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Solutions for Reducing the Toxins in Your Backyard

With the growing anxiety over global warming and other environmental problems, individual actions, like changing a light bulb, no longer seem sufficient. As environmentalists focus on global changes, we have lost touch with local concerns. Natalie Jeremijenko, PhD, who started the Environmental Health Clinic at New York University, says, “The unfortunate consequence of this global conversation is that it makes the problems seem like they’re not local enough to be actionable, and anything you do is by definition marginal, at best symbolic.”

Jeremijenko, in response to this issue focuses on projects that give people the power to change their immediate communities. Even as the environment influences our health it has become more apparent every day, that we should take the advise of the experts and start with yourself, your home, and ultimately, your planet.

Savannah, where I live, is made up of several islands as well as the mainland. Houses are built close to the creeks, the river, and the ocean, and everyone uses fertilizer and other chemicals to keep their yards looking pristine without thinking about what they are doing to the waterways. Ten years ago there were small schools of fish and we had stingrays coming into the creek, now there are only the fiddler crabs. I believe my neighbors and the other people who have property that backs up to the waterways around here, do not even realize that every time they use a chemical on their yards or bushes that they are killing the creatures that come into our waterways. I do not use fertilizers or for that fact any chemicals on my yard and bushes, I let nature take it’s course. The only thing I do is water when need be, and I am not on city water that is filled with chlorine, we have a deep well that goes into the Florida aquifer.

 PROBLEM: OUTDOOR SOIL AND WATER QUALITY

 After it rains, chemicals, oil-produced neurotoxins, and other waste will wash off the streets and flow into drainage ditches, creeks, and rivers, which are host to a diverse ecosystem.

 LOCAL SOLUTIONS:

• Compost. According to the US Composting Council, composting helps remove pollutants and stops heavy metal or pesticides from leaching out of the ground by binding them to the soil. It will also increase the amount of nutrients and beneficial microorganisms in the soil, which strengthens the soil and allows it to hold more water, filter more pollution, and reduce erosion and runoff, and will improve the quality of your water.

 Your can follow this simple compost procedure: Dig a hole in your backyard or garden, bury fruit, vegetables, and eggshell scraps, then cover the hole, and let the worms do the work. Put a brick or stone over fresh compost holes to mark the spot and keep animals out. Alternatively, you can use one big bin and to put your fruits, vegetables, and egg shell scrapes in and then spread the fresh compost over you garden or lawn.

•  Create a rain garden. This is not like a perennial garden with it’s flat or mounded beds, a rain garden is bowl-or saucer-shaped and contains looser soil to capture more water. It will filter runoff, clean the water, and put it back into rivers and streams that are much cleaner.
•  Dig a plot that’s several feet deep where water tends to collect or starts to run off. Fill it with wood mulch and planting mix that’s 20 to 30 percent compost. Then plant native flowers and plants, which are better adapted for the local weather conditions. Plant rows of flowers that bloom at different times. Plants are very sensitive to climate change, and you may find that because of global warming, plants that are suppose to bloom in May are blooming in April.

 PROBLEM: TAP WATER QUALITY

 If when you turn on your tap and the water is brown, try the nylon test. Attach a bunched up pantyhose to your faucet and let the water run on low for a half hour or so, then check to see if there is any residue in the nylon. Depending on the pipes and local water quality, tap water could contain cadmium, lead, bacteria, pesticides, plus pharmaceuticals or other contaminants.

 LOCAL SOLUTION:

 

• Try the tadpole thermometer. Before you can address your water quality, you have to find out what’s in it by watching a tadpole. The experts say that tadpoles are a better thermometer for what’s in the water than most of those kits you can buy.

•  Put a tadpole, you may have to go to a pet store to get one if you don’t live close to a creek or pond, in a glass container full of tap water and keep a log of your tadpole’s development. Plastic containers are not recommended for this because they will off-gas particles that could effect your results. If it grows legs to quickly, that’s an indicator of endocrine disruptor. It it’s stressed or goes bely up there’s something in your water, an industrial contaminant, traces of medications, chemicals, or something else. Call your local water board or company, and tell them what you found and ask them to do testing to find out just what’s in your tap.

While you are waiting for your local water company to do the test and get the results, you might want to invest in a filter. Activated carbon, reverse osmosis, and distiller filters will take out heavy metals, chlorine by-products and other chemical. Look for products that are certified by NSF (a regulatory agency) to ensure the filter does what the packaging says it does.

 As for the tadpole, you can raise him as a pet or release him into a local pond. This would be a great project for your kids!

 PROBLEM: INDOOR AIR QUALITY

 Your well-insulated, energy-efficient home can also contribute to asthma, allergies, and other health problems by recirculating stale, dirty air. Between paint particles, cleaning chemicals, and other microscopic compounds, the amount of pollutants indoors can be two to five times higher than the amount outdoors. Hard to believe? According to Aileen Gagney, American Lung Association program specialist, “Even a thin layer of dust can contain all kinds of toxins.” Among the toxins are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including benzene and formaldehyde that off-gases from furniture and are emitted from paint and fireplaces. Christopher Portier, associate director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Science, VOC particles can cause DNA damage, cancer, lung disease, and cardiovascular disease.

 You might consider an air exchange (which reduces the toxins swirling around by bringing in filtered outdoor air), but there are far easier ways you can instantly improve the air you breath.

 LOCAL SOULUTIONS:

•  Growing plants in soil-free inert pepples (hydoculture) is as much as 50% more effective at removing VOCs from the air. The method also keeps the growing surface dry, which reduces mold growth. Place at least two plants, areca palm, peace lily or lady palm are ideal in the rooms where you spend the majority of your time.

 Cool-mist humidifiers vibrate water, sending droplets that contain mineral particles into the air. That essentially creates acid rain in your house. Steam humidifiers boils the water to send gas, not water droplets into the air without the heaviest particles.

•  Dusting sends VOCs and other particles that have settled on your furniture back into the air. Adding water to your dust rag or mop head will pick up those unwanted and unhealthy dust particles preventing them from ending up in your lungs. Another solution: microfiber rags that holds onto dust quite effectively.
•  HEPA vacuums may be more expensive, but they do protect you from some air pollution. HEPA vacuum filters trap lots of small particles that other vacuums spew back out. A filter is only half the remedy. If you don’t vacuum long enough, you walk over dust and make it airborne. Vacuum for much longer than you think you need to, vacuum a tiny hallway for 45 min. to get all the dust out. My husband and I had to replace the carpet in a rental home that we had lived in before it became a rental home, and you would not believe the dirt that was under that carpet. We filled a two gallon bucket with the dirt. While we lived there, I vacuumed every day, maybe not for 45 min. but I would vacuum until there was no more dirt in the dirt cup of my vacuum.

 PROBLEM: CLEANING CHEMICALS

Sensitivity to chemicals from air fresheners, toilet bowl cleaners, and other products builds over time. instead of becoming more tolerant of these products, you may become more sensitive, says Charlene Bayer with the Georgia Institute of Technology Indoor Environment Research program. Opening the windows may not help as much as you’d think, since that lets outside pollutants, like ozone, in. “Ozone is one of the bad boys of the last decade,” says Allen Rathey, president of the Healthy House Institute, “because it reacts with by-products of household cleaners and produces formaldehyde and a mixture of other compounds.”

The primary culprits are terpenes, found in pine and citrus oil products and air fresheners. “Natural” products scented with citrus oils can have ozone-reactant terpenes in them.

 LOCAL SOLUTION:

•  Shop smart, by reading labels and don’t buy anything with artificial fragrances.

 Environmental health involves more than changing our habits. ” We need to change our relationship to the natural world,” says NYU Health Clinic research assistant Christine Kim. We need to realize that no matter how we live, we live in nature, we also need to realize that we live in a space with other living things, and we should make long-term changes for the better.

 Reduce the amount of trash you produce. Get your fainilies trash production down to one 32-gallon trash can a month. Reduce the amount of packaging you buy, place recycle bins at strategic places around the house, focus on reusing products, and change from non-recyclable products. Change from non-recyclable products (plastic laundry bottles) to recyclable versions (cardboard laundry powder boxes). There will be less trash heading to the landfill if you do these things.

About the Author

Angela is the owner of Coastal Computerized Information Services located in Savannah, GA.

http://www.ccis.web.officelive.com

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