Okay, people. We knew this day would come. It would appear even Oprah is touting green resolutions this year. Do you have a green one on your list this year?
If you're the guy who resolves to recycle more or to hop in your car less every year, I'd encourage you to take on a resolution that sticks. Atone your green sins by replacing the old and naughty stuff with the new and nice.
Food for resolution-making thought: Canadian makeup (yes, the stuff you put on your face every morning) can contain cancer-causing, hormone disrupting and allergy-inducing substances that have been banned or restricted in Europe. And, you know what else? Depending on the product, you might not even find these ingredients listed on the label.
Good-natured environmentalists that we are, Environmental Defence put together a video poking fun at the absurd situation that is the current state of Canadian cosmetic regulation (or lack thereof). Imagine you were on a slick, sparkly game show and you had to choose a product from the table of pretty lipsticks, eye shadows, and creams that doesn't put your health and the environment in danger. Would you be able to look pretty without poisoning yourself?
You see where I'm going with this, right? You need to make a New Year's resolution. We want to see the toxins out of makeup and safer products for all Canadians. Sign our petition to give Canadian cosmetic laws a makeover. And, in the meantime, choose products that are free of the Toxic Ten.
Follow Erin Charter on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@erincharter
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Laurie Arons: Beauty Secrets for Your Wedding Day
I can't even imagine how many hundreds (thousands?) of plastic/paper grocery bags I have eliminated from our home in the six years.
We, as a family, have also switched entirely to Brita filtered water and reusable bottles. My kids in college have fridge pitchers and water bottles, too. This year for stocking stuffers, we gave them insulated water bottles from Dick's Sporting Goods that are BPA free.
Of course home brewed coffee and travel mugs every morning are a mainstay.
Every little bit helps, we hope.
How many trees will have to be sliced down and killed for the manufacturing of boxes for cosmetics? How many more factories for the manufacturing of the cosmetics that will kill the life creating and sustaining of the Earth? How much more petroleum products draining the Earth will be required for the plastic containers for the greenie cosmetics? While we might survive without cosmetics, we won't go at all without ecosystems' life creating and supporting services.
In the beginning, only one green was the war cry of the American environmental movement, "Ecology Now" with the newly seeded fierce green fire, a call for an ecological and land ethic and an insight into how Earth functions and cycles to create and sustain all life, the ecology of our ecosystem-dependent Earth. Only one green is the big green, the salvation and protection of the Earth's ecosystems and their strands in the web of all life, plant and animal biological diversity, the creators and life givers of ecosystems. The breath of life.