By Julie Finn •
July 16, 2009
There is no way on god’s green earth that our family can afford an organic mattress. Just…no way.
Conventional mattresses, though? Yikes! Mother Jones writes about the petrochemicals, formaldehyde, and flame retardants that conventional mattresses are chock-full of. And you don’t have to only be interested in living a chemical-free life to be freaked out–you know how new conventional mattresses smell funky? Off-gassing–if you smell it, you’re breathing it in.
Again, yikes.
The mattress that our girls sleep on is much too old to off-gass, but, although it’s still in pretty good condition, it’s certainly exceeded its reported mattress lifespan, and thus now we get to worry about gradual deterioration releasing even more chemicals into our daughters’ lungs and open pores while they sleep for ten hours at a time.
By Alex Smith •
June 19, 2008
Some days I fall victim to the green noise syndrome; I’m so overloaded by the green options all around me I don’t know where to go. Bath and cleaning products are one place I always thought I had it right. If I buy the organic, I’m good to go. Or am I?
I just learned last week that in March, Seventh Generation, Method, and other companies that produced green cleaning products were under scrutiny by the Organic Consumers Association. When testing around a hundred “cosmetic, personal care and household cleaning formulas, [the Association] found that nearly 50% of them contained detectable levels of 1,4-dioxane, which is known to cause cancer in lab animals.” Method, Planet Ultra and Seventh Generation’s “natural” dish cleaning products were among those products that tested positive. All manufacturer’s who tested for 1,4 were asked to remove their “organic” and “natural” labels or they’d face a lawsuit. Just when I thought I was cleaning consciously, I have to go through another round of making change in my lifestyle.
By Jennifer Lance •
September 6, 2007
Recently, I visited a local store called Solutions looking for an easy floor wax to revitalize my maple floors. I had done a little research online, and every product I read about required long periods of no traffic after application and buffing. I remembered my parents old buffing machine, and laughed at the prospect of buying yet another cleaning appliance. The owner of Solutions suggested Protex brand Premium Self-Polishing Wax
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