Which Household Cleaners Contain Secret Toxic Ingredients?
Chemical structure of the alkylphenol nonylphenol.
By Kiera Butler for Mother Jones:
The label on my shower spray cleaner claims it’s supposed to smell like ylang ylang. To me it smells like, well, chemicals. I was curious to see whether any real ylang ylang actually made its way into my cleaner, so I looked up the ingredients online. No ylang ylang (or any other plant for that matter) in sight. Near the end of a long list of ingredients were the words “fragrance oil.” Mysterious. Is my shower spray hiding something?
The environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice thinks it might be. Turns out that despite a New York state law that requires manufacturers of cleaning products to disclose the ingredients in their products, very few manufacturers are willing to cough up the full list. Earthjustice contacted dozens of companies and asked them to comply with the law, but four major manufacturers refused. (Full list…
The Unfriendly Skies: Toxic Airlines And The Aerotoxic Syndrome
A documentary by Tim van Beveren investigating fume events, tricresyl phosphate (TCP) and talking to researchers and pilots affected by the fumes. First broadcast on the German TV program Markt on 9 March 2009. English language version.
Which Veggie Burgers Were Made With a Neurotoxin?
This story has raised a lot of controversy last week on the internets … here’s a post on it from Kiera Butler in Mother Jones:
UPDATE: Veggie burger rumors are flying! Some readers and other news organizations have alleged that the study I wrote about was funded by the pro-meat, anti-soy group the Weston A. Price Foundation.
But this morning, I spoke with Cornucopia Institute director Mark Kastel, who said that the Weston A. Price Foundation did not contribute any funding to the “Behind the Bean” (pdf) study. More here.
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[Last] Monday, I wrote about a recent study by the Cornucopia Institute that found that many popular veggie burgers are made with hexane, an EPA-registered air pollutant and a neurotoxin. Commenters had lots of interesting discussions and good questions, many of which require far more knowledge of the subject than I have to answer. So I called up Charlotte Vallaeys, the lead researcher on the Cornucopia…
Outlawing Bottled Water
For those paying attention, calls for removal of plastics from our food and water and elsewhere in our household and workplace environments have been getting a whole lot louder recently and will receive worldwide attention during World Water Week in September. For those who liked Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff, she’s made a new film, The Story of Bottled Water:
The message is starting to go mainstream. TIME Magazine recently highlighted “The Perils of Plastic.” Here’s what they have to say about Bisphenol A (BPA), the type of plastic used to bottle water:
What It Is: A chemical used in plastic production
Found In: Water bottles, baby bottles, plastic wraps, food packaging
Health Hazards: The government’s National Toxicology Program has concluded that there is some concern about brain and behavioral effects…
