Revealing the relationship between the natural world and the everyday lives of people
When the computer-age took
off in the 1990s, lots of
people thought we’d use a
lot less paper. But that
hasn’t happened. Julie Grant
reports on why environmentalists
are so concerned about all
the paper we’re still using
in our offices and homes:
Allen Hershkowitz knew that the computer revolution wasn’t going to lead to a paper-less society. He’s been a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the NRDC, since people first started using email.
“Very early on, even at NRDC, we started to see people printing out documents that would otherwise have been retyped or emails that shouldn’t have been printed out.”
Hershkowitz says Americans use 7-times more paper than the average person on the planet. And computer printouts are just the beginning. Packaging, cigarettes, tissues and toilet paper – Hershkowitz has seen firsthand the devastation the demand for all that paper it’s causing.
“Ancient forests, forests that have existed way before Christ and Moses and Mohammed, for 10,000 years, are being cut down for toilet paper. A product we use for 2-3 seconds. This does not make sense.”
Hershkowitz says this deforestation causes more global warming pollution than all the trucks, buses, planes and ships in the world combined. He scoffs at products like 3-ply toilet paper, and compares using them to driving a gas-guzzling Hummer.
In Europe and Asia, much more of the toilet paper is made from recycled paper. Americans get beat up in the international press for allowing their delicate buttocks to devastate the world’s forests.
For five years, the environmentalist group Greenpeace held protests against the Kimberly Clark Corporation, maker of Kleenex tissues, for cutting Canada’s Boreal Forest and other forests around the world for its products. Greenpeace’s campaign against Kimberly Clark took late night political comedian Stephen Colbert by surprise.
Colbert: “Now for starters, who knew toilet paper came from trees? I always assumed it came from cartoon bears.”
Greenpeace recently ended their protests. Kimberly Clark agreed that by next year 40% of the fiber in their tissue products would come from recycled paper. But while environmentalists support this concession, it does not please Mr. Colbert.
Colbert: “Have you seen recycled toilet paper? Environmentalists, I swear, if you take away my plush toilet paper, I’m just going to use the next softest thing – spotted owls.”
Most paper makers aren’t opposed to using recycled material in their products. Dan Sandoval is an editor at the publication Recycling Today. He says most cardboard boxes and newspapers are already made from recycled paper.
And that recycled toilet tissue? He says that’s usually made from old office paper. The stuff we use for printing and writing. But a lot of times office waste is all thrown together – and isn’t clean enough to be recycled into something new.
“You know, when you’re collecting it all together here, you’re going to get some telephone books, some post-it notes and things like that that people are throwing together. Plastic windowed envelopes. Some of that stuff is like, it’s kind of iffy on that. So you get more material, but the quality goes down.”
Sandoval says that means the paper mills have to invest in a lot more cleaning equipment. And some times it costs more than just cutting down trees. Still, he says the trend for companies around the world is toward more recycled content. Environmentalists want paper companies to move faster.
And they say consumers also need to do their part. In the office, they want people to print less, and at home, they’re asking people to stop buying toilet paper that’s 3 layers thick.
For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.
When most Americans have a baby,
the parents decide whether to use
disposable or cloth diapers. But
Julie Grant reports that there’s
another trend: no diapers at all:
Having kids without diapers might seem kind of far out. So,
who better to tell us about this then Willow Lune, of
Berkeley, California.
She remembers when her son was 3-months old. They
were at her mother-in-law’s house. Her husband took the
baby to the bathroom – and accidentally left the door open.
“And his mother came in and saw him holding our son over
the toilet. And she said, ‘what are you doing?’ And my
husband said, ‘well, he’s going to the bathroom, just like you
do.’ And it took her about a minute, and she said, ‘that’s so
cool.’”
Lune and her husband said it was normal to see babies
without diapers when they were traveling in Tibet and
Thailand. So, when their son was born, they decided to try
it. He’s was going to the toilet on his own by age 1 and a
half.
Now Lune teaches classes in Berkeley and other areas
around San Francisco.
She says diaper-free little ones can wear crotch-less pants –
or might not wear anything from the waist down.
And it’s up to the parents to pay close attention – or risk
having to reach for the cleaning supplies.
“There might be a little wiggle, or sometimes just the staring
at you. There’s just little subtle clues that they actually give
you from the time they’re born. So it’s our job to look at that,
listen for that, pick up on that. And then respond to it.”
Turns out, there’s a name for this little dialogue between
babies and parents. They call it elimination communication,
or E.C. Instead of using diapers – and then training them to
go in the toilet a few years later – Lune says parents can just
pay attention. They can show babies from the start what to
do when the need arises.
Lune says one of the reasons she and her husband do this
is because they are concerned for the environment.
Pampers and Huggies clog up the landfills. The other major
option – washing cloth diapers – takes more attention from
parents. But doing that can use a lot of water and electricity.
Jennifer Williams lives in the San Francisco area. She has
three children – all under age four.
Williams is also concerned for the environment. And she
wants to pay close attention when her 6-month old daughter
goes to the bathroom. She even uses cloth diapers.
“Even just with cloth diapers, you have to be way more in
tune to what’s going on with someone’s body. Where –
she’s in disposable right now – I’ll just forget about it for five
hours. You don’t have that option with cloth. Unless you
want to give her a horrible a rash. So, the whole EC thing is
really interesting, because you really have to be in touch with
what’s going on physiologically.”
But Williams works full time. Elimination communication just
is not practical for her family.
“Yeah, I mean, because you really do have to be available to
whenever the baby has to go to the bathroom. With one
baby, when I was home on maternity leave, I probably could
have done it. Once you have more than one running
around, it just doesn’t fit. Maybe I’m lazy. So be it.”
Supporters of the diaper-free lifestyle say it’s actually easier
then potty training kids when they’re older. And they say
parents don’t have to do it all the time. They can try it when
they do have time to pay close attention.
For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.
The Environmental Protection Agency has
a new water saving program called Water
Sense. It’s similar to the Energy Star label
for electronics. To get the Water Sense
program’s endorsement, toilets must use less
water. But, people have been complaining
about the old style low-flow toilets since they
were first required in the mid-1990s. Lester
Graham reports on what’s changed since then:
The problem with those old low-flow toilets is the companies didn’t really re-design them – they just made the tank smaller. Some of them just didn’t do the job.
Hugh Maquire has one in his home. He’s had a bad experience with his.
Maquire: “I had to flush my low-flow toilet six or seven times. What is that saving you?”
Graham: “ Doesn’t save you much water that way does it?”
Maquire Doesn’t save you much water at all. Plus it’s annoying. It’s embarrassing, ‘cause everybody’s hearing you flush the toilet six or seven times, wondering what the heck’s going on in there.”
So, we asked Matt Grocoff with Greenovation TV to set up a demonstration for us. Behind the Bgreen Retail Store in Ann Arbor, Michigan three different models of these new Water Sense low flow toilets are set up on five-gallon buckets so we can see what gets flushed… and what comes out.
Grocoff: “I always joke there were three things that set back the environmental movement: there was the original low-flow shower head, the original low-flush toilet and Jimmy Carter’s sweater. ‘Cause what that said to everybody was ‘You’re going to pay more for it; it was going to be less comfortable and you were going to have to sacrifice and it wasn’t going to perform as well.’ And with these new generations of redesigned toilets, you’re getting a higher quality product than even the existing one-point-six gallon or even a three gallon per flush toilet”
Graham: “Let’s see it.”
These toilets all have dual flush capabilities. A full flush is 1.28 gallons. A half flush – just 0.8. To prove how well they work, he’s just using the point-eight gallon flush. Matt’s got tennis balls, potatoes, and little rubber duckies.
Grocoff: “We got three duckies.” (flush sound)
Graham: “ Well, that seemed to work. No duckies. What’d you think of that, Hugh?”
Maquire: “I felt sorry for that ducky, but it was a great demonstration.”
And, again, that was the half-flush at 0.8 gallons, half of what the old low-flow standard was. Matt upped the ante.
Grocoff: “Two tennis balls and two potatoes. This is going to be the real challenge.” (flush sound)
Then more potatoes.
(flush)
And more duckies.
(flush)
Now, Matt’s demonstration is hardly scientific, but of the three brands we tested – a Kohler, a Toto and a Coroma – it appeared to me the Coroma worked best, at flushing duckies and potatoes anyway.
Rudy Wilfong is a dealer for Coroma. The toilet is made in Australia. He says Australia has had one-gallon-per-flush restrictions for 30 years, so they’ve designed them to work.
Wilfong: “And they don’t plug. They flush better than the 1.6 gallon toilets with half the water.”
And compared to the old low-flow toilets, you can expect to save about 1,000 gallons, per person, per year. They do cost more, but the pay back compared to a regular low-flow is about 2 to 2.5 years. If you’ve got one of those three-gallon-per-flush models, or even an old 6 gallon model, your payback will be a lot faster.
Graham: “Alright, Matt, I’m going to give you one more chance to impress me. What have you got here?”
Grocoff: “Alright. So, here we’ve got a full t-shirt. (flush) Very nice.”
Maquire: “Hey, Matt. I had a black t-shirt. Do you see it anywhere?” (laugh)
Graham: “Well, this was pretty impressive. Where can I get some more information about this?”
Grocoff: “Of course, you can go to Greenovation-dot-TV and you can see a video and some photographs of some of these toilets.”
Graham: “ Alright. Matt Grocoff of Greenovation-dot-TV. Thanks very much.”
Grocoff: “Alright. Thanks, Lester.”
For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.
A new report tracks illegal drug use by looking at wastewater. Rebecca Williams has more:
A lot of studies have found prescription drugs people take end up in wastewater, and now researchers are also tracking illegal drugs that way.
Caleb Banta-Green is the lead author of the report in the journal Addiction.
He studied a one day snapshot of wastewater from 96 cities and towns in Oregon.
He says cocaine and ecstasy were much more likely to be used in larger urban areas. But they found meth everywhere, even after a crackdown to make it harder to get the ingredients to make it.
“That sort of appetite or interest for methamphetamine has been built up in those rural areas and it looks like that use is continuing and it’s also being found in urban areas.”
He says it’s not clear if trace amounts of these drugs might eventually end up in drinking water. But previous studies indicate other kinds of legal drugs can be detected in sources of drinking water.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.
NASA has technology light years ahead of what’s available to the rest of us. Advanced water recycling is
one of them. For years, astronauts have collected and recycled sweat and even water vapor. Shawn Allee
looks at NASA’s latest water recycling technology and whether anything like it is already on Planet Earth:
A press conference between NASA headquarters and the International Space Station got some attention
recently.
It was about making drinkable water from astronauts’ urine.
Headquarters: “The Expedition 19 crew inaugurating the use of the water recovery system to
produce recycled, purified water.”
NASA figures sending water into space wastes rocket fuel.
Why pay good money, if you can just reuse water that comes out of astronauts’ bodies?
Astronauts have recycled other fluid, but urine was kinda the final frontier.
Astronaut: “Everybody’s talked about recycling water in a closed-loop system, but nobody’s ever
done it before. So, we’re going to be drinking yesterday’s coffee frequently up here, and happy to do
it.”
Three astronauts hold up their drink pouches.
Astronaut: “And, here we go. Here’s to everybody who made this happen.”
Group: “Cheers.” (laughter)
Headquarters: “That’s looks really, really good from down here. Um…”
For all the jokes cracked in space, water’s a serious problem down here on Earth.
Is anyone recycling urine like they are on the space station? Depends on how you cut it.
NASA’s system is a closed loop: water out, urine in, water out.
Similar technology’s used during some natural disasters, and the country of Singapore gets close.
Singapore recycles sewage water but it’s sent to reservoirs where it’s diluted.
How far does America get with recycled water? Public service announcements hint at who’s furthest
along.
“Southern California is getting drier. Go to bewaterwise.com. Find out how your community is
dealing with mandatory conservation.”
For decades, California utilities have used recycled waste water to spruce up landscaping and golf courses –
but you’re not allowed to drink it.
Orange County goes a tad further. It replenishes an underground aquifer with recycled water. The utility
draws water out of that aquifer.
So, it’s a kind of water recycling – more like Singapore’s diluted variety than NASA’s fully-closed loop.
According to the federal Environmental Protection Agency – no city in America has astronaut-style water
recycling.
But, some water utility managers predict some city will.
“It’s a non-issue. From purely a perception standpoint, Oh my god you’re making
me drink toilet water. You know, get over it, because you’ve been doing it anyhow.”
That’s Frank Jaeger. He runs the water system in Parker, a Denver suburb.
He says most water systems are more like Singapore’s and Orange County’s than you might think.
“I was in New Orleans, and I had the chance to go through their treatment process. And, they
pointed out that ten years in a row they had won the drinking water award for turbidity, taste, odor –
and that water going down the Mississippi had been through 12 stomachs by the time it had gotten to
New Orleans. They mix it with a little more scotch than we do, but they drink it.”
Jaeger says, think of the advantages a full water recycling system would have.
Some cities would save energy since they’d pump water shorter distances. And you’d get a consistent
supply of water, since you can count on people bathing and flushing on a regular basis.
“It is silly, in this day and age, to be worried about these sorts of things – especially
here in the United States, where we have such good wonderful treatment
processes.”
There’s no federal regulation that specifically prohibits full toilet-to-tap water recycling.
So, Jaeger says, someday, some politically brave local government will move forward.
Just not his.
For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.
Health experts say handwashing is the single most important thing you can do to reduce your chance of getting sick or making other people sick. But as Rebecca Williams reports, recent research finds antibacterial soap is not any better than plain soap at keeping us from getting sick. And some scientists and doctors worry there might be risks to widespread use of antibacterial products:
Some studies estimate about 70% of liquid soaps on store shelves have antibacterial ingredients in them. Ingredients such as a chemical called triclosan.
Allison Aiello teaches epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Aiello is lead author of a paper in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
She examined more than two dozen studies on antibacterial soaps containing triclosan. She says triclosan kills bacteria by going after the bacterium’s cell wall.
“The cell wall cannot be kept intact anymore; it’s not able to survive.”
But Aiello says there’s a growing body of evidence that even though antibacterial soap kills bacteria, it’s no better than regular soap at preventing illness.
Regular soap doesn’t kill bacteria, but Aiello says it works just as well at getting rid of bacteria and viruses like swine flu.
“Regular soap, is basically, it has a surfactant in it and what it does is it allows bacteria to be dislodged from hands and then the motion that you’re using under water helps dislodge it and make it go down the drain, basically.”
Aiello says it’s important to note that the soap studies were done with basically healthy people.
She says more research needs to be done to find out if antibacterial soaps could be more effective for elderly people or people with compromised immune systems.
But Aiello says generally, for healthy people, antibacterial soaps are no better than plain soaps at keeping you healthy.
And she says there could be risks to antibacterial products. She says there’s evidence from lab studies that antibacterial soaps might be adding to the emergence of super-bugs: bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics.
“In the laboratory setting, it is clear that there are mechanisms that can lead to antibiotic resistance when bacteria are exposed to triclosan.”
Aiello says they haven’t seen this play out for antibacterial soaps in the real world yet. But she says researchers need to keep an eye on it because antibiotic resistance might take some time to develop.
The soap industry dismisses the idea that antibacterial soaps might have something to do with antibiotic resistance.
Brian Sansoni is with the Soap and Detergent Association.
“The last thing we want to see is people discouraged from using beneficial products. Antibacterial soaps have proven benefits, they’re used safely and effectively by millions of people every day. Consumers should continue to use these products with confidence.”
The Food and Drug Administration has the final word on antibacterial soaps. But they’re still trying to figure out what to say about them.
The FDA has been trying to come up with rules for the products for more than 30 years. Right now there are no formal rules about the levels of antibacterial chemicals in soaps. And there aren’t any rules about how the products can be marketed or labeled.
There’s one thing both the soap industry and doctors agree on – Americans don’t wash up often enough with any kind of soap.
A recent study found one out of every three men walk out of the bathroom without washing their hands. Women did better than the guys, but still, about one of every ten women didn’t wash their hands either.
Experts say after you sneeze, cough or visit the restroom, you should scrub your hands with soap and water for 20 to 30 seconds.
That’s as long as it takes to sing the happy birthday song twice.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.
Most people probably don’t enjoy
cleaning. But we’ve all got to do it.
And if you’ve ever looked at the household
cleaner aisle in the grocery store, you
know there can be some pretty strong
chemicals involved. Karen Kelly reports
on a cheaper, chemical-free alternative:
(sound of store)
I’ve just arrived at my neighborhood grocery store with a plan: to find what I
need to make my own household cleaners.
I head over to the cleaning aisle and pull out a list of ingredients I got off the
internet.
I see borax and
washing soda on the shelf.
They`re both made from naturally-occuring minerals and cost about five bucks
each for a 4 to 5 pound box.
I look around for soap flakes – to make my own dish soap – and find a big bar I
can grate myself.
The only thing missing is castile soap. It’s a biodegradable soap used in a lot of
these recipes.
I’ll grab that next at the natural foods store.
To be honest, I never paid that much attention to the ingredients in household
cleaner – until I used something with dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride on
my bathtub. It comes with warnings.
I rinsed it and took a bath. My 4-year-old also took a bath.
And we both ended up with a very itchy skin rash.
That convinced me. I had to find a safer way to clean the tub that, number one,
worked. And number two, wasn’t too expensive.
Which pretty much meant I’d have to make it myself.
We decided to start with the all-purpose cleaner.
Karen Kelly: “Okay. We need borax, which we have, castile soap, hot water.”
Child: “We have that! We can just turn on the sink and make hot water!”
Kelly: “And vinegar.”
Child: “We have, do we have vinegar?”
Kelly: “Yes.”
Child: “And Mom, we have hot water.”
We mix up a recipe I found on the David Suzuki Foundation’s website.
(sound of stirring and banging)
They’ve got a whole bunch of do-it-yourself recipes for bathtub scrubbers,
laundry soap, furniture polish, you name it.
Lindsay Coulter is the person who devised these concoctions.
She says a lot of people forget that you don’t need fancy products to get your
house clean.
“You know, if you talk to your grandmothers or your great-aunts, you’ll find that
they too used things like washing soda, baking soda, white vinegar, and a basic
castile soap. Things like vinegar – it’s acidic and helps lift grease and
deodorizes. A lot of the things you’re cooking with anyways, so you probably
already have it in your kitchen. And the benefit? Just peace of mind that you
know what goes into it.”
But does it work? It’s time to find out.
(sound of spraying)
We spray. We wipe. The bathroom sink shines.
Next, we try the bath tub scrubber. It’s a mix of castile soap, vinegar – which is
a natural disinfectant – baking soda, and water.
(sound of cleaning the tub)
The tub looks great, actually. And you know what? This is a lot cheaper.
Brand name all-purpose cleaning sprays are about 4 bucks a bottle where I live.
It cost me just a dollar – and about 5 minutes – to fill that same bottle with my
own mix.
So it’s cheap, it’s easy to make, and, best of all, I don’t have to worry about chemical reaction after a soak
in the tub.
For The Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.
Child: “Is it recording? Okay.”
A new study looked at off-the-shelf
shower curtains and came up with some disturbing
findings. The Center for Health, Environment
and Justice studied polyvinyl chloride plastic
shower curtains and found that PVC shower
curtains can release as many as 108 toxic
chemicals. Lester Graham talked with Sarah
Burkhalter with the environmental journalism
site: grist.org. He asked just how
much of a concern these PVC shower curtains
are:
Sarah Burkhalter: “It depends. This group – The Center for Health, Environment, and Justice –
tested five shower curtains, and their claim is that new-shower-curtain-smell is up to 108 nasty
chemicals that have been added during processing. At the same time, you know, there are
chemicals in everything. So, to an extent, you just have to choose your battles. Shower curtains
have become the emergency-du-jour, if you will. But, there is plenty else to worry about if you
already have a shower curtain. It’s not an emergency.”
Lester Graham: “Now we should point out that these shower curtains are not special shower
curtains. These were bought at Bed Bath and Beyond, and Kmart, and Sears, and Target, and
Wal-Mart. And I don’t even know what I would replace my shower curtain with. Got any ideas
about that?”
Burkhalter: “Sure. Well, the thing about these shower curtains, you know, it’s not even the shower
curtains themselves. It is the plastic they’re made of. And that is plastic #3. Its poly-vinyl chloride,
or PVC, or you may sometimes you may just see it as vinyl. And at grist.org, our advice columnist
always says, ‘no vinyl, that’s final’. That’s her tagline. She says, ‘no PVC for me’. That’s her other
way to remember it. Really, as much as you can avoid this plastic #3. Which, is difficult to avoid.
It’s in toys, and hospital tubing, and jars, and pill bottles. But as much as you can avoid this, is for
the benefit, certainly. As far as shower curtains go, there are a lot of alternatives. You can always
go for a door instead of a curtain. When our advice columnist, Umbra, wrote about this very issue
in 2006, she recommended polyester shower curtains. They also make organic cotton, and nylon.
There’s a different plastic, its PVC-free, its called ethylene vinyl-acetate, or EVA, so if you look for
EVA plastic shower curtains, those are a good alternative. Or, you could always take up
exhibitionism.”
Graham: (laughs) “Well, how hard are these things to find – these other, non-PVC shower
curtains?”
Burkhalter: “They’re going to get easier and easier to find as time goes by. Actually, IKEA phased
out PVC shower curtains over a decade ago. Sears, Kmart, Wal-Mart, and Target are all in the
midst of phasing out PVC. And, actually, Target had a goal for this spring, I think they said 88% of
their shower curtains now don’t contain PVC. So, if you look at the labels, and try to avoid things
that say PVC, you should be able to find alternatives, even in these big box stores.”
Graham: “So, what do you have hanging in your shower?”
Burkhalter: “Well, I have to say that I took a shower this morning, and it is a plastic shower curtain.
But, you know, I’ve had it for a couple of years, and the Center for Health, Environment, and
Justice, when they tested, they found that some of these chemicals hung-out for a few weeks, but
after a month or so, your shower curtain has probably done off-gassing all the chemicals that it’s
going to. So, if you’ve had your shower curtain for a couple of years, you know, really, instead of
trashing it, it’s probably best just to hold on to it. Don’t’ burn it – that is something that you really
don’t want to do with PVC. That’s kind of one of its great dangers, is that it releases dioxin, a nasty
chemical, when it’s burned. So, but as long as you’re not licking it regularly, you can probably hold
on to your old one.”
Graham: “I’ll avoid that. (laughs) Alright, thanks Sarah, thanks very much.”
Burkhalter: “Sure, thanks Lester.”
Antibacterial soaps are marketed as an extra
defense against that awful bug going around the
office or your kid’s school. But as Rebecca Williams
reports, new research finds antibacterial soap is not
any better than plain soap at keeping us from getting
sick. And some scientists and doctors worry there might
be risks to widespread use of antibacterial products:
Child: “Make the frosting for the carrot cake?”
“You want to make the frosting for the carrot cake? Okay, Jasmine,
bring up your chair so you can wash your hands.”
(Sound of Jasmine pulling a chair over & washing up)
Margo Lowenstein says she’s just a little extra careful about germs.
She never borrows somebody else’s ink pen during flu season. She opens
public bathroom doors with a paper towel on her way out. But her
friends call her a germ-phobe.
“You know, you go to a birthday party and some kid blows out a cake, and
you just see the spit flying on the top of the cake, that just kinda
grosses me out. So I usually take the cake but I won’t eat that top
layer of frosting. (laughs)”
Lowenstein is a soap marketer’s dream customer. Market researchers say
Americans have been getting more worried about germs. And as a result
we’ve been buying more soap and hand sanitizer and antibacterial
products.
Antibacterial soaps have been around since the late 1940s. But the
market research firm Euromonitor International says in recent years,
germ-phobia has given manufacturers a reason to ramp up the
antibacterial products in their lines.
There are some studies that estimate that about 70% of liquid soaps on
store shelves have antibacterial ingredients in them. Ingredients such
as a chemical called triclosan.
Allison Aiello teaches epidemiology at the University of Michigan
School of Public Health. Aiello is lead author of a paper in the
journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. She examined more than two dozen
studies on antibacterial soaps containing triclosan. She says
triclosan kills bacteria by going after the bacterium’s cell wall:
“The cell wall cannot be kept intact anymore; it’s not able to
survive.”
But Aiello says there’s a growing body of evidence that even though
antibacterial soap kills bacteria, it’s no better than regular soap
at preventing illness. Regular soap doesn’t kill bacteria, but Aiello
says it works just as well at getting that harmful bacteria off your
hands.
“Regular soap, is basically, it has a surfactant in it and what it does is it allows
bacteria to be dislodged from hands and then the motion that you’re using
under water helps dislodge it and make it go down the drain,
basically.”
Aiello says it’s important to note that the soap studies were done with
basically healthy people. She says more research needs to be done to
find out if antibacterial soaps could be more effective for elderly
people or people with compromised immune systems.
But Aiello says generally, for healthy people, antibacterial soaps are
no better than plain soaps at keeping you healthy.
And she says there could be risks to antibacterial products. She says
there’s evidence from lab studies that antibacterial soaps might be
adding to the emergence of super-bugs: bacteria that are resistant to
antibiotics.
“In the laboratory setting, it is clear that there are mechanisms that
can lead to antibiotic resistance when bacteria are exposed to
triclosan.”
Aiello says they haven’t seen this play out for antibacterial soaps in
the real world yet. But she says researchers need to keep an eye on it
because antibiotic resistance might take some time to develop.
The soap industry dismisses the idea that antibacterial soaps might
have something to do with antibiotic resistance.
Brian Sansoni is with the Soap and Detergent Association.
“The last thing we want to see is people discouraged from using
beneficial products. Antibacterial soaps have proven benefits, they’re
used safely and effectively by millions of people every day. Consumers
should continue to use these products with confidence.”
The Food and Drug Administration has the final word on antibacterial
soaps. But they’re still trying to figure out what to say about them.
The FDA has been trying to come up with rules for the products for more
than 30 years. Right now there are no formal rules about the levels of
antibacterial chemicals in soaps. And there aren’t any rules about how
the products can be marketed or labeled.
There’s one thing both the soap industry and doctors agree on –
Americans don’t lather up often enough with any kind of soap. A new
study found one out of every three men walk out of the bathroom without
washing their hands. Women did better than the guys, but still, about
one of every ten women didn’t wash their hands either.
Experts say the best way to avoid getting sick is to wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds. That’s as long as it takes to sing the happy birthday song twice.
For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.
