One of the presenters at the 2011 Living Building Challenge (whose name I’ve been trying to find, but cannot – so apologies to the presenter who remains unnamed), inspired by writer Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, shared a list of ways to choose products that remove the worst of the chemical contamination that plagues many products. …
We live in an environment that is full of chemicals – some which are bad for us and yet are completely natural. We don’t subscribe to the notion that man-made is absolutely bad and natural is absolutely good – botulism is completely natural and can kill you just as dead. But sometimes we adopt products …
Just in case you missed the recent report which was published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine [1], a Canadian study found that women who work with some common synthetic materials could treble their risk of developing breast cancer after menopause. The data included women working in textile factories which produce acrylic fabrics – those …
In 1970, Toray Industries colleagues Dr. Toyohiko Hikota and Dr. Miyoshi Okamoto created the world’s first micro fiber as well as the process to combine those fibers with a polyurethane foam into a non-woven structure – which the company trademarked as Ultrasuede®. In April 2009, Toray announced “a new environmentally responsible line of products which …
I got a call awhile ago from Harmony Susalla, founder and chief designer for Harmony Art (if you haven’t seen her glorious fabrics go right now to http://www.harmonyart.com). She was wondering about optical brighteners, and I discovered I couldn’t tell her much except to say that some are derived from benzene, which is a chemical …
Water. Our lives depend on it. It’s so plentiful that the Earth is sometimes called the blue planet – but freshwater is a remarkably finite resource that is not evenly distributed everywhere or to everyone. The number of people on our planet is growing fast, and our water use is growing even faster. About 1 …
I just read the article by Team Treehugger on Planet Green on what to look for if you’re interested in green furniture. And sure enough, they talked about the wood (certified sustainable – but without any explanation about why Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified wood should be a conscientious consumers only choice), reclaimed materials, design …
Why did the manufacturers of children’s bedding and clothing, who urged the Consumer Product Safety Commission to exempt their products from the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, consider their products safe from lead residues? In many instances the bedding and clothing designed for children are made from naturally grown fibers, often organically grown fibers. …
I had a blog post about genetically modified organisims (GMOs) all ready to go, but then I got Sunday’s New York Times (September 13, 2009) with a front page story about rising incidences of violations of the Clean Water Act in the U.S.: more than half a million violations in the last five years alone. …
I just found the web site for Green Air (www.greenairradio.com) which bills itself as “a nationally syndicated news radio feature and multi-platform interactive hub for Green and environmentally significant news, stories and entertainment. It is comprised of a broad network of media professionals including producers, journalists, broadcasters, writers, photographers and filmmakers worldwide. Green Air creates, …
OEcotextiles 