For the Planet
Our environment encompasses much more than just our indoor home environment. If we truly want a healthy environment, we must also consider the environment surrounding our home, because after all, the air we breath and the water we drink in our home starts with the atmosphere outside.
Mercury-containing lightbulb recycling Centers
It’s not really a matter of “if” you are going to break one of these ticking time bombs, it’s “when.” We can’t realistically toss a lightbulb into a garbage can and expect the fragile glass to remain in tact, once the garbage bag is tossed into the garbage truck and eventually into a landfill. Think about all those lightbulbs! Where does the mercury go when they break during processing or transportation? Into your environment. So if you have any CFL (compact fluorescent) or fluorescent lightbulbs, please take the time to recycle them properly. This isn’t just for your environment, it’s for your children’s and grandchildren’s and yes it makes a difference!
How is a lightbulb containing mercury recycled you ask…the bulbs are separated into in a container in which the air is brought to subpressure, thereby preventing mercury from being released into the environment. Then the phosphor powder is separated in different steps from the glass and metal by-products. The mercury bearing powder is collected in distiller barrels beneath the cyclone and the self-cleansing dust filters. Mercury is extracted and then the remaining parts can be reused.
Many home improvement stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot have recycling collection centers for lightbulbs, but if you don’t have one nearby, check this to find other possible locations.
Lawn care
Everything you (or the company you hired) applies to your lawn and/or gardening has the potential to end up in our water cycle, which ends up in our rainwater and potentially even our drinking water. The water cycle is recycled within our environment and like our bodies, the ability of the earth to detoxify the bombardment of toxins has limits. We are seeing results of this toxicity saturation in aquatic life, in milk produced by animals eating grass that is tainted and in our drinking water supplies.
The more pristine the neighborhood the worse the chemical use usually is. In order to keep up with the Jones’ unsuspecting homeowners hire fancy lawn care companies to maintain their perfect lawns. Some neighborhood bylaws even require consistency in the lawns in the neighborhoods!
Most people don’t realize that there are safer ways to keep up a healthy and lush lawn. If you don’t care to offer pollinators a lovely dandelion field in your yard there are other options. Just keep in mind that if you find a “natural” lawn care company, you must question them about their products, because natural or organic doesn’t necessarily mean non-toxic. You can usually create the perfect lawn care program for your needs with companies like NaturaLawn of America.
Avoid Plastic
According to one study, over 8 million TONS of plastic pollution ends up int he ocean each year!! I just want to make sure you noticed, that is each year!
It’s easy to give little thought to the plastic water bottle in your hand, because, well, it’s only one….but it isn’t. It’s one now, one later, one tomorrow, one on Thursday, etc. times how many people on the planet? And zip lock baggies, just this one, right? What about the straws given out at restaurants with every drink?
Use refillable water bottles (fill with your own filtered water), place food in reusable packaging or containers, use stainless steel or paper straws, recycle, buy wooden instead of plastic toothbrushes, use bar soap instead of bottled, use a razor with replaceable blades instead of disposable razors, use cloth diapers (yes, the diapers have plastic in them! The EPA estimates that 7.6 billion pounds of disposable diapers are discarded in the US each year), buy reusable bags for produce and shopping, buy products in boxes instead of bottles, bring your own container for takeout instead of using their styrofoam containers, use matches instead of disposable plastic lighters, don’t use plastic utensils at home and ask restaurants to leave them out of your take-out bag, make fresh squeezed juice instead of buying bottled juice, etc.
Small changes do add up to huge gains! Imagine if everyone did some of the above?
