We all enjoy listening to bird songs or watching a hummingbird in our backyards. But birds are not only decorative. Some species pollinate flowers or help other plants to reproduce (imagine a world without squash, tomatoes, apples, peaches, and strawberries!). Many birds provide pest control by eating aphids, Japanese beetles, European corn borers, and [...]
It’s easy to rush out to the home supplies store to find chemical solutions to get rid of pests in your home or garden. But the first site below warns that these “may be more harmful to you and the environment than the pests” you wanted to get rid of in the first place. [...]
If you’ve been hoping to get rid of the potentially toxic cleaning substances in your cabinets, you are in luck; there are dozens of sources that can offer you ideas for safe, natural, non-toxic replacements. Many use common ingredients like baking soda, white vinegar, and rubbing alcohol. The list below is not exhaustive but [...]
Fire retardants are toxic to our environment and our families. Fire retardants are in a lot of things, furniture, electronics, appliances, and even baby products. One particularly toxic form of PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers) has been taken off the market (2005), but there are new ones that are also linked to cancer and endocrine [...]
We know that plastics contain chemicals that are toxic to our environment and unhealthy for our families. Some have been proven to be harmful – BPA and phthalates are potent hormone disruptors that are linked to behavior changes, cancer and reproductive damage. Others are less well understood, but we know chemicals in plastics routinely [...]
I wanted to contribute to the recently approved Green Sanctuary program at UUCNH. In the kickoff meeting for Green SanctuaryI volunteered to do the weekly green living idea. People would send me green living ideas. I would write them up and put one in the newsletter each week. It seemed straightforward enough. I was [...]
