Over 36 Pounds

Very excited... I am taking a Speakers' Training Course called Rise Above Plastics. Yesterday was our first class. We met at Venice Beach for a clean-up to see exactly what gets washed up/left behind on a daily basis. We arrived with buckets and gloves and great attitudes, and set to work picking up what we could.

Just my small contribution to the pick-up.

The beach looked pretty clean on a sunny Saturday morning. The craziness of Venice Beach had not quite hit full force yet, and there were surfers, and people riding bikes on the path. Typical Southern California day. We were to go out for just 20 minutes. In that time, about 40 of us picked up almost 40 pounds of crap.

When you think about that number, please realize that the nearly 20 cigarette butts I personally found weigh very very little. It takes a lot of those to make a pound. Bottle caps, same thing, they are pretty light. Also, most of what I was trying to grab were tiny little broken bits of Styrofoam. You know, that stuff you use for mere minutes but then it never, ever, ever goes away? Styrofoam and plastic will never break down completely; they are here for good. I picked up countless little bits that used to be something bigger and got broken up out there to be eaten by fish and other animals that have no idea that what they are eating is going to kill them.

The other thing about cigarette butts: think about all those chemicals and carcinogens that we humans happily and willingly take into our bodies, and what is left in the filters. Now realize that when that filter hits the water, those chemicals get leached out immediately into the water. Now think about the 100 or so that we picked up in 20 minutes on one tiny stretch of beach on one morning. That adds up to a lot of chemicals. The oceans can only handle so much. Small little tiny creatures directly affected, which affects the bigger guys, which affects the even bigger guys, which eventually comes right around to... us. Is there any wonder the cancer rate among our children and pets has exploded? I never wonder. I know why.

And soon, I will go around speaking out alllllll about it. Come see me!

Juice Boxes = Bad, But Not Why You Think

I'll start right out with it: I do not like juice boxes. I find them pointless. I find them lazy. I find them wasteful. Oh so fun, oh so cute with their little plastic straws. LAZY. A quick way to get kids to shut up and get them full of sugar. The juices in most of those isn't even very good for kids. Proof? Right here in an e-mail I got, asking to get the FDA to change regulations.

Here's some text from the e-mail:

Every child enjoys a juice box with her after school snack. But what parents don’t know is that a disturbing number of juices contain unsafe levels of lead and inorganic arsenic that can lead to serious health problems for children. While the government has rules in place to limit lead and arsenic in our drinking water, there’s nothing to stop companies from making juices and other children’s drinks that contain unsafe levels of those poisons. A new study by Consumer Reports found that at least 10% of apple and grape juices sampled had more arsenic than what the government says is safe for drinking water -- and even more had unsafe levels of lead.

Now it’s up to the Food and Drug Administration to make rules to regulate how much arsenic and lead can be in juices, like they do for drinking water.

While not lethal, that kind of sustained, low-level exposure during early childhood "carries the most serious long-term risk," according to researchers. The dangerous effects of unsafe levels of inorganic arsenic and lead in children are shocking:

• Inorganic arsenic is linked to cancers, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, and immune system problems
• Children exposed to drinking water with unsafe arsenic levels had decreased intellectual function
• Low-level arsenic exposure is "significantly related to poorer scores in language, visuospatial skills, processing speed, and immediate memory," among other problems
• Unsafe levels of lead were found in 25% of juices sampled, and lead exposure is linked to brain development and behavioral problems

If lead and arsenic are unsafe for children in their drinking water, the same poisons should be regulated for the juices that so many children love. -Change.org

Why? WHY must the government step in for this? Why do we not just put this information out there and let parents actually make the CHOICE to stop giving their kids crap? People clamor all the time about too many government regulations. Here's another one. Do we really need this? Comparing drinking water to JUICE BOXES is, in my ever so humble opinion, absurd. Drinking water is kind of on the side of necessity. Juice boxes are on the side of POINTLESS. 

But... but... fruit! And juice! And vitamins!!! BULLCRAP. Sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colors and flavors... how about all those? How about NOT giving your kids stuff that is bad for them in packaging that is wasteful and bad for the planet? Sure, I too have the uber-cool totebag made from re-purposed juice pouches, but do we really think the vast majority of those are being reclaimed? 

Bottom line: No, the FDA does NOT need to regulate what is in these juices. Parents need to regulate the crap that goes in their kids. Period.

Like I said...

"New studies reveal that levels of BPA are massively higher in humans than previously assumed, causing major concern for what has been downplayed by the packaging industry as a false alarm."

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/033821_BPA_chemicals.html#ixzz1aKe6rl9k

The article points to canned goods as well... which, I guess, when we were little, cans were not lined with BPA. I don't know. Maybe. We didn't really have a lot of canned goods that I recall. Some. Not a ton. Of course we never ate that canned spaghetti and ravioli crap. We MADE food. But I know. It's so convenient. And we're SO busy.

Why should we be concerned? "BPA, or Bisphenol-A, leaches into food from plastic packaging and from the linings of canned foods, causing cancerous tumors and developmental disorders, including learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, and deformations of sexual organs, especially in newborns." Um, sound like it could be a valid point, and what IS happening?

If you can't do away with it altogether, just cut back. And keep cutting back. There's no need. Soda is not anything you need every day. It's bad for you. They sell it in glass; insist on glass. We can make these companies stop using plastic. Demand it. The government will have to step in again to protect us from ourselves when it should not have to. 

I honestly don't know what it is going to take to get people to cut back on plastic. We know it's bad for us, we know it's bad for the planet, and yet we just keep at it blithely, without thought. We have to turn this around. We are the  only ones who can do it. I get sick of sounding like a broken record (wow, there's a phrase that will not be understood in the near future!), but the message is just not sinking in. At all. 

What can we do? I enjoy the comfort of my groups of green people who know this stuff, but it's far from the vast majority. What do we do? And why have kids if we aren't going to protect them from this kind of stuff? Having kids makes us too busy to care about their health and future? Is it just me that thinks that is crazy-backwards?

Thoughts?

Why Do I? Do you?

I'll say this one right up top here: Our demand for ease and convenience is killing our future generations. I'll warn you, too: there won't be much funny or snarky here. Small departure this time around.

It's well-known I don't have children, so maybe I'm out of the loop. So let's say I am going from a place of casual observation in what is all over our youth: increased asthma rates, cancer of all kinds, ADHD, autism, disorders of the brain, cancer... yeah I said that twice. It's that alarming.

How many people know a kid with cancer? In high school, we had one classmate who had cancer, and she died before we graduated. One, out of hundreds of kids. And that was tragic. Now? I almost can't think of it. Pediatric wards are FILLED with LITTLE KIDS with cancer. How is this even remotely not making every single one of us run around screaming and pulling our hair out? How has this become part of our reality? How do we just... accept it? "Well, no, G-Dub, we aren't accepting it, we hate it too." Then why do we persist in our ways? Because it's OK if it happens to other people's kids, but not ours? I don't have kids and it's not OK to me. I want the terrible nasties that make our kids sick to go away. That's why I do what I do. Just because I loved my eggs too much to fertilize them doesn't mean I don't care about the future. I'm a paradox. I accept this. (Ok, a little snark in this one.)  I am by no means saying I'm the only one that gives a shit, I know I'm not, but damn it, why aren't we all giving more of a shit??? Pardon my English!

The problem is that people are NOT looking around and realizing that their chemicals and products and things they MUST have to make their lives oh-so-much easier are KILLING us all. We spray chemicals all over our homes. Febreze here, Lysol there, Glade over here... and our demand for more and more power dumps more toxins and mercury and crap into the environment, causing how many developmental disorders? Autism: misdiagnosed for decades or crazy-on-the-rise? And why would these things be on the rise? What has changed in the last 40 years or so?

That's kind of a rhetorical question. I know what's changed. Maybe your kids are fine. Great, that's a blessing and you should be grateful. What about their kids? Do you want to see your grandkids suffer and die before they hit 11? Is it worth it to you to step away from the plastic bottles to see your grandkids healthy? Is it so hard to remember your reuseable bags that you spent a buck on, to know that your kids won't have to suffer through suffering of their kids? Can you slow down and go back to cooking real and healthy foods, for the sake of the future generations? Can you swear off plastic diapers, plastic pudding cups, plastic straws... fake fragranced sprays and detergents... paper/disposable everything? Can we think ahead, see what is happening, make it slow down?

If not, why?