked and answered—what can we do to stop it? And the most obvious answer seems to be simply to stop cutting down trees. However, the global trade and other business realities make it unlikely to take place. A more probable solution is careful management of forest resources by eliminating clear-cutting to ensure that the environments stay intact and planting trees to replace the felled ones. Even though the deforestation rate has slowed down in recent years and the number of tree plantations has grown, the need for more action is overwhelming. The plantations equal only to a fraction of the planet’s forests.

So what can you do? Recycle, recycle and recycle. The more paper and wood is being recycled, the less tress will need to be cut down. And if you can, plant trees or donate to websites that will do it for you. And don’t forget that even the smallest effort will make a difference.

Spring is in the air! And with it, so is spring cleaning. We take out the buckets, gloves, sponges and the harsh chemicals that we were told will combat all kinds of dirt, grime and, most importantly, the bacteria. But have you thought what all these chemicals will do to your health and to the environment?

The harshest chemicals are probably found in bathroom cleaners since we are all so obsessed with the sparkling clean toilets, tubs and showers where soap scum is most prominent and oh-so difficult to get rid of.  Many ingredients found in your traditional cleaners create an environmental risk when flushed down the drains (they will end up in the water systems, such as streams, rivers etc). Moreover, they have been known to cause health issues such as respiratory irritation, burns and central nervous system depression. Worse yet, they continue to be a threat after cleaning, when product residue combines with shower steam and produces harmful vapors. And, as shocking as it seems, it is not required of the manufacturers to disclose the contents of the products. 

So what are the harmful ingredients in most (if not all) bathroom cleaners?
• sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS)—a foam creating agent which can penetrate the skin and enable other chemicals to enter your system more easily.
• glycol ethers (diethylene glycol, monobutyl ether)—industrial solvents found in bathroom surface cleaners that can irritate skin, eyes and nose as well as cause central nervous system depression. Low-level occupational exposure to these agents has been associated with low sperm count in men and studies have shown birth defects and testicular damage in animals.
• monoethanolamine (MEA)—a acidic ingredient found in tile and grout cleaners as well as other surface cleaners; if inhaled causes asthma, liver damage and chronic hepatitis. Moreover, it is a skin, eye and respiratory irritant.
• hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, lye—other acidic agents found in grout and tile cleaners that cause severe skin burns, as well as throat and lung burns is inhaled.
• ammonia—a very common ingredient (along with lye and other caustic agents) of toilet bowl cleaners that is a respiratory irritant and has been found to threaten aquatic life when flushed down the toilet.

Luckily, there are a number of eco-friendly cleaning products made from natural ingredients on the market these days, so the spring cleaning (or any type of cleaning, for that matter) won’t be a health hazard. My personal favorite is (by all means) Seventh Generation line of household products. These come in nearly any product imaginable and are quite spread through grocery stores. Another popular brand is Method, which looks fancier but is also a bit more expensive. And if you cannot find anything that suits you, old-fashion methods our grandmothers used still work, for example:
• borax and a brush for scrubbing off that awful soap scum,
• a paste made of equal amounts of vinegar, salt and baking soda to clean grout and tiles and polish them at the same time,
• baking soda and lemon juice for an effective and fragrant toilet bowl cleaner.

Last week British Antarctic Survey reported that a 220 square miles of ice collapsed causing a shelf seven times the size of Manhattan to be in jeopardy of crumbling as well. In February, which is when most of the melting happens, the scientists noticed a big part of the Wilkins ice shelf disintegrating.

According to the British Antarctic Survey, the Wilkins shelf is the biggest area of ice threatened by warming of the climate and its effects. The process is happening quicker than expected, the scientists state on their official website. “As of mid-March, only a narrow strip of shelf ice was protecting several thousand kilometers of potential further breakup,”, they say, the size of Connecticut or half of Scotland, as is estimated. The next few days or weeks are crucial as the fate of this big area of ice will be decided. However, there is hope. This is the end of summer in the Antarctic Peninsula, which means the winter is on its way and with it, cooler temperature. But for now, the huge ice shelves are floating in the sea. So what does it mean for the environment?

Because the ice shelves normally float in the sea anyway, their collapse is not as threatening to the sea levels as it may seem at first, the scientists claim. However, wildlife will be impacted by this recent event, mainly due to its size, and will be forced to adapt to the changes in the ecosystem.

The western Antarctic Peninsula has warmed more than any other place on the planet over the last 50 years, the scientists state. And as much as we would like to brush it off as being too far away to matter, this isn’t so. The rapid melting of the glaciers and the ice in the poles will eventually lead to the rise of sea levels, if not slowed down. This is not just scientific talking anymore but pure fact. We see the evidence every year and unfortunately, it’s alarming. “Data from close to 30 reference glaciers in nine mountain ranges indicate that between the years 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 the average rate of melting and thinning more than doubled”, the United Nations Environment Program reported in March. The most critical glacial shrinking happened in Europe, with Norway’s Breidalblikkbrea glacier, which thinned by about 10 feet in 2006, compared with less than a foot the year before, reports say.

The predictions for the future seem to quite dire and a lot of people will probably say “we are doomed!”. Perhaps. But I would like to believe there is still something we can do to change the outcome of the mess we made. The awareness is rapidly rising and people change their habits every day to make a difference. Of course, for it to have a bigger impact, it would all have to take place all over the world. And maybe one day it will. For now, I’ll keep doing what I can to reduce my carbon footprint. And so should you…