Nowadays, raising healthy children requires more than keeping them safe from germs. It also requires protecting them from toxic chemicals pervading their everyday environment, from phthalates, BPA, organophosphates and PBDE flame retardants to lead and mercury. For tips on how to reduce your children’s risk, read, print and share my latest This Green Life column [...]
Tag Archives: mercury
What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
The invisible chemicals present in everyday products include toxins that pose serious long-term health risks. That’s why I pulled together a new page for you on Staying Healthy. Take the time to learn about these hidden dangers and how to avoid them. Your health is worth it. Really.
Best CFLs
Some people have commented that they’ve had bad experiences with compact fluorescents. Others have written in to say they’ve had terrific luck with them. I’m not surprised. Like most consumer products, CFLs vary in quality…a lot. There are differences in the color of their light, brightness and the amount of time they actually last (as [...]
How to Screw in a CFL Bulb Safely
Reposting a very useful comment from Paul Ronco from Fredericksburg VA: [T]he correct way to screw in, as well as remove, a CFL is by grasping it on the white plastic base with your fingertips and carefully twisting. This is why CFLs have extended white plastic bases that go beyond the actual metallic connector, whereas [...]
Compact Fluorescents and Mercury
This much is true — compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) contain mercury and mercury is toxic. Also true — the mercury is sealed in, so you won’t be exposed unless a bulb breaks AND you don’t follow a few simple clean-up steps (below). This, too, is true — many of America’s favorite food fish are contaminated [...]
Recycling Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
One objection to compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) that people often raise is the problem of disposing of them safely due to the mercury they contain. Mercury is a toxin that is particularly dangerous to the developing brains of children (and babies in utero) and is suspected of posing a heart risk to adults. The amount [...]
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This Green Blog is the companion blog to NRDC's This Green Life, a green living column written by Sheryl Eisenberg for the Natural Resources Defense Council. (Subscribe to get it for FREE each month.) Sheryl has also written Greentips for the Union of Concerned Scientists and designs websites for environmental groups and others with her firm, Mixit Productions.
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