sludge is good for you lies damned lies
and the public relations industry and
though I had some idea that there were
toxins in products I had no idea that
there were actually intentional efforts
to sell products to consumers that
aren’t good for us so we used to see ads
for cigarettes telling us that it was
safe to smoke and we now know that not
to be true more recently we see ads for
juicy fast-food where we see ads for air
fresheners that smell nice but they
don’t tell us what’s actually in those
in these products it’s actually quite a
bit of chemicals so when you use an
antibacterial soap did you know that it
contains a chemical called triclosan
that’s actually a registered pesticide
so yes we’ve been washing our hands with
a pesticide so for my many years of
being an environmental advocate I want
to share with you some tips on daily
decisions we make about pesticides
plastics cleaners and body care products
because each one of us votes with our
dollars so by the end of this you should
have a better idea of how your your
daily choices can impact your health and
since the 1940s
over 80,000 synthetic chemicals have
been introduced into the marketplace but
very few of them have actually been
tested for their association with
chronic diseases such as cancer birth
defects and neurological diseases but in
fact we also know only ten to fifteen
percent of breast cancer incidences are
due to genetic heritage alone one study
of women carrying the genes for breast
cancer found that by the age of 50 if
they were born by the year 1940 the risk
of actually developing the cancer was
less than half than if they were born
after the 1940s when we started using
all these chemicals and childhood
cancers have been going up slightly for
the last few decades but for the cynic
in you you might say well aren’t there
laws to protect
and yes there are laws to protect us but
there are also chemical lobbyists that
work to keep policy in their favor and
you might also say well I use these
products all the time and I haven’t
dropped dead yet but the thing is
sometimes they don’t cause us to drop
dead but we can have small exposures
every day that can accumulate in the
body and work synergistically and have
chronic effects so let’s start with
pesticides pesticides are associated
with cancer in some cases in some cases
they’re associated with nerves toxicity
and in some cases they are associated
with endocrine disruption which means
they they mess with our hormone system
and our hormones help to regulate our
organs so we need them to be healthy so
these chemicals can either block or
mimic the hormones in our bodies they
can also lead to birth defects or they
can even be obese agents meaning that
they cause people to retain weight and
one thing we always want to be careful
of is using any kind of chemical
especially pesticides around children
because their detoxification systems are
not developed so their liver and kidney
can’t get rid of the chemicals so it
stays in their body longer doing more
damage so there are a few ways we’re
exposed to pesticides and I’ll just
touch on three one is lawn care we see a
lot of ads for chemical fertilizers and
pesticides in the spring especially but
we should know that there are
alternatives there are natural ways to
take care of the lawn and products we
can use like compost that help to build
the health of the soil and there are
things we can do that are cheap or free
like mowing the grass a little higher
shades out the weed seeds or we can use
mine with calcium because it helps to
mitigate dandelions
because dandelions prefer to grow in
soil that is lacking in calcium we can
do better seeding and water all these
things we can learn from local
environmental organizations or
even online if you go to a good nursery
they can point you in the right
direction so we don’t all have to be
experts we just need to know to ask the
right questions and if we don’t do this
we have to realize we could be
contaminating our groundwater or the
surrounding water bodies another way
we’re exposed to pesticides is through
our food and I think here the the answer
is pretty familiar choose organic
whenever possible but a lot of people
ask me what does that mean so when you
find a product that has the USDA symbol
around symbol it means that that product
wasn’t grown with pesticides or
synthetic fertilizers or genetically
modified ingredients and a little tip is
that when you buy produce it comes with
a tag with a SKU number and if the SKU
number starts with nine it means its
organic and if it starts with four it
means it’s conventional so the other
thing I want to point out though is that
it’s not just on the produce it can
actually pesticides are actually used on
the greens used to bake our bread and
also to feed animals and in today’s
factory farming the animals are often
treated with growth hormones and
antibiotics and in fact according to the
Food and Agriculture Organization the
production of meat and dairy products is
responsible for 18% of global greenhouse
gases and even fish fish can be
contaminated with mercury and PCBs and
there’s a problem with overfishing in
our oceans so that’s just one way that
we can make a big difference for our
health and the environment is choosing
more plant-based in organic food and
choosing organic makes a big difference
in terms of farmworkers because the
farmers who are doing the right thing
and not spraying their fields are
protecting their workers because believe
it or not right here in the United
States there have been numerous cases of
poisonings and even deaths because of
exposure to pesticides in the field and
a third unless talked about way that
we’re exposed to pesticides and other
chemicals is through our clothing cotton
is one of the most widely sprayed crops
it accounts for
percent of world the world’s pesticide
use it takes three quarters of a count
of chemicals just to make a pair of
jeans it’s not something we normally
talk about think about when we’re buying
our jeans but it’s true so one of the
things we can do is look for
alternatives like organically grown
cotton or hemp or bamboo tensile tensile
is actually made from wood fibers so
just so you know that I walk my talk my
entire outfit that I’m wearing for you
bedding can be made from organic fabrics
like towels and sheets my mattress my
pillows are filled with organic cotton
you can find these things online and
sometimes even as big-box stores so they
don’t have to cost more and what’s
really exciting is that in in the
fashion schools like in New York City is
a lot of young students really
interested in learning to use these
organic fabrics and natural fabrics so
we’ll hopefully be seeing more of this
in the future plastics so most of us
tend to either store or buy food that’s
contained in plastic containers and on
the bottom of the container you’ll see a
number inside a recycling symbol from 1
to 7 and what we need to know is that
some of them are more prone to leach
chemicals than others so if you can see
the screen here plastic number 3
polyvinyl chloride contains phthalates
which are hormone disruptors that we
talked about earlier plastic number 6 is
a common one styrofoam which is made
with styrene a carcinogen so not so
great to be drinking hot liquids out of
it every day and plastic number 7 is a
catch-all for all different kinds of
plastics but it usually is polycarbonate
which can contain the chemical bisphenol
A or BPA which is a hormone disruptor so
you may be asking yourself how am I
going to remember which ones are safer
so the children’s environmental health
center at mal
Sinai School of Medicine came up with a
rhyme five for one and two all the rest
are bad for you they can repeat it with
me five four one and two all the rest
are bad for you good job good job
and I want to give you a couple of
microwaving tips so even if you have a
dish that says it’s microwave safe that
usually just means that it won’t melt so
it doesn’t mean it’s not leaching toxins
so it might be safe for the plastic but
not safe for you and another thing is a
lot of us like to make microwave popcorn
with the waxy coating on those popcorn
bags it’s a it contains a fire retardant
called perfluorooctanoic acid or pee FOA
which is a liver toxin and carcinogen
that they’re finding in the bloodstream
of nine out of ten Americans according
to the Centers for Disease Control so
the best way to make popcorn is the
old-fashioned way in a pot with organic
corn kernels cleaners it might seem odd
to think that something that we use to
clean our homes could be toxic
but many cleaners contain chemicals that
are caustic or they can be irritating to
the eyes or the or the lungs like bleach
dish soaps often contain 1 4 dioxane
which is a carcinogen now being found in
the waters across the country detergents
they can contain fragrances that
contains phthalates again phthalates is
a is a code word for chemicals but the
good news is there are many many
alternatives that you can buy it helps
with stores and even regular grocery
stores now that are plant-based
bio-based that don’t contain these
ingredients and for home cleaners you
can even make it yourself just out of
cheap ingredients like baking soda and
vinegar dry cleaners usually often most
often are using a chemical called
perchloroethylene or perc it’s a
carcinogen that can volatilize into the
air and contaminate our groundwater so
what you want to look for our cleaners
that use the
wet cleaning or a silica based solution
called green earth so again we don’t
need to be experts we just need to know
to seek out the companies that are
and finally body care products there are
over 10,000 body care products for sale
in the United States most of them have
not been evaluated for their safety by
the health and safety panel of the of
the industry and in fact the Food and
Drug Administration does not pre-check
ingredients many people think they do
but they don’t so they so there’s a
wonderful organization called
environmental working group and they did
a study called skin deep and they found
that one-third of personal care products
contain at least one chemical linked to
cancer so for example not nail polish
contains formaldehyde or toluene
sometimes but it’s not just women’s
products they found hormone disruptors
as well so in lotions and shampoos there
are phthalates
that are in the fragrances so an aside
from that there are there are parabens
which are also hormone disruptors their
weekly estrogenic so they tend to
amplify our natural estrogen in both men
and women have estrogen in our bodies
they’re used as preservatives in the
products you’ll see them on the label
but the good news is there are many many
alternatives just like these these are
just a few examples and the
Environmental Working Group came up with
an app called the healthy living app
where you can actually look for your
favorite products and see how toxic they
so what I want to leave you with is this
notion that yes we are surrounded by
toxins many of which I didn’t even get a
chance to mention today but we don’t
have to be sitting ducks we don’t have
to just sit here waiting to get diseases
consumers have power in our choices and
in fact we are already causing change to
happen companies like Nike and Patagonia
have committed to using more organic
cotton in their clothing the soap
company soft soap decided willingly to
retake out the triclosan from its hand
soaps last year because they saw the
writing on the wall the states of New
York and California are starting to
regulate perk more and possibly phasing
it out eventually but at least making
sure that dry cleaning establishments
don’t get cited underneath apartments
where the chemical can drift up into the
apartments above and a few years ago a
Huntington Breast Cancer Action
Coalition worked with the Suffolk County
legislature to unanimously pass a ban on
BPA in in baby cut bottles and sippy
cups and this campaign was so exciting
it was taken up by the just green
partnership which is a coalition of
organizations across New York State and
they worked in Albany to get the same
ban on BPA in baby bottles became the
law across New York State it was a huge
success so though many of us can feel
powerless over so many crazy things
happening in the world around us we do
have the power to make change with our
daily choices every day it’s just a
matter of consciousness and being aware
of where our dollars are going we can
either support the companies that are
trying to do the right thing or we can
continue to support the companies that
are polluting our environment and again
we don’t have to all be the experts we
just have to know to ask questions read
labels support good legislation and if
we do this we can pout we can harness
the power over pollutants and we can
create a less toxic for everyone thank you