Shampoo fo you

For my regular shampoo, I use Paul Mitchell’s Tea Tree Special Shampoo. I always assumed the Head and Shoulders brand of shampoo had some harsh stuff in it, so I decided to go with the Tea Tree shampoo. By the look of the green Paul Mitchell bottle and the use of Tea Tree, I assumed it was an all natural shampoo. They even donate a percentage of the proceeds to the American Forests, when you buy any of Paul Mitchell’s Tea Tree products. All in all I thought I was being wise when I chose this product.

When I went to the Cosmetics Database website and entered in my shampoo, I was a little shocked to see that it was rated a 4. The one ingredient that scored the highest, which was a 7, was “DMDM HYDANTOIN” which is a known human immune system toxicant, and could be contaminated with Formaldehyde (a carcinogenic impurity which is linked to cause cancer, and affects development and reproductive organs). Second on the list with a score of 5 was “LAWSONIA INERMIS (HENNA)” which in one or more animal studies has show to cause brain and nervous system effects. There is also strong evidence of human immune and respiratory toxicant.

Since it only rated 4 out of 10, I will continue to use it until I’ve finished the bottle. Once I finish the bottle, I will switch to a more safe shampoo. I searched around the same website in order to see if I could find a lower rated scalp treatment shampoo, and I found once by the brand Herbaliz Shampoo which was rated 0. I went to their website http://www.herbaliz.com and they have an online catalog, which shows that it costs $12.50 for an 8oz bottle. You can only order it by email, telephone, or postal mail. This is a downfall for me because I to buy my products from an actually store or online store, so I have the comfort of knowing that I could take it back if I don’t like it.

What I’m going to do in light of the situation is go to the local Co-Op or the Saturday Market and look for a shampoo that may meet my needs, and I’ll read the label and if there is something I cannot pronounce, I will research it on the Cosmetics Database website to see how toxic it is. I’m now going to start aiming from a 0-2 hazard score.

Dandelion Organic Delivery

Dandelion Organic Delivery is a local, home-based family business serving the Bellingham community. Our service provides a convenient way to bring nourishing and delicious organic produce directly to you at a budget friendly price. We offer a flexible weekly or bi-monthly drop-off, right to your home or office.


I found a coupon for this organic delivery and took interest. I've very bad when it comes to going grocery shopping, and I always buy thinks that I don't need. I decided to give this a try.
There are three types of bin's you can purchase.
The harvest bin is $35, this one is good for families.
I purchased the Personal Harvest bin at $26, which has half the amount of fruit and vegetables.
You can also buy an all fruit bin at $35 and $26.

If you want you can also personalize your bin to have them include fruits and vegetables that you really like and don't like.

Another think I like about this service, other than getting fresh organic fruit and vegetables delivered right to my door, is that I can choose how often I want it delivered. They deliver every Tuesdays, but since I don't eat every much I get it delivered every other Tuesdays.

If you want to know more check out their website at http://www.dandelionorganic.com/

Sustainable Easter!

I was on the Environmental News Network site, and I came across this interesting story about reconsidering the chocolate you purchase. Since in class we've been talking about fair-trade coffee, this is just another item we should look for... Fair Trade CHOCOLATE!

Here is the short article...

Avoid "blood chocolate" for a sustainable Easter Celebration

"You’ve probably heard of "blood diamonds." But unfortunately diamonds aren’t the only commodity that is produced with slave labor. Many African cocoa produce "blood chocolate," at the cost of cruel labor practices and child abuse.

Africa, especially its Ivory Coast, is the world’s largest cocoa producer, according to a guest post on Treehugger.com by Ted Dworkin of the Global Exchange Fair Trade Online Store. ("The Bitter Truth About Chocolate.")

According to Dworkin, the US State Department has reported slavery on many of these cocoa farms, and the International Institute of Tropical agriculture reported in 2002 that nearly 284,000 children were working under unsafe conditions. Back in the United States chocolate manufacturers often don’t take responsibility for these unsafe working conditions, because they do not own the farms."

More and more people are becoming aware of this problem, which has started a chain reaction of chocolate brands on insisting slave-free chocolate. Since these big manufactures don't own these cocoa farms, they don't really take responsibility in making sure the work environment is safe. But Cadbury has decided that they plan to offer fair-trade certification on their most popular chocolate bar by the end of this summer. This is a huge step since their are very many organic/fair-trade chocolate at the local supermarket.

If you want to find out if your favorite chocolate brands are fair trade or not, click on this
Fair-Trade chocolate link!

So now I'm going to think twice before contributing to my chocolate cravings, and I'm going to make sure I see a fair-trade and organic label on the back of my chocolate bare before I eat it!

Ecological Footprint Calculation 3/31/09

So today I calculated my Ecological Footprint.... I have always thought of myself as quite environmentally conscience. I shop at the Co-Op, I recycle and compost and much as I can, I buy organic products, I walk to school and yet after calculating my foot print I found out that if everyone lived like me there would need to be 3.2 planets... 3.2 PLANETS!!!

Wow, and most of my consumption is in services (54%) that cause the most environmental carbon impact. SO I probably need to rethink some things over... What am I doing wrong?

A couple small things I know I can do, but I just need to remember is always taking my own bag to the grocery store. I have about three of them, but when I go to the grocery store it's always on a whim... Maybe by keeping one in my car at all times will solve this problem, or just a little planning.

Another thing I can do is just remembering to bring my water bottle and/or coffee mug to school to cut down garbage. I have tons of these laying around my house I just need to remember to take them to school. I can also just make my own coffee at home so that I can control what coffee to dink, such as Fair-Trad and organically grown option. I mean do I really know for sure if the coffee I'm buying on campus even pays their workers a decent wage... Nope.

I also going to pledge to purchase products that use less packaging or are made out of 100% post-consumer content material. I've already slowly started to adapt this concept. It's really easy to shop at the Co-op to do this since they have a huge bulk foods section. I can even bring in my own containers and fill up on shampoo/conditioner, laundry detergent, soap, peanut butter, olive oil, spices, and tons of other things. I wouldn't be buying and added packaging which would makes the cost of the product go down, and in this dismal economy this is a great option for everybody.

So these are the main actions I'm going to commit to work on to reduce my weekly carbon footprint during this quarter, and after I accomplish these goals I will make an effort to work on three more!