É nosso dever, como cidadão e morador da Terra, separar os resíduos orgânicos dos recicláveis. Muitas pessoas ainda têm dúvidas sobre a separação desses materiais, por isso vou deixar algumas dicas sobre: Descarte ou Reciclagem.

If you're expecting, are a new parent, or just have a baby in your life that you care about, this episode is a must-listen.   When their first child was on the way three years ago, Serenity and Joe took matters into their own hands—after being disappointed by the virtual absence of baby food that met their dietary standards—and created Serenity Kids. I actually found out about this company because I do a lot of investing in the health and the nutrition sector. Not only did I wind up investing in them, but I tried some of the baby food myself and it’s so dangerously tasty that I suspect that you as a parent might start stealing it from your baby if you get some. (Despite being dressed up as a “big baby” in the photo, I'm actually not kidding. I really have been eating this stuff every day alongside my ribeye steak and salmon—it's addictively good and digests incredibly clean.)   In this guest post by Serenity, you'll discover what set her and her husband on the path to starting their own baby food company, the problems with most baby foods out there, and what exactly makes Serenity Kids baby food so special. Enjoy!  

Heartburn, Anxiety, & Insomnia—The Story Of My Life!

  My well-meaning mother was a vegetarian while pregnant with me.   Born early, I got my first of many ear infections and subsequent rounds of antibiotics when I was two weeks old.   I had colic and cried for most of that first year; and growing up, I had constant stomach problems. I was (and still am) a total sugar addict. Now I know that I’m intolerant of most of the foods I grew up eating: dairy, wheat, and even certain vegetables, and though I love sugar, it hates me.   Eight years ago, over-the-counter antacids stopped working for me. Acid reflux was becoming unmanageable, and I was plagued with pain daily. When a doctor told me the only solution to my pain was to take a proton pump inhibitor pill every day for the rest of my life, I began desperately looking for other answers.   Note from Ben: it is interesting to note that the latest research on plant-based diets for women who are expecting reveals that “a design of pregestational nutrition intervention is required in order to avoid maternal undernutrition and consequent impaired fetal growth.” You can read the full write-up here. In short, Amino Acids, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, Calcium, DHA, and Iron, at minimum, are crucial to avoid risk of fetal impairment for mothers who are not consuming compounds such as meat and fish.  

An Ancestral Approach To Diet

  Eventually, my dad sent me copies of The Primal Blueprint and The Paleo Solution, and I never looked back. Since finding the Paleo diet, my stomach feels great, my anxiety is gone, and I sleep much better. I became such a believer that I left my corporate job to start a Paleo coaching business and became a member of the Paleo f(x) conference team.    I was really moved by Paleo’s “ancestral approach,” which is based upon a theory that humans have lived on this planet in our current genetic form for more than 500,000 years, and we’ve only had agriculture for about 15,000 years. So, for 95% of human history, we lived in nomadic tribes, hunting and gathering our food, subsisting on plant matter we foraged and animals we hunted. Grains, legumes, dairy, industrial seed oils, sugars, and processed foods are all products of agriculture and therefore not an inherent part of our genetically determined diet.   Essentially, the Paleo Diet seeks to mimic our ancestral diet by cutting out foods that require agriculture and actively include the most nutrient-dense foods such as pasture-raised meats, eggs, organic vegetables, offal, cultured foods, and healthy fats.   The new research on inflammation and the gut biome is consistent with this approach and has determined that non-ancestral foods create inflammation and leaky gut, and most ancestral foods do not. So, when facing my health problems, it made sense to me to start with diet changes, and it worked!   In fact, it's often the diet Ben recommends when somebody comes to him seeking advice on everything from skin issues like acne or eczema, to gut pain, brain fog, food allergies or intolerances, constipation, or any other signs of immune system or inflammation issues.   My husband, Joe, and I met through the Paleo community. Joe is autistic, and living a Paleo lifestyle has drastically reduced his anxiety, improved his attention and focus, and stopped his excessive burping. Research has demonstrated links between diet and symptoms of autism. He teaches Paleo principles to other autistic people and parents of autistic kids.   Note from Ben: I'm not Paleo “per se,” since my family consumes foods such as raw goat's milk, slow-fermented, non-GMO sourdough wheat bread, soaked and sprouted legumes, etc. but as a dietary approach for healing the type of issues Serenity had, it is a very good solution.  

Shocked, I Couldn’t Believe It

  Joe and I were planning to have a child, so at Paleo f(x) 2016, we got excited about looking for baby food that met our dietary standards. But, we couldn’t even find a single booth devoted to kids. We asked Michelle Norris, Paleo f(x) CEO, where the baby booths were and she said, “I ask myself that every year.” I searched in grocery stores, baby stores, online – nothing!   So I got to work.   When we started to consider making our own baby food brand, we compiled ingredients lists and nutrition facts of the top 256 leading organic baby food pouches. What we found was that even the organic brands were ridiculously high in sugar and consistently lacked a good amount of fat.   Infants need at least 30 grams of fat a day, according to the USDA Guide to Infant Nutrition & Feeding, and yet high-fat baby foods were virtually non-existent (less than 1% had more than 2 grams of fat).   The USDA also warns against sugar, recommending parents limit the amount of sugar and sweet foods they give to babies, but leading organic baby food pouches had an average of 9 grams of sugar. That’s a lot for a tiny little body. Feeding a 15-pound baby 9 grams of sugar equates to an adult having more than two cans of Coke!   And last, meat is recommended as a quality first food for babies, but less than 4% of organic baby foods contained meat, not to mention the fact that none of it was grass-fed or pasture-raised. Early on we were introduced to the co-founders of EPIC Bar, Taylor Collins and Katie Forest, who were 6-months pregnant at the time. They were thrilled to help us follow in EPIC's footsteps to transform the baby food industry and introduce a Paleo baby food product to the mainstream.   We already knew we wanted to use grass-fed and pastured meats for the nutrition they provide, but they taught us how raising animals on pasture in the right way can actually regenerate the land – a big step up from sustainability. So using regeneratively farmed meat in our baby foods is not only better for infant health, but for the health of the animals, the farmers and the planet.   For Joe, it totally clicked. As an avid animal lover, environmentalist and one whose mother grew up on a family farm, Joe realized that our company could be even more aligned with his values by both improving infant nutrition and supporting small family regenerative farmers.   Compassion in World Farming published a comprehensive report compiling the various studies done on conventionally raised meat versus pasture-raised meat. Here’s one snippet of what they found:   “Choosing pasture-reared beef over intensely-raised beef would make a significant contribution to meeting nutritional requirements for long-chain omega-3 fatty acids. Pasture-reared beef contains more vitamin E… and also contains more beta-carotene… pig meat from free-range systems has a higher proportion of omega-3 fatty acids, and a more favorable (lower) ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids… contains more vitamin E… and also contains more iron.”   In short, they discovered pasture-raised pigs and poultry were similarly nutritionally superior.  

Focusing On Quality Over Profit Margin

  Baby foods made from cheap fruit purees bring in an enormous profit margin. Babies get hooked on them and they provide little nutritional value making the baby need to eat more and more.   So it should come as no surprise that recent studies are now linking childhood obesity to infant diets.   It’s crazy that babies are being diagnosed obese as young as 18 months old! Infants begin forming palate preferences in their first year of life. During the crucial flavor window, if they are only introduced sweet flavors, they develop a preference for sweet things which discourages healthy eating later. Plus, sugar, even from fruit, can lead to inflammation, fussiness from sugar crashes, and sugar addiction (like I suffered from). Whereas introducing a variety of flavors early will set them up for a diverse healthy diet as they get older.   The calories from breastmilk (nature’s perfect baby food) are about half fat, half carbs, with a little bit of protein. So, we set off to make a baby food that matched these macros with as much nutrient-density as possible. We got to work in our kitchen cooking up Paleo baby food recipes and passing them out to our friends with babies (and eventually our baby).   We landed on eight different flavor combinations of pasture-raised meats, organic vegetables, and healthy fats which also provide heme iron, potassium, and calcium, which are often lacking in conventional baby foods and are a key building block in a baby’s development. We even created a wild-caught salmon variety, which provides a strong source of DHA and EPA, omega-3 fatty acids necessary for brain, nerve and eye development, which are essential for babies switching from breastmilk or formula to solids.   Some of our most popular flavors include our Grass Fed Beef with Organic Sweet Potato and Kale, Free Range Chicken with Organic Peas and Carrots, and Wild Caught Salmon with Organic Butternut Squash and Beet. Sounds yummy right? They are! See for yourself in this video we captured of one of our biggest fans…

When Hannah and Danny Iwanejko had finally had enough of their community council’s “rubbish” green waste procedures, the eco-warriors took it upon themselves to set up their own free recycling center right in their driveway.   Since the English couple first built their green waste hub out of recycled wood and metal last month, they have saved almost 2,000 pounds of recyclable plastic and materials from ending up in a landfill.   The family accepts all manner of items including crisp and cracker packets, contact lenses, Tetra Pak packaging, coffee pods, and baby food pouches.   Hannah then drives the waste to specialized recycling sites that are within a 10-mile radius of their English home in Bilsthorpe, Nottinghamshire.   From there, the materials are turned into small plastic pellets that can be used to make items such as outdoor furniture, trays, roofing, and flooring.   Much of the processing is handled by Terracycle: a recycling company that focuses on hard-to-recycle items—and since their recycling programs are all funded by companies and manufacturers, the recycling schemes are all free for the public to use.       Hannah and Danny, both of whom are 36-year-old maintenance engineers, came up with the idea after watching the BBC’s Planet Earth series.   “The moment I decided to do something myself was [my daughter’s] first birthday in August,” says Hannah. “I saw what was going on in the Amazon and the war on plastic and David Attenborough’s programs. So I thought: ‘Hang on a second, I can do my bit. I need a central point where people can easily recycle.’   “My husband really likes building stuff so he made the recycling hub out of scrap material,” she continued. “It barely cost us anything. It’s a small village so I’ve only just made my first 30-minute trip to the recycling bins at the leisure center.   “It was just meant for the community—but now people are coming with their waste from outside the village and people from all over are contacting me asking how to do it themselves.”     When reporters asked Hannah why she disapproved of the local recycling procedures, she said: “The problem is there is no consistency across the council. One council says you can recycle this, this, this, and this. Another council says you can recycle this, this, this, and this.   “However, it is all recycled by the same people—yet one bin allows something and another doesn’t. Why is it not across the board?   “Why aren’t we creating consistency and ease for people to do this all the time?   “It is so frustrating that the council won’t take tetra, crisp packets and bread bags. People want to recycle, but the council is not making it easy for us. There is so much bureaucracy and red tape in the way.       “I don’t know what it will take for them to do something about it. The councils send rubbish to the same place.”   Hannah and Danny are now appealing for Newark and Sherwood District Council to improve the recycling facilities in order to prevent more complex materials from being sent landfill.    

      More people are starting to reckon with the fact that climate change is having an irrevocable effect on the world. In October, UN issued its terrifying reminder that we need to drastically change our lifestyles in order to reduce global warming. In February, the Australian government recognized a small rodent as extinct, and it was dubbed the first to disappear from our planet as a result of climate change (although more species could fall under that category that haven’t been closely studied). Currently, the Bahamas are being devastated by Hurricane Dorian, a symptom of the fact that, as one climate scientist says, “Human-caused climate change is visibly intensifying hurricanes and increasing the damage they are doing.”   And that’s gotten us to talk about Earth’s future and how we as humans impact it in a way that’s not just viewing reality as a far-off doomsday scenario. But now that our society is so dependent on cars and those ubiquitous plastic bags, it often seems like a near-impossible task to extricate ourselves from the planet-warming mess we’ve created.   But local companies aren’t ready to give up yet. A few have come up with ways to reduce our use of that fossil-fuel-sucking foe, plastic. (Many plastic products are made using a byproduct of fossil fuel fracking.)   Let’s start with Dropps, a Philly company that thinks about laundry from a sustainable perspective. Having already created laundry detergent pods (think: the little cleaning packets you put in your dishwasher but for your clothes instead of your dishes) to conserve water and implemented compostable packaging, Dropps just launched a partnership with ocean conservation nonprofit Oceana to raise awareness of the plastic problem. It’s a mix of education (example: running an online infographic of the life cycle of a family dinner table and how plastic’s involved) and actionable tips for how to cut down on plastic consumption. For instance, Dropps and Oceana will provide suggestions for one thing to eliminate at a time, like supermarket bags or straws, and shopping lists that provide plastic-free alternatives to common household products, such as toothpaste and Ziploc bags. “We as a society have SAD — sustainability anxiety disorder,” says Dropps CEO Jonathan Propper. “We get this stuff, and we don’t know what to do with it — ‘Does it go in this pile or that pile?’ We’re trying to give consumers the most convenient way of being sustainable, so they don’t have to think about it.”   Or take Ola Beauty, a new shop from former Best of Philly makeup artist Aleksandra Ambrozy that exclusively carries makeup and skincare lines with low to no plastic. While shelf life and natural ingredients are certainly key factors in selecting her products, Ambrozy’s time spent in Hawaii, where she witnessed plastic pollution in the ocean and on the beach, compelled her to double down when it came to plastic usage specifically. “[The plastic] is just part of the environment there now,” Ambrozy says regarding Hawaii. “It really freaked me out, so I tried to go as plastic-free as possible. I’m using the store to show other people that they can do that, too.”   One of her favorite lines right now is Elate Cosmetics, a Canada-based line of foundations, blush, eye makeup, and lipsticks that uses non-toxic, organic ingredients and refillable, compostable compacts.  Another is Honua Hawaiian Skincare, which hails from, you guessed it, Hawaii; Ola Beauty carries their reef-safe mineral sunscreens.   Ambrozy also hopes to add recycling bins from Trenton-based TerraCycle, which collects items that your standard city recycling unit doesn’t allow (many of them plastic) and partners with other companies to get them turned into new products.

TORONTO – TerraCycle has launched the 2019 “Collection Craze” recycling challenge in partnership with the Schneiders Lunch Mate and Maple Leaf Simply Lunch brands.   Designed to educate school students, teachers and communities about maintaining healthy bodies and a healthy environment, participants compete to win a share of $3,700 in TerraCycle points for their school.   Starting September 1, schools located throughout Canada that participate in the Schneiders Lunch Mate Recycling Program have been eligible to compete for a share of $3,700 in TerraCycle points that are redeemable for cash payment to an organization or school of their choice. The program is a free, national initiative hosted by TerraCycle and the Schneiders Lunch Mate and Maple Leaf Simply Lunch brands.   Through November 31, participating schools collect waste from their Schneiders Lunch Mate and Maple Leaf Simply Lunch kits including plastic film, content packaging and plastic trays and send them to TerraCycle in exchange for Credits.   Also, during the “Collection Craze” contest period, students, teachers and the surrounding community are encouraged to vote for their school of choice.  The contest will be judged based on the quantity of recycled packaging collected and the number of Credits earned during the contest period. The top 10 schools that earn the most Credits as of November 31, 2019 will win a share of $3,700 in TerraCycle points.   “The Collection Craze offers schools a viable way to divert waste from landfills, engage their communities and be rewarded for their effort,” explained Tom Szaky, TerraCycle founder and CEO.   “By participating, students gain valuable knowledge about sustainability, how to make a difference within their school and community and how to protect the environment through recycling.”   The Schneiders Lunch Mate Recycling Program is an ongoing activity, open to any individual, family, school or community group. For each piece of waste sent in using a pre-paid shipping label, participants earn points that can be translated into charitable prizes or cash donations to the school or charity of their choice.   For instructions on how to sign up for the “Collection Craze” contest please visit http://www.terracycle.ca/en-CA/contests/schneiders-lunchmate-collection-craze.   To learn more or get involved with the Schneiders Lunch Mate Recycling Program, please visit https://www.terracycle.com/en-CA/brigades/schneiders-lunchmate-en-ca.  

Schneiders^® Lunch Mate^™ & Maple Leaf ® Simply Lunch™ Brands Partner With TerraCycle^® to  Award Schools a Share of $3,700 for Charity

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada – September 4, 2019 –TerraCycle today announced the 2019 “Collection Craze” recycling challenge in partnership with the Schneiders Lunch Mate and Maple Leaf Simply Lunch brands. Designed to educate school students, teachers and communities about maintaining healthy bodies and a healthy environment, participants compete to win a share of $3,700 in TerraCycle points for their school. Starting September 1, schools located throughout Canada that participate in the Schneiders Lunch Mate Recycling Program, a free, national program hosted by TerraCycle and the Schneiders Lunch Mate and Maple Leaf Simply Lunch brands, are eligible to compete for a share of $3,700 in TerraCycle points that are redeemable for cash payment to an organization or school of their choice.   Through November 31, participating schools collect waste from their Schneiders Lunch Mate and Maple Leaf Simply Lunch kits including plastic film, content packaging and plastic trays and send them to TerraCycle in exchange for Credits.  Also, during the “Collection Craze” contest period, students, teachers and the surrounding community are encouraged to vote for their school of choice once a day during the promotion timeline on the contest page. Each vote will count as one (1) Credit. The contest will be judged based on the quantity of recycled packaging collected and the number of Credits earned during the contest period. The top 10 schools that earn the most Credits as of November 31, 2019 will win a share of $3,700 in TerraCycle points.   For a chance to win an extra $1,000 in TerraCycle points, participating schools are invited to enter in a photo sweepstakes by submitting a photo of their recycling bin or station. All photos must be submitted via TerraCycle’s sweepstakes form.   “The Collection Craze offers schools a viable way to divert waste from landfills, engage their communities and be rewarded for their effort,” explained Tom Szaky, TerraCycle Founder and CEO. “By participating, students gain valuable knowledge about sustainability, how to make a difference within their school and community and how to protect the environment through recycling.”   The Schneiders Lunch Mate Recycling Program is an ongoing activity, open to any individual, family, school or community group.  For each piece of waste sent in using a pre-paid shipping label, participants earn points that can be translated into charitable prizes or cash donations to the school or charity of their choice.   For instructions on how to sign up for the “Collection Craze” contest please visit http://www.terracycle.ca/en-CA/contests/schneiders-lunchmate-collection-craze. To learn more or get involved with the Schneiders Lunch Mate Recycling Program, please visit https://www.terracycle.com/en-CA/brigades/schneiders-lunchmate-en-ca.

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

• More than 381 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide each year, and plastic is now found in our soil, lakes, rivers and oceans, as well as in the bodies of humans and wildlife
• A key plastic pollutant you may never have heard of is nurdles — tiny plastic pellets that form the raw material for plastic products of all kinds
• Ranging in size from microscopic grains to millimeter-sized pellets, nurdles are the second-largest direct source of microplastic pollution to the ocean by weight
• British production companies lose somewhere between 5 billion and 53 billion pellets per year through accidental spills during production, transport, processing and waste management procedures
• In addition to their inability to degrade, nurdles (like other microplastics) act like sponges for toxic chemicals. Birds, fish, whales and filter-feeding marine life eat these toxic nurdles, which look much like floating fish eggs

  The looming threat of plastic pollution is undoubtedly one of mankind’s greatest challenges. More than 381 million tons of plastic are produced worldwide each year,¹ and plastic is now found in our soil, lakes, rivers and oceans, as well as in the bodies of humans and wildlife.   According to Environmental Health News,² “Two-thirds of all plastic ever produced remains in the environment,” which helps explain why tap water, bottled water,³ sea salt⁴ and a variety of seafood⁵ all come with a “side order” of microplastic.   Remarkably, while most media attention has been focused on plastic pollution in the ocean, estimates suggest four to 23 times greater amounts are released on land than the ocean by way of biosolid fertilizers.⁶   A primary problem is the fact that plastic can take up to 1,000 years to break down. Researchers estimate a single plastic coffee pod may take up to 500 years, the duration of the Roman Empire.⁷ As reported by Environmental Health News, there are health risks associated with each phase in the life cycle of plastic:⁸  

• Fossil fuel extraction results in air and water pollution and a number of other direct effects to communities, such as increased traffic and pipeline construction (more than 99% of plastic comes from fossil fuels)
• Refining and producing plastic resins and additives releases cancer-causing compounds and other toxics, some of which "can be difficult to detect" as they "are colorless and tend to have mild-to-no odor”
• Plastic products and packaging, when in the consumer's hands, lead to inhaled or ingested toxic and/or plastic particles
• Plastic incineration releases toxic compounds
• The degradation of plastic leads to microplastics getting into people, wildlife, soil and water

 

Nurdles — A key plastic pollutant

  As explained in the featured TED-Ed video by Kim Preshoff, a key plastic pollutant you may never have heard of is nurdles — tiny plastic pellets that form the raw material for plastic products of all kinds. Ranging in size from microscopic grains to millimeter-sized pellets, nurdles are now found in lakes, rivers and oceans across the globe.   As noted in the video, they’re unable to biodegrade, allowing them to persist and accumulate in the environment for generations to come. Being raw material, just how do these pellets get into the environment? It turns out there are countless ways for the pellets to escape, and spills have been found to occur throughout the entire manufacturing chain.   While research is limited, one study⁹ estimates British production companies lose somewhere between 5 billion and 53 billion pellets per year through accidental spills during production, transport, processing and waste management procedures.   Disturbingly, loopholes in wastewater permits have allowed companies to wash these plastic pellets into waterways for years on end.¹⁰ In fact, California is the only U.S. state that regulates plastic pellet pollution specifically.^11,12 Alas, understaffing means enforcement is lax.  

Nurdles are everywhere

  As reported by the Environmental Investigation Agency,¹³ a shipping accident involving two vessels in 2017 resulted in the spillage of 49 metric tons of nurdles (some 3.4 billion individual pellets) into the sea. An estimated 1,243 miles of South African coastline was subsequently coated with plastic pellets.   Similarly, Hong Kong’s Lamma island was inundated with nurdles in 2012 after a typhoon knocked containers off the shipping vessel.¹⁴ According to Danish estimates, nurdles are “the second-largest direct source of microplastic pollution to the ocean by weight.”¹⁵   Like so much other ocean trash, the nurdles end up congregating in ocean gyres. There are five gyres around the globe, but the primary collection point for nurdles is the Pacific Ocean gyre, colloquially known as the great Pacific garbage patch.¹⁶   In addition to their inability to degrade, nurdles (like other microplastics) act like sponges for toxic chemicals.¹⁷ Bird, fish, whales and filter feeding marine life all end up eating these toxic nurdles, which look much like floating fish eggs.   Aside from their toxic influence, nurdles and other plastic bits can cause starvation as they build up in the stomach, tricking the animal into thinking it’s full. Needless to say, microplastics and their toxins build up the higher in the food chain you go, as smaller sea life is consumed by larger predators.  

Can we end the cycle of plastic pollution?

  How can this toxic cycle be broken? As suggested in the featured video, the best solution would be to eliminate plastics altogether, using a combination of recycling and replacing plastics with paper and glass. Unfortunately, the U.S. is going in the opposite direction, with plans to open more than 300 new plastic factories.¹⁸   As reported by Quartz,¹⁹ oil and gas companies such as Exxon and Shell are shifting toward plastic production as a way to boost growth as natural gas prices decline. A report²⁰ by the Center for International Environmental Law projects production of ethylene and propylene (used in the production of plastic) will grow by 33% to 36% by 2025.   The report²¹ also notes that China is “investing heavily in plastics infrastructure,” as is Europe and the Middle East, and that “this massive expansion in capacity could lock in plastic production for decades, undermining efforts to reduce consumption and reverse the plastics crisis.”   Royal Dutch Shell is currently building a new plastics factory just north of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. As explained in the Quartz article:²²   “The Shell plant will rely on a process known as ‘ethane cracking,’ where ethane gas, once seen as an unusable byproduct of gas extraction, can be molecularly ‘cracked’ — its carbon and hydrogen atoms rearranged — to form ethylene, the main building block of plastic. When completed, the new facility will pump out 1.8 million tons (1.6 metric tons) of plastic each year.”  

You’re eating and inhaling plastic every day

  The enormity of the microplastic pollution problem is demonstrated by studies showing the average person is ingesting and inhaling plastic particles on a daily basis. Most recently, a study commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund and carried out by University of Newcastle, Australia, found people, on average, consume the equivalent weight of one credit card — about 5 grams — of plastic each week.²³   Primary ingestion routes are from water and seafood, according to the report. Other research by the nonprofit journalism organization Orb Media found major bottled water brands like Evian, Aquafina, Dasani and San Pellegrino contained significant amounts of microplastics.²⁴   Similarly, research published in Environmental Science & Technology suggests people drinking bottled water exclusively may ingest more microplastics than those drinking tap water.²⁵   Other recent research²⁶ suggests the average person inhales 11.3 microscopic pieces of plastic each hour. According to co-author Jes Vollertsen,²⁷ “This is the first evidence of human exposure to microplastic through breathing indoor air.”   Plastic particles identified in indoor air include synthetic fibers such as polyester, polyethylene and nylon, and nonsynthetic particles composed of protein and cellulose.²⁸   As in the environment, plastic does not break down in the human body. Many of the chemicals used in the manufacture of plastics are also known to disrupt embryonic development, dysregulate hormones and gene expression, and cause organ damage. They also have been linked to obesity, heart disease and cancer.   So, while researchers claim the health effects of all this plastic in our diet is still unknown, it seems logical to suspect it can wreak havoc on public health, especially younger people who are exposed right from birth.   As Pete Myers, Ph.D., founder and chief scientist of the nonprofit Environmental Health Sciences and an adjunct professor of chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University told Consumer Reports, “There cannot be no effect.”²⁹ Consumer Report adds:³⁰   “There is evidence,³¹ at least in animals, that microplastics can cross the hardy membrane protecting the brain from many foreign bodies that get into the bloodstream.   And there’s some evidence that mothers may be able to pass microplastics through the placenta to a developing fetus, according to research that has not yet been published but was presented at a spring conference³² at the Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability.   According to Myers, some of these microplastic particles could potentially also leach bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates.   [Jodi] Flaws [Ph.D., associate director of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Toxicology Program at the University of Illinois] says the particles can accumulate PCBs … linked to harmful health effects,³³ including various cancers, a weakened immune system, reproductive problems, and more. And once these chemicals are inside of us, even low doses have an effect.”  

US plastic pollution just got a whole lot worse

  Plastic is considered cheaper and more convenient than conventional alternatives such as glass, but “cheap” is relative. The true cost of single-use plastic on human and environmental health is astronomical, and the burden of that cost is unevenly distributed.   Some of the world’s largest plastic producers often ship their waste to poorer nations for recycling, such as Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, which have few to no environmental regulations on how that waste is processed and disposed of.   Since 1991, nearly half the world’s plastic waste has been sent to China,³⁴ but as of 2018, China stopped accepting plastic waste imports, saying it no longer wanted to be the “world’s garbage dump.”³⁵ As a result, an estimated 111 million tons of plastic will have nowhere to go by 2030.³⁶   An August 2019 NPR article³⁷ quotes John Caturano, senior sustainability manager for packaging programs at Nestlé Waters North America, "The water bottle has in some ways become the mink coat or the pack of cigarettes. It's socially not very acceptable to the young folks, and that scares me."   His comment was delivered during a March 2019 panel meeting between executives from companies making or packaging their products in plastic. The meeting was aimed at figuring out what to do with mounting plastic pollution now that China is no longer accepting U.S. trash.  

Can circular economy of plastics save us?

  The situation in America is all the more dire due to our failure to implement stronger recycling standards. According to a 2017 analysis,³⁸ a mere 9% of all plastic refuse gets recycled in the U.S. As reported by National Geographic:³⁹   “Mass production of plastics, which began just six decades ago, has accelerated so rapidly that it has created 8.3 billion metric tons — most of it in disposable products that end up as trash …   Of the 8.3 billion metric tons that has been produced, 6.3 billion metric tons has become plastic waste. Of that, only 9 percent has been recycled. The vast majority — 79 percent — is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter. Meaning: At some point, much of it ends up in the oceans, the final sink.”   While some believe the only way out of this plastic pollution conundrum is to eliminate plastic altogether, others are pushing for better recycling. As reported by NPR:⁴⁰   "'Circular economy' is now a catchphrase that some say is a way out of the plastic mess. The idea is essentially this: Society needs plastic, but people need to recycle a lot more of it and use it again and again and again. That will eliminate a lot of waste and cut down on the avalanche of new plastic made every year.”   However, while companies are making progress when it comes to reusing plastic, a drawback is cost. According to TerraCycle, a New Jersey recycling company featured in NPR’s story,⁴¹ using recycled plastic can cost three times that of virgin plastic. The U.S. also does not have enough recyclers to keep up with the onslaught — a side effect of decades of outsourcing to China.  

Biodegradable products aren’t all they’re cracked up to be

  In recent years, many companies have pledged to address plastic waste by transitioning over to more biodegradable products. Unfortunately, we’re now discovering some of these “green” alternatives are anything but. A perfect example of this are the “biodegradable” and “compostable” bowls and takeout containers now offered by a number of restaurants.   Recent testing⁴² reveals that while these fiber-based bowls are indeed biodegradable, they’re coated with grease-repelling per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances^43,44 (PFAS) — highly toxic chemicals associated with immune dysfunction⁴⁵ and cancer^46,47 that never degrade!   Not only can these chemicals migrate from the container into your food, but believing them to be biodegradable and safe, you might also place them in your compost, thus creating a vicious circle where the chemicals contaminate and ruin the compost, which is then mixed into the soil, where they contaminate the food grown in it. Ultimately, the chemicals end up on your plate again, now inside the food.   According to New Food Economy,⁴⁸ San Francisco is banning bowls manufactured with PFAS as of January 1, 2020, and Washington’s Healthy Food Packaging Act⁴⁹ — enacted in 2018 — bans all PFAS in paper food packaging, effective 2022.⁵⁰ A drawback of the Act is that the ban will not take effect until or unless a safer alternative is commercially available.  

How to reduce your plastic exposure

  It can be extraordinarily difficult to avoid plastic, and it’s probably not possible to avoid all exposure. However, you can certainly minimize your exposure by taking a few common-sense precautions. One basic strategy is to opt for products sold in glass containers rather than plastic whenever possible. Another is to look for plastic-free alternatives to common items such as toys and toothbrushes. Other suggestions offered by Consumer Reports include:⁵¹  

• Drinking tap water rather than bottled water — As mentioned, bottled water tends to have far higher amounts of plastic debris than tap water. I would add the recommendation to filter your tap water, not only to get rid of potential plastic debris, but also to avoid the many chemical and heavy metal pollutants found in most water supplies.
• Avoid reheating food in plastic containers — Instead, heat your food in a pot on the stove, an oven-safe pan or a glass container if using a microwave.
• Store foods in glass rather than plastic — Consumer Reports specifically warns against using plastic food containers marked with the recycle codes 3, 6 and 7, as these contain phthalates, styrene and bisphenols.
• Ditch processed foods and takeout for fresh food — Most food wrappers and containers, including cans, contain plastic.
• Vacuum regularly — Microplastic and plastic chemicals are found in most household dust, which can end up being either digested or inhaled. Maintaining your home as dust-free as possible is therefore recommended, especially if you have young children that spend a lot of time on the floor. Ideally, use a vacuum cleaner equipped with a HEPA filter.

 

MONTREAL | Several residents of Verdun joined forces on Saturday to collect old abandoned butts on the sidewalks of their neighborhood. As an incentive: the volunteers received a beer from the Benelux neighborhood bar.   In all, the citizen group Tomorrow Verdun was able to gather 51 participants, children as adults, who crisscrossed the neighborhood in search of butts. As an incentive, volunteers were treated to a beer from the Benelux microbrewery in exchange for their hard work.   The group attacked the neighborhood's metro stations, LaSalle, De l'Église and Verdun, as well as the Arthur-Therrien pool. These were four strategic locations, according to one of the two instigators of the event, Céline-Audrey Beauregard.   Large cigarette butts have been sent to a recycling center, TerraCycle, where they will be treated. The citizen group would like to repeat the "megofest", the name given to the event, five or six times in the next year, said Ms. Beauregard. She calls these events "unifying" and important to create "a sense of belonging to the neighborhood".   The volunteer said she was inspired by an already popular movement in Europe to collect butts. Indeed, in some bars of the old continent, customers can receive, in exchange for a drink, a bottle or a bag filled with butts, a free consumption.   "It was, in my opinion, a good initiative that could very well be implemented here. In this way, we could also raise awareness about the damage of throwing cigarette butts into the wild, "she explained. Other gestures For the next edition, the organizer would like to sell ashtrays to passersby smokers, at low cost, in team with Mégot Zero (a program that aims to implement ashtrays in private and public areas), in order not only to raise awareness, but also to offer them another option than leaving cigarettes in the wild.   The Verdun Demain group planned to attend the borough council meeting on Tuesday evening to present the council with several initiatives, including the addition of ashtrays in non-smoking areas and awareness-raising elements on the doors of the stations. subway.  

An innovative project was officially launched on August 30th at the Cégep de Matane, while the collegiate I students from the Nature Sciences program, in collaboration with the Institutional Environment Action and Consultation Committee, launched an appeal to the entire community. college to recycle their pencils.   With the theme: «PRAY the future! Young people are offering students and campus staff to recycle their pens, markers and pencils of all kinds by depositing them in the different collection boxes available throughout the school.   The collected material will be sent to TerraCycle, which will have the mission to give it a second life. This project was born thanks to the initiative of Mario Lévesque, teacher of the Biology course Evolution and diversity of life in the Science program who had the idea of integrating the project into his class.   "As an educational institution, we generate an incredible amount of pens, mechanical pencils, highlighters and permanent markers that unfortunately end up in the trash. As Bruntland Institution and Cégep Vert, we want to stop this pollution by partnering with the wholesale office TerraCycle program. Today, we have started our awareness campaign and we hope that our fellow students and employees will lend themselves to this form of recovery in addition to that of batteries managed by CACE for two years. (Mario Lévesque teacher)   Eight picking boxes are already in place and seven more will soon be added to the Matane Cégep.    

If you knew what grime, mold, and germs lurked in your makeup brushes, you might never use them again!  You should clean them, but I admit to ruining more than one pricey makeup brush in the process. And, DIY cleansing doesn’t guarantee that they will be free from mold and other pollutants. Enter Beautiac makeup brushes, another alternative to have super clean brushes every single month.

  Beautiac makeup brushes is a new makeup brush subscription company based in Nashville, TN touting interchangeable, sustainable makeup brushes.   There are three subscription options with free shipping. All products are cruelty-free and brush heads can be recycled or mailed back to Beautiac’s headquarters where they will recycle the products for you. It might seem a bit indulgent at first, but it makes sense in many ways.   For starters, since the brush heads and the handles are separate, they fit nicely into a bag so you don’t have to leave them out in the air unless you want to.   If you’ve ever ruined an expensive brush, a subscription delivery of new brush heads on a month to month basis ($20 ) or pre-pay 3 months ($18) or 6 months for $16.50/month, the cost seems to look more reasonable.   The starter kit includes 3 brush handles, 3 brush heads, a blur sponge, a makeup brush stand, an antimicrobial bag, and a recycling return bag.   Sadly, Beautiac makeup brushes are not available in smaller sizes for eyes, liner,  or lips. These tend to get just as dirty (or more so) than facial brushes do. I hope that Beautiac will include these smaller brushes in their offerings one of these days.

Brush Handle:

  Beautiac makeup brushes have universal brush handles that fit all their brush heads. You can just pop them on and off. Bringing the brush heads and using one handle is good for travel.   When you want to upgrade the handle you can send it back via the plastic Beautiac recycling bag. Used handles are cleaned, paired with clean brush heads, and donated to Women’s programs and shelters.  Thumbs up to this!  

Brush heads: 

  The bristles are nicely formed and pick up powder really well. But the cruelty-free bristles are not necessarily recyclable.  Beautiac’s brush head and ferrule are both made of the same material and can be recycled.  

Blur Sponge, Bag, Smart Stand:

  The Beautiac Blur Sponge is made of a non-latex material and can also be recycled through the Zero Waste Box™ participation with Terra Cycle. But sponges are really inexpensive. IT might be more cost effective just to ditch your facial sponge each month and buy another one for a couple of dollars.   The Beautiac Smart Stand is slim and clever. If you don’t have too many makeup brushes or makeup tools, this will be such a nice way to organize them. Alas, the Blur Sponge doesn’t have a steady base to stand on so it balances precariously on the Smart Stand.   The Smart Stand can be placed in the dishwasher or hand cleaned. It can also be can be placed in the recycling bag and sent back to Beautiac, where it will be recycled or upcycled into something else.   The antimicrobial bag is made from a canvas textile comprised of cotton, coated with an antimicrobial solution on the inside to ensure the bag doesn’t grow bacteria. The bag can sustain multiple washings.   My assumption is that if you keep your brushes in it, you should also wash it every month when the new brushes arrive. The Beautiac design team makes products that are designed to be recycled or up-cycled. They’re made from cruelty-free materials.   Every starter kit also receives a recycling bag to mail the used products back to Beautiac headquarters.  As IK mentioned, using TerraCycle’s Zero Waste Box Program, 100% of the accepted products collected for recycling will be recycled into something useful.   Your returned products might end up in a park bench, a picnic table, or some other community beautification product.  

Beautic Makeup Brushes, The Bottom Line: 

  I love the idea of recycling products. I love the idea of getting new, germ-free clean beauty every month.   However, not all the components of the Beautiac makeup brushes can be recycled and a good brush cleaner is a much cheaper alternative.   When it comes to packaging, it’s impressive, but if you are trying to be more environmentally friends, why send a huge cardboard box for these relatively small items with each in a separate tube? Why not save some trees, and just pack the products in one bag? there are a lot of tubes and tops and boxes you must recycle yourself   In addition, the amount of environmental impact it takes to package, transport, recycle and re-fashion pieces of Beautiac makeup brushes is also a  “cost” to the environment.   I don’t see this so much as helping the environment as much as a little indulgence for people who have disposable income and want really clean brushes.  That said, the Beautiac makeup brushes are really cool and well done.   For more information visit the Beautiac Web Site: https://beautiac.com/