Mercury exposure in humans primarily results from eating fish that contains methylmerucry. Mercury is primarily a neurotoxin, which means it attacks the central nervous system. Its effects are often subtle enough not to be recognized immediately, but more and more people are learning that their health problems could be due to mercury exposure.

~Oceana.org

I love seafood. More specifically, I love sushi. I mean really love it! This post isn’t about my adornment for sushi but to explore what health effects consuming the wrong amount of sushi can have on myself and other human beings, I have at least some reason to explore this further:

Sushi eater? [check]

Bad swimmer? [check]

Kids? [uncheck]

Plans for kids? [check]

After watching The Cove, my interest grew in learning more about where my food was coming from. The film highlights how many restaurants have been serving its customer’s dolphin meat which has extreme high levels of mercury; the numbers are quite revealing. The primary focus of the Cove’s producers is to tell the story of dolphin slaughter in a small, relatively unknown, Japanese island. The Cove took top honors at this year’s Academy Awards for Best Documentary.

Margie McClain, Georgia Field Organizer with Oceana, invited me to be a part of an event that would raise awareness around the issue of mercury pollution. My experience with oceans or marine biology is quite limited but as a sustainability advocate, this made perfect sense for me to get involved with. Mercury is something we have not discussed here at Aribra.com and found this to be a great time given what’s going on with House Bill H.R. 2190, the Mercury Pollution Reduction Act. This bill would mandate the chlor-alkali industry to modernize their plants that emit mercury into the environment.

This Friday, I’m taking part in “Fill the Gills Pass the Bill: Mercury Free Pub Crawl”. I’m excited to be apart of the effort to raise awareness about a very important issue. What are your communities doing to promote better air and water quality?

My husband, Bill, works for the Department of Defense as a civilian federal agent where his current day to day responsibilities involve protecting U.S. naval assets travelling throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America.  When the 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti on January 12^th, he unpacked his bags for a scheduled trip to Panama and repacked them for the unexpected in Haiti.  Now, he has just returned after being there for almost a month.  Although his mission in Haiti wasn’t directly related to the urban and environmental issues that are the focus of this blog, some of the issues his team faced and the city he observed are definitely of interest to our readers.

Transportation Woes. Haiti’s transportation infrastructure was substandard to begin with.  When the earthquake hit, many bridges collapsed, the docks at the ports were heavily damaged and roads all over the city were blocked by buildings that were shook to rubble.  These obstacles increased the difficulty for aid to reach the Haitians in need.  Tasked with assessing ports, medical facilities, criminal threats, mass migration, allegations of orphan kidnappings, helicopter landing zones for aid distribution, and helping wherever they were needed, Bill’s team needed to move about steadily.  Initial travel proved to be difficult through the unfamiliar territory with a damaged road system.   At first, they hired locals more than eager  to earn some money to drive them around, navigate through the heavily damaged roads and translate from Creole and French to English when needed.   The people were friendly, gracious and excited to see help arrive.  Eventually, they were able to rent a car and find their own way around, as businesses began to reopen.

Haiti’s poor transportation system, washed out roads from mud slides of the past, and now earthquake damaged roads also caused horrible traffic.  It would take the team several hours to go only a few miles by car.  Gas scarcity and high prices also added to the complicated equation.  They were lucky to receive their daily ration of gas from the US military.

Given the high gas prices, normally five dollars per gallon, and extreme poverty that the Haitians live with, most Haitians primary mode of transportation is by foot.  Other common modes include bicycles and motorcycles.  Tap Taps are a popular way to get around.  These are independent trucks that operate as unregulated taxis.

Garbage Collection. Haiti lacks many of the basic city services that we take for granted.  Garbage and trash pile up on the side of the road.  When the pile gets big enough, they burn it.  The smell of burning plastic resonates through the air.  Port-au-Prince ranked 3^rd as the dirtiest city in the world in the 2007 Quality of Life Report produced by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.  The report ranks 215 cities throughout the world based on levels of air pollution, waste management, water potability, hospital services, medical supplies and the presence of infectious disease.

Water Pollution. The rivers that run through Haiti and the Caribbean waters that surround it are used for everything that you can imagine.  People wash their clothes in it, dump biological waste in it, bathe their children in it, and drink it.  The water’s edge along the coastline is covered in garbage.  The water running down the street gutter is brown.  Bill did not want to step in the gutter water for fear of what he would bring home on his shoes.  Just after that thought ran through his head, he saw a woman bend over and drink from it.

Deforestation. Most of Haiti’s countryside has been deforested and used to meet basic needs.  As was pointed out in past articles, the deforestation has led to a lack of wood to properly build buildings.  Without the proper support, the buildings in Port-au-Prince could not handle the magnitude of the earthquake, contributing to their collapse and the demise of over 200,000 people.

Recycled Clothing. Bill noted that a lot of their clothing looks like our old clothing.  Our clothing is apparently being recycled to them.  He saw a “Where’s the Beef” t-shirt and a “Frankie says Relax” t-shirt.  He even saw several people wearing my old alma maters t-shirts, Florida State and Georgia Tech.

Toys from Trash. Smiles were starting to come back to the children’s faces by the time Bill left.  With so little that they have, they still are children.  They still like to play.  They made kites out of trash bags, pull toys from empty water bottles and toy cars from old cans.

A World Community. On a brighter side, a tragedy like this does bring the world together.  Makeshift medical tents from teams of almost every country you can think of – Jordan, Canada, France, Germany, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Israel, Russia, the United States, and so on – were cropping up all over the country.  Bill met so many amazing people that put their home lives on hold, hopped on a plane without a formal plan in hand to come help.  They came as volunteers, packed their own food and brought supplies, because their hearts led them there.  I am proud of many of our own friends and neighbors that did just that.

“Haiti Normal” as it is called, is starting to return.  Cleanup efforts have begun.  Markets are reopening.  Bill bought local art from vendors on the street.  In so many ways, the Haitian people live much more sustainably than us.  But in so many ways, they are destroying the environment that surrounds them.  With all eyes on Haiti, we can learn a lesson or two from them, while trying to help reverse the horrible cycle of poverty and environmental destruction they are stuck in.  Now it’s your turn.  As part of the international community that is helping Haiti, what do you think are the key pieces to rebuilding this country?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZeXnmDZMQ

Photo, Flickr

I live a double life.

Most recently that life has been spent amid a cacophony of rumbling trains on the elevated subway line outside my window, the din of car horns from the drive-through fast food restaurant below my building, shrieks from emergency vehicles, bangs and clashes from the construction work on Columbia’s new campus across the way, shouts from passersby, and yes on rare occasions, gunshots.

In contrast, I spent the majority of my life – I’m only 35 – in rural America where the audible equivalent to my current urban context consisted of insects louder than the 1 and 2 trains rumbling above Broadway, roosters and wild turkeys announcing the coming daylight, solitary cars on the highway just down what use to be a dirt road when I was a kid, the distant haunting drone of the Silver Meteor or the Palmetto passing through town three miles west, and, though with more frequency but less suspicion, gunshots.

Lately, I’ve been giving a considerable amount of thought to just how these two extremes, both of which I love for peculiar reasons, are actually two sides of the same coin. On Wednesday, May 23, 2007, that coin got a tad bit weighted to one side as scientists from North Carolina State University and the University of Georgia projected that the earth’s human population, for the first time in history, had become more urban than rural.

Even as these scientists urged us to avoid placing greater importance on urban populations in light of these findings, much of academia rushed to exploit and skew this information with untold numbers of urban studies. Urban had become academically fashionable in a way it never had been before. In actuality, we’re not talking about some dramatic shift; the United Nations estimated that by 2010, less than two months from now, there will only be a 2.6% difference in favor of urban population numbers!

This isn’t a zero-sum game. Urban and rural communities are not in competition with each other – at least they shouldn’t be considered that way. Rural communities produce goods and resources that are then processed by our cities for both urban and rural consumers. Interestingly, researches suggest that if either had to sustain themselves without the other, “few would bet on the cities.”

But there’s a dark side to this relationship between urban and rural communities. NC State and Georgia researchers concluded that not only do rural areas have more than their share of poverty and low education attainment, but they also receive a disproportionate amount garbage, polluted air, contaminated water, and hazardous waste produced by their urban counterparts!

Urban America, regardless of its newly established majority standing, can not afford to continue dumping on rural America.  While one might go so far as to consider this immoral, I believe it’s just plain dumb. Cities need the resources provided by surrounding rural areas for their continuation. Conversely, rural America cannot be left out of the conversations that are going on across this country regarding infrastructure, sustainability, community empowerment, education, and the arts.  It just will not do.

As I continue to discover the similarities and differences between my double lives, I look forward to sharing them and making the connections more mutually meaningful. Moving forward, it’s quite clear there can be no healthy urban America without a equally healthy rural America.

Couch by Greener Lifestyles

Home is a sacred place. Home evokes a peaceful feeling of comfort and warmth. Home is full of cherished memories and dreams of the future. But for many of us, what’s in the home can also be making us sick.

Imagine coming home at the end of a hard work day, taking a deep breath, a sigh of relief. In that inhale is a mix of elements, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nitrogen. In simple terms, we hold onto the oxygen and breathe out the rest. But could there be something else we’re holding onto in our lungs, our blood streams?

Think of that breath again. Then think about what’s in your home. Furniture, carpeting, wall coverings, and whatever you may have tracked in on the bottom of your shoes. A whole host of other particulates in the air come to mind: volatile organic compounds (VOCs), dust particles, dioxins, even heavy metals like lead. How can that be?, you might be thinking. I keep a clean house. Well, that too may be a problem.

Research has shown that being too clean or too hygienic may affect the way our bodies respond to infection or potential allergens. On the flip side, being exposed to certain microbes at an early age may be beneficial for the immune system. Children who grow up on farms have a reduced risk for developing asthma and allergies. It’s thought that exposure to livestock may be the key to a strong immune future. (Read more about the hygiene hypothesis.)

As we moved in droves from country to city over the last century, the likelihood of growing up in the company of hoofed creatures dropped dramatically. Add to that the increase in chemical and elemental pollution, the use of overly powerful cleansers, and the over-prescription of antibiotics, and we’ve got ripe conditions for compromised immune systems.

So what can we do about it?

There are a lot of simple ways to improve the air we breathe indoors, which in turn helps reduce asthma, allergy, and headache triggers (and sometimes worse issues like nerve and endocrine damage). And the planet might breathe a sigh of relief for it, too.

nurture some green

Most school kids know that plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the air. But there’s also something else plants absorb, helping us in the process: volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Plants have the ability to take in chemicals like formaldehyde, benzene, and toluene that off-gas from paint, furniture finishes and glues, and carpets and their adhesives. But not all plants are created equal. Gerbera daisy plant, snake plant (aka, mother-in-law’s tongue), and peace lily all top the list of toxin-absorbing greenery. Find more beneficial plants for your home.

To ensure plants are at their most effective chemical-absorbing capacity, pot them in organic soil, skip the chemical fertilizer, and keep their leaves clean and dust-free.

keep it clean, naturally

First, cut out the chlorine bleach. It not only kills too many germs, potentially creating resistant bacteria, it’s also unhealthy to inhale. It’s a known trigger of asthma attacks. Hydrogen peroxide is a less harmful, non-polluting substitute for disinfecting and whitening laundry.

Next, arm yourself with the good stuff. Some of the best cleansers are seriously simple and not harmful to your health, home, planet, or wallet: baking soda, borax, vinegar, citrus. Two of my favorite resources for homemade cleaning supplies are The Berkeley Ecology Center and this post from Planet Green.

For laundry, choose detergents that are free of chemical fragrances and choose dryer balls in lieu of dryer sheets. Also, skip the dry cleaner or choose a non-toxic option, like carbon dioxide cleaners such as Green Apple Cleaners.

Currently, manufacturers of cleaning products are not required to list their ingredients. Luckily for the public, this may be about to change. The Senate recently introduced the Household Product Labeling Act of 2009 which may make it easier for us to discern helpful from harmful products.

go bare

Our bodies don’t need much to stay clean and beautiful. Pure Castille soap like Dr. Bronner’s (I like the minty fresh variety) can be all one needs to clean the body, face, and hair. But if you like to add a few more agents to your corporeal cleaning routine, be sure to check the ingredients first. Petroleum-based ingredients, perfumes, and stabilizers are not only unhealthy to inhale, they can disrupt hormones and add to the pollution of waterways. These chemicals can be found in shampoos, lotions, deodorant, well, just about any product in a beauty regimen. Learn more about harmful chemicals in beauty products. Not sure about your favorite products? Check the Environmental Working Group’s Cosmetics Database.

think before remodeling

New furniture, paint, and carpeting can off-gas VOCs for months or longer. If you have plans to redecorate or add a fresh coat of paint, know the materials you’re using. For wall finishing, no- or low-VOC paints include Mythic, Aura, Milk Paint, and American Clay. Some low-VOC furniture options here and here (or you can buy used, which has already off-gassed). For floor coverings, skip wall-to-wall (collects a lot of dust) and opt for a hard surface like wood, cork, or natural linoleum (with low-VOC finish). Choose rugs made from natural materials like wool, cotton, or sea grass. For formaldehyde-free cabinetry, try Neil Kelly cabinets or other cabinet makers who promote healthy building materials.

keep the air flowing

Proper ventilation ensures the air in your home is well circulated, reducing the chance of breathing in stale, unclean air. Be sure your kitchen and bathroom are vented and that the ducts are clean. If you have a dryer, make sure it is properly vented to the outside of your home. Learn more about ventilation from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Other considerations

• Opt for beeswax candles with pure cotton wicks over petroleum-based paraffin candles. Be sure there are no artificial fragrances in them as well.
• Choose pure essential oils for freshening the air as opposed to artificially scented aerosol sprays
• Avoid ozone-producing air purifiers
• And of course, if you smoke, quit!

More resources on improving indoor air quality

• Household Products Database (US Department of Health & Human Services): Discover which products could be harmful to your health
• Indoor Air Quality Association: Find a professional air quality specialist trained to deal with serious issues like toxic mold
• Top 20 Green Tips for Improving Your Home Indoor Air Quality, from the Taiga Company
• 7 Surprising Sources of Indoor Air Pollution and How to Eliminate Them, from Planet Green
• Indoor Air Quality and Building a Home Addition, tips from the EPA

These are just some of the ways to improve indoor air quality. What other ways could we keep the air clean?