Green Options

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In Autumn’s post The Eco-Crafters List of Demands, she asked crafters for their thoughts on how to make commerically sold craft supplies more friendly to the planet and the people who live on it. One question she asked particularly stood out to me:

What items have such scary warning labels that you are asking yourself, “Is this project worth giving myself brain damage over?”

One of the products that immediately came to my mind was fusible web. Fusible web is a synthetic fiber that melts when you heat it. Brand names for these products include Steam-A-Seam, Stitch Witchery, and others. If you’re not familiar with it, think of it as thin sheets of fabric infused with glue. If you need two pieces of fabric to stick together, or you’re working with a fabric that needs a little extra support to either stand up or hold still, then you may end up using your iron to attach some fusible web to your project. You’ll often find fusible web in applique, t-shirt quilts, and used as interfacing in clothing.

But honestly, I’ve never tried to research it and figure out whether it’s a product I can feel good about using. Can it hurt me by touching it?  Is it safe to heat glue with an iron and breathe at the same time?  I have educated myself about food, personal care products, and clothing, and made (not enough) changes in my life based on what I found. So far, though, I haven’t given my crafting products much scrutiny beyond my varied attempts to use my local thrift store as a craft supply shop.

So just how easy is it to find out whether a product is safe and eco-friendly? Using fusible web as my test case, I set out to get some answers. Some of what I found may be old hat to y’all, but I learned quite a lot. In today’s post, I cover safety issues ; watch for Part 2 about environmental issues next week.

In 2005 the world was aghast by the images seen on television and newspapers of the mass destruction caused to human life and the city of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

A recent report reveals that State authorities are bolstering levees around Sacramento to prevent it from experiencing Katrina-like effects during a flood. They also hope that severe storms don’t hit the capital city before the completion of projects planned to end by 2012.

With [...]

Last week I wrote about preparations for Earth Hour, and this week I’m focusing on another way people in the Chicago region are re-examining the use of energy at night. The village of Homer Glen, in the Chicago suburbs, has made news recently for an attempt to curb an insidious manmade contaminant that is emitted by every population center in the world, but which few of us ever take notice of: light pollution.

The largely rural village of Homer Glen, located about 11 miles southwest of Chicago, adopted a groundbreaking ordinance in December that limits how much light a business can generate based on lumens, a measurement of emitted light. In doing so, the village became one of the first municipalities in the country to pass a law that specifically recognizes the night sky as a natural resource and that lays out specific measures to preserve it.

With apologies to John Lennon, bicyclists in Australia may now be able to show the plans for a revolution in environmentally friendly transportation. They call it a bike bus.

Safety concerns are going to start being an issue with alternative energy installations. With any new technology come unanticipated concerns, as that system leaves the ideal world of the drawing board (or the computer simulation) and enters the real world.  We are already well acquainted with the concerns about wind turbines and birds (for the most part, the issue of bird strikes is not that great compared to other man-made hazards for birds, and is more than offset by the benefits to birds (and all other living creatures) from using a renewable power generation. But there will also be life-safety issues around any electricity generating system, particularly as they become more distributed and widespread.

What kinds of safety issues will be faced as part of other alternative energy systems?

What more can one say? CBS shocked the industry with this video of guards sleeping at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. They just happen to be in what they called “the ready room.”

The full story in the Washington Post.

Today’s tip is a safety tip cautioning readers to be aware of the “dangers” of hybrid and electric vehicles to pedestrians. Last week, my children and I were almost hit by a Prius in a health food store parking lot. I can imagine the headline: “Environmentalist run over by a hybrid vehicle.” Ironic, eh?

My near-encounter with the Prius occurred because the car was running on its electric motor, thus making the car virtually

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What’s riding the rails in your hometown? A few hobos maybe, but also potentially deadly chemicals rumble through America’s communities daily. My hometown paper, The Galesburg Register-Mail, printed a series of articles on the dangers nearly every train brings to a community. And in Galesburg, IL, this is particularly important: approximately 1,000 cars travel through the city daily on two major railroads that cross town, the Burlington Northern and the

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Dangerous toy recalls have predominated the news lately. From magnets that can cause severe intestinal damage or death if swallowed to lead-based paints, mass marketed children’s toys made in China are not fit for our youngest population or the workers who make them. The most recent massive recalls have come from major toy companies, such as Mattel (maker of Barbie, Batman, Dora, etc.) and

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This time my family is affected by the recent recall by Mattel. There will be tears in our household today, as toys Grandpa bought my daughter are included on the list. The concern is powerful magnets that can be swallowed and cause major damage.
The list includes:
Barbie and Tanner - hazardous magnet
Batman - hazardous magnet
Polly Pockets - hazardous magnet
Doggie Daycare - hazardous magnet
One Piece - [...]

The recall of Thomas the Tank Engine toys, as well as other recent recalls, reminds us that our children will never be safe until children are safe globally from harmful products in their toys. A recent opinion article in the New York Times by Christian Warren speaks to this issue. “The Little Engine That Could Poison” reminds us that the important lessons to be learned from these recalls is [...]