Green Living Workshop update week 28 2008

Sustainable Works Green Living Workshops,

There are 2 workshops currently running and they are on the same topic.
This is the last week of the class so please remember your Life Style Surveys.

Tuesdays 7-8:30pm
Sustainable Works
1744 Pearl St.

Wednesdays 7-8:30pm
Santa Monica Public Library
601 Santa Monica Blvd.

Earlier Week - Week 4 CHEMICALS 7/1,2
Last Week - Week 5 TRANSPORTATION&TRAVEL 7/8,9
This Week - Week 6 SHOPPING&FOOD 7/15,16

Homework:
read SHOPPING&FOOD
3 TRANSPORTATION&TRAVEL Solutions

CHEMICALS

Skin Deep
Take a look at the best resource available for finding out the safety of your daily hygiene products. The Environmental Working Group, who put together the Skin Deep website, is a terrific resource for information regarding environmental health.

www.ewg.org

DIY Cleaning Products

Consumer Reports' GreenerChoices.org lists several simple recipes for making cleaners at home using familiar household ingredients. See all the recipes.

Alternative Household Product Recipes

Common chemicals are linked to breast cancer

PVC

PVC Poison Plastic

List of Companies Phasing out PVC

Toxic toys

PBS web video documenting the Phthalates issue as an example of the safer EU standards versus the more dangerous US standards.

Center for Investigative Reporting: About the book "Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What's at Stake for American Power "

A test of eight green bathroom-cleaning products from Grist.org

1,4-Dioxane

Carcinogenic 1,4-Dioxane Found in Leading "Organic" Brand Personal Care Products from Organic Consumers Association

Press Release in PDF format

1,4-Dioxane Alert with full product testing results (2-page PDF)

1,4-Dioxane Fact Sheet (PDF)

Popular 'green' products test positive for toxicant
LA Times article interviewing corporate representatives regarding the 1,4-dioxane

from the Organic Consumers Association
MYTH
Cosmetics are carefully regulated by the FDA

FACTS
▶ The FDA does not conduct or require independent pre-market
safety testing of new products or chemicals. The cosmetics
and personal care products industry must provide
its own safety testing.
▶ Companies are industry allowed to provide data to the FDA
regarding the safety of their own product ingredients by
funding scientific review boards comprised of doctors and
toxicologists which they select. In this way, companies seeking
to profit from products may influence the selection of
.study results submitted to the FDA submits.
▶ Once a product is on the market, the burden of legal proof
required for its removal is extremely high.
▶ Since cancer and birth defects are often latent occurrences,
it is difficult if not impossible to prove causation in the judicial
system. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to remove a
potentially dangerous product.

TRANSPORTATION&TRAVEL

Walk Score
Calculate everything that's within reasonable walking distance of your home with this web based mapping tool.

Bike Metro the site that helps you select routes for easy urban biking.

BIKEroWAVE.org
non profit bike workshop that helps you learn to repair your own bike

Sustainable Transport Club
Local grassroots organization helping to keep the public informed about all of the various transportation issues in our area.

SocalCommute.org
Commuters network

ZipCar
Car sharing program that can save you money if you don't need a car every day.

Better World Club the environmental alternative to the Car Domination strategy of AAA.

Plug In America Non Profit organization of activists that saved the Electric Vehicles and lists all of the automakers phone numbers so you can demand a environmentally superior plug in electric vehicle. Scroll down to the "What Can I Do?" section.

CalCars.org
Group that retro fitted an existing Prius into a Plug In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV)

www.sherryboschert.com
Author of Plug In Hybrids, includes the most comprehensive analysis of Well to Wheels emissions Alternative Fuel comparisons

Alternative Fuel conversions
Gas to Ethanol www.mye85kit.com
Diesel to SVO www.labiodieselcoop.org
Anything to Electric www.leftcoastelectric.com
Prius to PHEV Prius www.go100mpg.com