Asbestos Safety: Protecting Your Family and Environment

I recently got a request from the Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Center to help spread the word about health and safety concerns, not just for laypeople in residential and commercial buildings, but also for workers in aging coal and oil industrial buildings. I'd heard, of course, about health risks associated with asbestos, but I'd never connected it with the energy industry. I asked for info about that area of concern as well as the family-focused take on asbestos.

"Firstly, many people believe asbestos is a hazard of the past, when the fact is that asbestos still exists within nearly 80% of structures built prior to 1978. Asbestos products were banned in the late 1970's but still exist in floor tiles, ceiling tiles, drywall, insulation, and other home construction materials. These are common, but only hazardous if they're damaged or aged.
If you have asbestos products in your home, you should be aware of where they are and what their condition is. Additionally, children should not be allowed within the vicinity of asbestos products because something as innocent as a child's curiosity can render a product hazardous for the entire family. Asbestos exposure has been conclusively linked to the rare cancer mesothelioma, a malignancy for which there is no known cure."

Thanks so much for sending this info! So, my basic question is this: how would a mother know if there were asbestos in her home? Or in any other building (school, daycare, etc.) where it might jeopardize her kids' health? Are there general guidelines of trouble areas you could give the moms reading my blog?

"The important thing to remember for homeowners and particularly those with children, is that because asbestos was so widely used, it must be assumed it is within your home in at least some capacity if the structure is more than 30 years old. For reference let me give some of the most common areas where asbestos would be found in a home.

Pipe coverings: Asbestos was used extensively as a pipe insulation in cold weather climates. For instance a basement or garage will likely have older HVAC/plumbing piping and ventilation, much of which was insulated with asbestos insulation sleeves. Any damage or fraying of these sleeves presents a hazard.

Flooring: Asbestos was often used in linoleum and, floor tile, and even tile glue because it was extremely fire-retardant. Older, damaged flooring should be examined by an asbestos consultant if there is a fear it may contain asbestos.

Ceiling tiles: Foam-based drop ceiling tiles are common in basements and other rooms. These were often made with asbestos to reduce fire hazards around lighting fixtures. When you handle these tiles, you can feel how brittle they are. Any damaged to these (such as water damage) can make older tiles extremely hazardous. If you have these in your home, they should be
monitored carefully for damage.

As far as outside the home, it seems each day a new school is being closed for a few days because of an asbestos scare. This is not to say that all schools contain asbestos, but many are large municipal buildings with extensive HVAC and plumbing fixtures, that like I said above were insulated with asbestos. Districts are typically very open with parents and faculty with regards to asbestos history in school buildings.

Damaged asbestos products should be examined by a state licensed asbestos consultant and removed by a licensed abatement company. These companies are in compliance with the proper removal and environmentally friendly disposal methods for asbestos products.

Asbestos however, is not only a hazard in the home, but also in industrial settings, particularly in the processing of fossil fuels. Asbestos was heavily utilized in coal plants and oil refineries for more than a century before it was finally banned. But like residential structures, it still remains in the older fixtures of these environmentally unfriendly industries.

Workers in these industries have among the highest rates of mesothelioma of any occupation. Exposure typically occurs around boilers, piping, and older insulation fixtures. These men and women are being needlessly exposed as our backwards environmental policies continue to prop up these industries which damage the future of our plane. A decreased reliance upon fossil fuels in general would make these industries look toward more safe and environmentally friendly energy options. We see now that we can save the planet for not only for our children through alternative energy options, but also the health of our industrial workers.

For more information concerning mesothelioma or mesothelioma treatment please
visit the Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Center."

Thanks for the info!
Read more!

Get Those Yellow Flags Off The Lawn!

Ah, spring. The hydrangeas are budding back to life, the groundcover in our stretch of Rock Creek Park behind the dog park is afire with Spring Beauty and Lesser Celandine. Our community garden has a burgeoning crop of arugula and tender lettuce shoots setting forth. Our cherry tree is about to bloom! The kids are crawling all over the playground and picking everything in sight on our walk home from school. Skipping, picking 'onions' and teeny-tiny little white and purple flowers from the middle of a sea of...yellow pesticide application flags. Cr*p.

Honey? You have to get off that grass right now! There are chemicals all over it. Put the tiny flowers down now, ok, honey? We have to go wash your hands. Sigh. I know my kid shouldn't be walking on the front lawn of our neighbors' apartment buildings, much less harvesting weeds from their green space. But I do wish that more landlords and homeowners would follow in the footsteps of the National Mall and head down the organic lawn path.

A friend of mine recently asked about resources for greening her lawn, both literally and ecologically. While our home has a cherry tree and a bricked-in patio, not a vast green lawn, a thread on DC Urban Gardeners recently suggested the following resources: SafeLawns.org and Pogo Organics. You can also read about efforts to stop pesticide use more broadly at Beyond Pesticides.

See you down at the Mall to tiptoe through the (chemical-free) tulips! (Don't worry, we only pick weeds....)

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BS and V (Green Clean Duo)

Lucky for me, the nesting frenzy I had right before procreating five years ago has carried me a ways down the parenting road. In a prescient moment while swollen like a tick with my darling daughter, I realized if I didn't act immediately to start a green cleaning routine pre-kids it would never happen.

Said cleaning routine's been pretty much undisturbed for about 5 years now. I must say that I need this routine to be automatic so I basically clean everything with baking soda and vinegar.

Many people have asked me what recipes I use to clean and I would like to say that Annie Berthold-Bond's book is my favorite on this topic; I consult it whenever I, say, have an ant infestation and can't remember what repels them safely (cinnamon).

My faux spray cleaner is just water, vinegar, and eco-friendly detergent. I mix them in a bottle with roughly 2/3 warm water and 1/3 vinegar with a squirt of dish soap (in my inaugural and never-repeated use of my label-maker, I printed out the recipe and stuck it onto the spray bottle, which was a key move in those early days post-partum when I was a complete germ fanatic but also suffering from total nursing brain death). I no longer measure out ingredients, I just make sure I have more than enough vinegar and soap in the bottle. This works for bathrooms, counter tops, floors, you name it.

To clean baked on pans I put baking soda on with enough water to make a paste and leave it overnight. This also works for cleaning your oven but it's very messy. And you all probably remember from scouting that if you're out of toothpaste you can use baking soda mixed with salt.

To clean my toilets, I mix vinegar and baking soda right in the bowl (those of you who have made play-dough volcanoes will be able to imagine the fizzing). Baking soda's a great scourer for things like bathtubs and the vinegar gets rid of soap scum.

I abandoned essential oils a while back when I learned that lavender oil and tea tree oil may cause hormone disruption in boys (holy man-boobs Batman!) but should you desire a kitchen-y smell, rosemary is also a natural antiseptic about which I've heard nary a bad word. So's lemon juice but you'd have to refrigerate that mix...which means, of course, that it's too high maintenance for me to use. Worth keeping in mind as one's trying to disinfect a cutting board tho. And speaking of lovely smells, don't fret, the vinegar scent while you're cleaning dissipates rapidly. Vinegar itself can be used in open bowls to remove bad smells (smoke, vomit) from the air.

For dishwasher detergent, I tried making my own (boric acid, baking soda, etc.) but was beyond dissatisfied with the results. I now use Trader Joe's liquid with vinegar as my rinse agent (which does interesting things to aluminum, I realized belatedly) to get rid of any chemical taste (I had to stop using commercial dishwasher detergent while pregnant with Kid 2 as the residue was making me gag).

Since the things I do clean with are pretty simple, a lot of cleaning green for me has meant stopping the use of more toxic products. One of the biggest offenders for the environment is bleach, and I was reminded recently why via a Grist Q&A-- producing bleach creates dioxins, and using bleach may produce carcinogens that harm you and marine life. So although my whites may be a little dingy (no tomato stains, though -- leave them out in the sun! no kidding, a little vinegar and sunshine and they disappear) we are pretty confident that our kids and dog aren't being harmed while we clean. Read more!

Kissing Kermit?

Wow, I never thought I'd say this, but maybe we should let the states handle matters once and for all. While the FDA's basically letting beauty product companies do what they will (forget the bunnies; let's not test for safety at all), Minnesota's going to ban mercury in cosmetics (thanks Grist for the link) and California, via its Safe Cosmetics Act, requires companies to disclose carcinogens in beauty products.

You'd think that banning mercury in cosmetics and forcing companies to reveal their cancer-causing ingredients might be, um, unnecessary, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

EWG's Skin Deep cosmetics database is a great resource for figuring out what's in your current stash (you can search by brand or just enter ingredients). But I haven't spent time scoping out much more than my baby's bubble bath and soap so far, so this topic is timely for me. We already avoid parabens in shampoo/conditioner/lotions, don't use air freshener (ick) and avoid perfume/fragrances (pthalates). But it seems I need to delve further. For a quick list of ingredients to avoid, check out this Q & A - Are Your Beauty Products Safe? from Care2. I plan to check out the product recommendations in this National Geographic Green Guide lowdown on organic makeup, and to print out/carry their Dirty Dozen guide to unsafe personal care ingredients and Smart Shopper's Non-Food Labels Guide.

Fake Plastic Fish's musings about makeup include a link to this article from Common Ground about the dangers of synthetic chemicals:

"It’s your story and mine because all of us alive on the planet today share something in common that was unshared by countless generations of humans who lived before us: we carry man-made pollutants inside our blood, urine and breast milk."

This makes me want to get serious about figuring out safer makeup for that holiday event: lead in lipstick?? (Echoes of Sandra Steingraber, who initially inspired me to start paying attention to persistent organic pollutants in breastmilk.) Fake Plastic Fish's blog comments are interesting; her readers have recs for specific brands of eco/safe cosmetics and one woman even recommends beet juice! My SIL makes her own lip balm; this seems attainable.

Word of mouth may be in order, though. I've been meaning to ask and see what green makeup other folks wear (and not the Halloween kind). I don't go the Tammi Bakker route but it would be nice not to have to worry about kissing my kids when I do toss on a little lipstick. I would love practical advice from anyone who's thought this through. Read more!

Sleeping Like A Neurologically Impaired Baby: Holy Mackerel! Eat Herring Instead

Well, the experts have been flopping a bit on this issue but the basic gist is that there is mercury in the really healthy deep sea fish that have high levels of beneficial omega-3s in them. And since mercury's particularly damaging for small people, pregnant or nursing women and children have had to closely watch their fish intake. (Which is a bummer, since among other benefits it seems that a high intake of the DHA fatty acids in fish could account for better sleep in infants, no small feat.) There are handy lists of fish to avoid, mercury calculators like those here and here, and lists of fish that are safe to eat. Recently it seemed like the evidence weighed in favoring eating more fish over avoiding it for groups watching mercury exposure, but research showing that it's better to consume fish than not while pregnant may have been funded by -- surprise -- the fish industry. So we're back to the longstanding advice that women of childbearing/nursing age should eat 2 servings/week of fish and limit their consumption to specific species (the fish industry study recommended greater consumption without regard to species). One fish that's been hotly debated because it's a beloved kid sandwich food is tuna, which the research shows you should probably limit no matter the type (albacore vs. light).

Testing of fish oil has shown that most is not contaminated with mercury (your grandmother was right about that cod liver oil!) but since supplements aren't heavily regulated you have to choose brands carefully. American Heart has helpful guidelines on supplementing with fish oil.

In a parallel vein, lots of enviro organizations have lists of what's sustainably fished. This site helpfully lets you track down environmentally conscious restaurants serving sustainably harvested fish. And Environmental Defense has a downloadable pocket reference guide to enviro choices re sustainably fished species. But my favorite is the NRDC guide, which combines the mercury warnings with the sustainability info in their wallet card.

The bottom line? Avoid tuna, shark, tilefish (golden bass or snapper), swordfish, orange roughy, bluefish, and sea bass. Eat as much as you want of catfish, anchovies, clams, crabs, pollock, oysters, wild salmon (not farmed, which has PCBs), sardines, sole, herring, tilapia and trout. Also, try to eat lots of fish high in omega-3s like herring, sardines, oysters and salmon. Check out the lists for further fine-tuning of this advice, and try to eat a variety of the safe fish. Read more!