Downstream view of Roberts Creek, IA, where USGS scientists conducted a study of the degradation of atrazine, a herbicide, in streams. (Photo courtesy of the USGS)
People have been concerned
about farm chemicals getting
into drinking water supplies
for a long time. A recent report
showed that the chemical atrazine
peaks, in many areas, in concentrations
much higher than previously thought.
Julie Grant reports there are
things you can do to protect your
family. But, finding out if you
have a problem is harder:
Transcript
People have been concerned
about farm chemicals getting
into drinking water supplies
for a long time. A recent report
showed that the chemical atrazine
peaks, in many areas, in concentrations
much higher than previously thought.
Julie Grant reports there are
things you can do to protect your
family. But, finding out if you
have a problem is harder:
Bob Denges is worried. His water is discolored. So he’s
called a water purification company to test it.
(sound of running water)
They’re running water in the basement utility sink. It’s kind
of orange-y looking. So, it’s an easy diagnosis: too much
iron.
“You can probably see in the toilet, upstairs just on the first
floor, that there’s some brownish, reddish discoloration
around the toilets.”
That’s not great. But at least you can tell when there’s iron
in the water. You cannot see or taste other water
contaminants such as weed killers like atrazine.
Tom Bruusema is the water filter expert at the National
Sanitation Foundation. They test and certify water filtration
devices. He says the first place you can check is your local
municipality – the folks that monitor water in your area.
“That would be the place to start. They are required, by
federal law, to measure a number of contaminants, produce
an annual report for their consumers.”
But recently an investigative report by the New York Times
revealed water contamination can spike in some places –
and local water officials might not even know about it.
That weed killer – atrazine – is applied on farm fields and, in a
lot of places, you also find a lot of atrazine in the water
during that time.
If you’re looking for it at the right time.
Sometimes it spikes for longer than a month. But some local
water officials only test for atrazine once a month, or only
once a year, and often it’s not during that peak application
season.
So people can’t really find out about atrazine levels for their
drinking water in those places.
Some water systems are spending lots of money to treat
drinking water to get atrazine levels down to what the federal
government considers safe levels.
But that might not be enough, according to some of the new
scientific evidence about atrazine.
Five studies published in peer-reviewed journals recently
have found evidence suggesting that small amounts of
atrazine in drinking water causes health problems. Even at
levels considered safe by federal standards, atrazine might
be associated with birth defects. Things like low birth
weights in newborns. Skull and facial malformations and
misshapen limbs.
Forty-three water systems in six states — Illinois, Indiana,
Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi and Ohio — recently sued
atrazine’s manufacturers. They want to force the company
Syngenta and its partner Growmark to pay for removing the
chemical from drinking water.
Steve Tillery is an attorney in the lawsuit.
“Some of them have gone to the expense to cleaning it
completely out of their water supplies, so that it doesn’t exist
at all. And they should, in our view, be entitled to
reimbursement of expenses for cleaning it completely out of
their water supplies.”
But, some water systems are not cleaning out atrazine
completely. And, as we mentioned, there are times when
some don’t know they exceed the federal safe drinking water
levels.
There is something pretty easy you can do if you’re worried
about your water.
Tom Bruusema of the National Sanitation Foundation says a
simple carbon filter can remove atrazine. Those are the
filters you can attach to the faucet or the pitchers you refill.
“So it’s a good investment. Certainly can help them if they
have those kinds of concerns, and particularly those living in
an area that’s known to have potential contaminants in the
water supply.”
But first people have to be aware of a possible problem.
And, too often, they are not.
Pundits say President Obama is putting all his political chips in the fight for health care.
And, if he loses, he'll have almost nothing left to spend on climate change.
(Photo by Bill Branson, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
The health care debate is sucking
up most of the energy in Washington.
So it makes sense that the world is
concerned the US might show up at
global climate talks in December empty
handed. Conrad Wilson explains how
the heath care debate is threatening
the chances of a global climate treaty:
Transcript
The health care debate is sucking
up most of the energy in Washington.
So it makes sense that the world is
concerned the US might show up at
global climate talks in December empty
handed. Conrad Wilson explains how
the heath care debate is threatening
the chances of a global climate treaty:
European countries, along with China and other big global polluters, are wrestling with
how to deal with global warming. But as the world gears up for the climate change
conference in Copenhagen, Washington is focusing on health care.
The timing of Washington’s health care debate has many countries scratching their heads.
And it has environmentalists and climate folks nervous. All agree health care is
important; but globally, they say, it’s out of step.
And when you ask Americans what the President is working on, few mention climate
change.
Person 1: “Probably health care and fixing the economy.”
Person 2: “On the economy. And fixing the economy. Actually, no, I’ll change that.
Actually, what I think he’s focusing on is the health care issue.”
Person 3: “This week, Afghanistan. Last week, health care. The week before, the
economy.”
Person 4: “He’s focusing on health care primarily, which is very important. But he also
needs to maintain his focus on the economy.”
What’s not being talked about is climate change and the global talks coming up in
Copenhagen.
Dan Esty is a professor of Environmental Law & Policy at Yale University. He also has
experience as a climate negotiator. Esty predicts the health care debate will continue
through the end of the year.
“I think it’s going to be very difficult, given the political effort that’s going to be required
to achieve success on health care, to imagine that climate change can be taken on during
the same time period.”
Esty says there’s only so much President Obama and members of Congress can take on at
once. Climate change and health care are two major issues that can’t be resolved
overnight.
As time wears on, the talks are shaping up for an outcome that looks more like the failed
Kyoto climate agreement from a decate ago. After Kyoto, Congress refused to join the
rest of th eworld in capping carbon emissions. Esty fears that could happen again.
“The health care debate, at the present moment, is occupying all the political oxygen in
Washington and that means there’s really nothing left with which to drive forward the
response to climate change. And, as a result, our negotiator will go to Copenhagen
without any real game plan in place for how the United States is going to step up and be a
constructive part of the response of the build up of green house gases in the atmosphere.”
A lot of people say the US needs to pass a climate change law before going to
Copenhagen. But others say maybe not. They argue it’s not a bad idea for the US to go
into global climate talks without a law because it could allow negotiators to be more
flexible.
Regardless of how it’s done, cutting greenhouse gases is now more pressing than ever
before. With Washington paralyzed by the health care debate, the timing is just bad for
climate change.
“If there were ever a time. You can say that about health care and about climate policy.”
That’s energy analyst Randy Udall. He says President Obama has a lot of his plate and
should be ready to compromise.
“Obama’s not going to get nearly as much as many of us had hoped for in terms of health
care reform. And he’s not going to get nearly as much as many of us had hoped for in
terms of energy policy. He will get something. But it not going to be a half a loaf, it’ll be
a quarter of a loaf.”
Pundits say President Obama is putting all his political chips in the fight for health care.
And, if he loses, he’ll have almost nothing left to spend on climate change.
A sign on the Tittabawassee River, downriver from Dow Chemical Plant, stating to avoid contact with the soil and not eat the fish due to dioxin contamination (Photo by Vincent Duffy)
The federal government and a major
chemical company have reached an
initial agreement about cleaning
up one of the nation’s largest dioxin
pollution sites. But, Shawn Allee reports, the public will
have to wait a bit to examine the
fine print:
Transcript
The federal government and a major
chemical company have reached an
initial agreement about cleaning
up one of the nation’s largest dioxin
pollution sites. But, Shawn Allee reports, the public will
have to wait a bit to examine the
fine print:
Central Michigan has a dubious distinction: The Environmental Protection Agency
claims that a flood plain there has some of the highest dioxin levels ever found in soil.
That dioxin came from a Dow chemical plant decades ago. The EPA and Dow just
concluded negotiations over a clean-up deal.
Wendy Carney is with the EPA’s regional Superfund cleanup office. Carney says the
deal is not done, though.
“This agreement doesn’t actually contain any cleanup options. It also doesn’t
address any cleanup levels for the site. That would be a part of things we would talk
about with the public in a public forum to get their feedback on those issues.”
Carney says the EPA could unveil its agreement with Dow in two weeks.
The EPA suspects dioxins cause cancer and other health problems.
How much sun you need to get enough Vitamin D depends on where you live, the time of year, how much
skin you're exposing - and even the color of your skin. (Photo source: Kallerna at Wikimedia Commons)
According to two recent studies,
most kids in this country aren’t
getting enough Vitamin D. Scientists
say a lot of adults are low in the
vitamin, too. Ann Dornfeld looks
at whether the solution is as simple
as spending more time in the sun:
Transcript
According to two recent studies, most kids in this country
aren’t getting enough Vitamin D. Scientists say a lot of
adults are low in the vitamin, too. Ann Dornfeld looks at
whether the solution is as simple as spending more time in
the sun:
(sound of kids building sandcastles on the beach)
If you’ve been to the beach this summer, or anywhere
outdoors, you probably slathered on the obligatory
sunblock. If you were extra-careful, you wore a wide-
brimmed hat, or made sure your kids wore t-shirts in the
water instead of a skimpy suit.
Thing is, the solar radiation you work so hard to avoid is
also kind of healthy. That’s because it creates Vitamin D
through a chemical reaction in your skin.
“Vitamin D is essential.”
Susan Ott is a professor of medicine at the University of
Washington.
“It’s actually a steroid hormone that helps you absorb
calcium from your diet. And it works in your intestines so
the calcium can get into your system and become
available to the bones.”
Ott specializes in bone diseases like osteoporosis and
osteomalacia – both diseases that Vitamin D helps
prevent.
When you slather on sunblock, you’re also blocking the
creation of Vitamin D.
Before you run outside to soak up the last few rays of
summer unprotected, there’s a catch. Ott says no one
knows how much sun you need to get enough Vitamin D.
It depends on where you live, the time of year, how much
skin you’re exposing – and even the color of your skin.
“People with dark skin do not make as much Vitamin D
with the same amount of sunlight exposure – they need to
be out in the sunlight longer to get the same amount of
Vitamin D as a fair person.”
Scientists don’t have a way to recommend how much sun
you need to get enough D.
Kim Nowak-Cooperman is a nutritionist at Seattle
Children’s Hospital. She says a recent study looked at
people who live in Honolulu.
“They looked at 93 people who got three or more hours of
sun every day for five days a week. And they actually
found that half of those people were Vitamin D insufficient,
when you would think that they would be very, very high in
Vitamin D.”
Getting your Vitamin D from food can also be hard. It’s
naturally abundant only in oily fish like sardines, salmon
and mackerel. Since the 1930s, Vitamin D has been
added to milk to prevent the bone-softening disease
rickets in children. Now rickets is making a comeback.
Nowak-Cooperman says that’s because most kids don’t
drink enough milk to get the recommended daily
allowance of Vitamin D. And even that recommendation
might not even be enough.
“Originally that number was derived from the amount of
Vitamin D that would prevent rickets. We are now seeing
that Vitamin D has a more important role and that the
insufficiency of Vitamin D can be implicated in other
disease processes.”
Studies show Vitamin D might prevent everything from
rheumatoid arthritis to diabetes to tuberculosis. So the
American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends kids
get twice the US RDA for Vitamin D. That means 400 IU from either four glasses of milk or a
supplement.
Professor Susan Ott says adults should take a
supplement, too. She recommends 800 to 1000 IU. Any more than that, she says, and you risk
absorbing too much calcium.
“I think right now there’s a fad and people are taking too
much. I just went to the drugstore the other day and I saw
pills that were 5000 units. That’s enough to last you a
week! And I have patients that are taking that every day.
I’m worried they’re gonna get kidney stones.”
Ott says there’s also a trend for people to get blood tests
to determine whether they’re getting enough Vitamin D.
She says unless you’re elderly or have other serious
health problems, it probably isn’t necessary.
So what should you do? Ott says just pop that daily
supplement – 400 IU for kids, 800 for adults – and
keep slathering on the sunblock.
The Environmental Working Group is critical of the Food and Drug Administration for not requiring sunscreens to filter out UVA rays (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
Labor Day weekend means backyard
grilling, maybe some time at the
beach. The last holiday of summer
usually includes a lot of time outside.
Lester Graham reports sunscreen
seems like a good idea, but there’s
some controversy about what works:
Transcript
Labor Day weekend means backyard
grilling, maybe some time at the
beach. The last holiday of summer
usually includes a lot of time outside.
Lester Graham reports sunscreen
seems like a good idea, but there’s
some controversy about what works:
The Environmental Working Group issued a report saying not all sunscreens are equal. The group is critical of the Food and Drug Administration for not requiring sunscreens to filter out one kind of solar radiation.
“There currently are no requirements for UVA filters in sunscreens. And they’ve been working on sunscreen standards since 1978.”
David Andrews is a senior scientist with the group. He’s says with a gap in FDA regulation, the industry is making unverified statements about how well sunscreens protect.
“So these are claims that are very misleading to the consumer and it makes it hard for everyone to get adequate protection.”
The Personal Care Products Council is a trade group for sunscreen makers. It says the Environmental Working Group’s report is – quote – “unscientific and unsubstantiated.”
Bottom line: look for a sunscreen that does protect you from both UVB and UVA rays, reapply often, and stay out of the sun as much as possible.
One researcher says we need to re-engineer physical activity back into our lives. And part of that includes making communities super walk-able and bike-able. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
We hear a lot about how pollution
and contamination can hurt our health.
But an ongoing study indicates the
biggest threat to our health is a
lot simpler. Kyle Norris reports:
Transcript
We hear a lot about how pollution
and contamination can hurt our health.
But an ongoing study indicates the
biggest threat to our health is a
lot simpler. Kyle Norris reports:
Many of us have engineered physical activity out of our lives. We sit in front of the computer, we sit and drive everywhere. We don’t move much.
That’s what Steven Blair says. Blair is a professor of Public Health at the University of South Carolina. And he says, more than anything else, America’s physical in-activity will cause this century’s biggest public health problems.
“You want to stay out of the nursing home, the best insurance you can take out is regular physical activity program – three ten minute walks five days week. I’m not talking about training for the Ironman triathlon or a marathon.”
He says we need to re-engineer physical activity back into our lives. And part of that includes making communities super walk-able and bike-able.
Dr. Kessler's new book describes the three components in food that keep us addicted: sugar, salt, and fat. (Photo courtesy of the National Canter Institute)
On average, people in the US
are much fatter than just 30
years ago. Obesity is an epidemic.
The Environment Report’s Lester
Graham talked with the author
of the book ‘The End of Overeating,’
which argues the American diet
is to blame:
Transcript
On average, people in the US
are much fatter than just 30
years ago. Obesity is an epidemic.
The Environment Report’s Lester
Graham talked with the author
of the book ‘The End of Overeating,’
which argues the American diet
is to blame:
Lester Graham: This is The Environment Report. People in the US are much fatter than just 30 years ago. Obesity has become an epidemic. The author of the book, “The End of Overeating” argues, “It’s the American diet.” David Kessler is a pediatrician and served as commissioner of the US Food and Drug administration under George Bush I and Bill Clinton. Dr. Kessler, give me the short answer, why has obesity become so rampant in the US?
David Kessler: We’ve taken fat, sugar, and salt, put it on every corner in America, made it available 24/7, made it socially acceptable to eat any time. We’ve added the emotional gloss of advertising—you’ll love it, you’ll want it. We’ve made food into entertainment. In fact, we’re living in a food carnival.
LG: I’ve been watching restaurant commercials, especially since reading your book, and I see a lot of, “It’s a fun time, it’s a good time, bring your friends, it’s a family gathering.” There is a lot of that emotional appeal, but it doesn’t talk about nutrition.
DK: Exactly. Sometimes about the economic value of food, but always it’s the emotional gloss that’s added. And food’s very reinforcing. Fat, sugar, and salt stimulate us, we come back more. But when you add that emotional gloss: “You’ll want it, you need it, you’ll have a good time.” That amplifies the reward value of food.
LG: Now your book spends a lot of time looking at the science of why we respond to sugar, salt, and fat and how the food industry has taken advantage of our response to sugar, salt, and fat. Why do we like those things in our food, why do we always crave more?
DK: That was the question that got me started 7 years ago. I wanted to understand why it was so hard for me to resist my favorite foods. I was watching Oprah one night, there was a woman on the show who said, “I eat when my husband leaves for work in the morning, I eat before he comes home at night, I eat when I’m happy, I eat when I’m sad, I eat when I’m hungry, I eat when I’m not hungry.” And then she said, “I don’t like myself.” And it was that behavior, I could relate to that. I have suits in every size. That’s what I wanted to understand, I wanted to understand the science and we finally do have the science to explain to that woman that it’s not her fault. In fact, her brain is becoming excessively activated by all the food cues in our environment—she’s being bombarded, she’s being constantly stimulated.
LG: You infer the food processors and the chain restaurants, are using some of the same techniques the tobacco companies used to get people hooked on cigarettes. In what ways?
DK: They certainly understand the inputs. They understand that sugar, fat and salt stimulate. They understand the outputs, that you come back for more. Have they understand the neuroscience? I doubt it. But they learned experientially what works, and they optimized food, they constructed food to stimulate us to come back for more. Let me explain how it works, let me give you analogy with tobacco. We have to be careful, there are similarities but there are also differences. Nicotine: nicotine is a moderately reinforcing chemical. But add to that the smoke, the throat scratch, the cellophane crinkling of the pack, the color of the pack, the image of the cowboy, the glamour, the sexiness, the sense that it was cool, the imagery from 20, 30, 40 years ago. What did we end up with? A highly addictive product. If I give you a packet of sugar and say, go have a good time, you’ll look at me and say, “What are you talking about?” Add to that sugar fat, add texture, add mouth-feel, add color, add temperature, put it on every corner, make it into entertainment, and what do we end up with? One of the great public health crises of our times.
LG: Now I don’t think the food industry sees this as necessarily trying to build addiction or using these chemicals as a way to re-wire our brain. I think any good chef will tell you, I want to cook things that will please you, that make you happy. It just so happens that sugar, salt, and fat make us happy. So, what’s wrong with it, if that’s what we want?
DK: The argument that the food companies will use is that all their giving consumers is what they want. But we now know, we have the science to show, that these chemicals are activating the brains of millions of Americans and what happens is that we keep on coming back for more. Look at modern American food, pick any appetizer from any major American restaurant chain. What is it? It’s layered and loaded with fat, sugar, and salt.
LG: Well, let’s pick one you highlighted in your book, because I happen to like it, it’s the Southwest Egg Roll at Chilis. It’s tasty!
DK: The Washington Post outed me because I had to go dumpster diving in order to find out what was in restaurant foods. We worked for a decade at the FDA putting nutrition facts labeling on all foods in the Supermarket, but not so in the restaurant foods. If you look at the ingredients, some fifty ingredients: the sugars, the fat, the fat loaded on fat, the salt in that eggroll. One industry insider just called it the equivalent of a fat bomb.
LG: You spend a little bit of time in the book on how food is labeled. How, for example, cereal manufacturers hide just how much sugar is really in that box. How do they hide it?
DK: Different names on the label, not just sugar, they’ll use honey, they’ll use molasses, they’ll use other terms so its not the first ingredient listed on cereals. But, understand, its not just any one ingredient. We have made food highly stimulating. The multi-sensory nature of food, it’s a rollercoaster in the mouth. 30 years ago, we used to chew on the average of 30 times per bite. Now it’s less than half of that. Food goes down in a whoosh, it stimulates, it rarely lingers. In fact, most of what we are eating is so pre-digested. Chicken: I went in and ordered a margarita grilled chicken dish, I thought it was healthy. Little did I know it was bathed, it was mixed in these cement mixers with sugar and fat, our meat is injected with these needles, solutions are added, sure it tastes good. But in some ways it keeps us in this cycle of consumption. And understand the cycle of consumption based on past learning, past memory, we get cued. Our brains get activated. The cue can be as simple as a sight, a smell, a location, my car can be a cue! Because where I’ve gone before, I get in the car and start having these thoughts of wanting. I was walking down Powell street and I started thinking about chocolate covered pretzels. Why? Because I had been, six months earlier, a place on Powell street. I had forgotten entirely about it, we’re such effective learners—just walking down that street will create thoughts of wanting. Thoughts of wanting arouse me, they capture my attention, they pre-occupy me, I eat for that momentary pleasure. Next time I get cued, I do it again, and every time I engage in this cycle, I just strengthen the neural circuits. What am I in search of? I’m in search of this ephemeral pleasure, is there any real satisfaction? Rarely.
LG: Your book is called “The End of Overeating.” How do we stop overeating, when much of the food at the grocery store and the restaurants is prepared the way it is, we have all these visual cues, these reminders of how food is a reward in our lives. How do we stop that cycle, how do we break or rewire our brain back to a more healthy style of eating?
DK: First, we have to come to the understanding that our behavior is becoming conditioned and driven. And it’s not just our behavior, it’s the behavior of our children. And once we understand that, once we understand that food in fact has become hot stimuli, and preoccupy us and capture our brains, and hijack our brain circuits, and we can see this on the neural imaging. What we have to do is cool down the stimulus. How do you cool down a stimulus? First, you can just get rid of the cues. That sounds easy, you create a safe environment in your home, but you end up walking down the street so that’s not very practical. The other effective way is to eat with some structure. What do we do in The United States? By putting fat, sugar, and salt on every corner, eating 24/7, eating in our cars, eating all the time, we’ve taken down any boundaries. So eating with some structure—knowing what you’re going to eat, when you’re going to eat it, and if it’s food that you want, it helps protect you from being bombarded by cues, because if you know what you’re going to be eating in several of hours, the cues in the intervening time that you get hit with just don’t have the same power. In the end, what’s the best way to reduce and take the power out of a stimulus? How do you change what you want? Want something else more. What we have to do, and I think this is essential as a country, because social norms effect us, they really effect our behavior, they effect our neural circuitry. If I look at that huge plate of fries and say, “That’s my friend, that’s gonna make me feel better,” my brain’s going to get activated and then there’s nothing I can do to stop myself from finishing that plate of fries. If however, we change how we view food, psychologists call it a critical perceptual shift. How did we win, well, we haven’t quite won it but how did we succeed in the perceptual shift against tobacco? 30, 40 years ago we used to view the product as something that was cool, something that was socially acceptable, something that we wanted. We changed that perception. Now we look at it for what it is, a deadly, disgusting, addictive product. Tobacco is easy because we can live without tobacco. Food is much harder. But, all the processed foods, foods that stimulate us, that are just fat and sugar, fat and salt, fat and sugar and salt, getting us to come back for more and more, I think we have to change how we view food back, perhaps it’s very simple in the end, ho w much real food are we eating?
LG: You did the research, started 7 years ago, you wrote the book, now you’re talking about food on interviews like this. How has it changed your life?
DK: What’s very interesting, being trained as a physician, I thought I would go into the world and understand the metabolism, the endocrinology, the bariatrics, the physiology. What I actually gained in understanding was that we’re all wired to focus on the most salient stimuli in our environment. That’s what makes us so successful as a species. It could be alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, it could be gambling, but for many of us, food has become the most salient stimuli, and what about that food? It’s the fat, sugar, and salt. I look at that food and I say, I need it, it’s going to make me feel better, and I’ve come over time to understand that I can feel just fine, eat about half as much as I was eating but feel just as satisfied.
LG: David Kessler is the author of “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite.” Thanks very much for speaking with us.
Beluga Whales along the Canadian Atlantic coast developed tumors after they came in contact with chemicals from aluminum smelters. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)
A new report in the journal Nature Reviews
Cancer looks at cancer in wildlife. Mark
Brush reports, the disease in animals is
sometimes caused by pollution:
Transcript
A new report in the journal Nature Reviews
Cancer looks at cancer in wildlife. Mark
Brush reports, the disease in animals is
sometimes caused by pollution:
The authors of this paper looked at a lot of research on cancer in wild animals. Some of these studies linked the cancer cases to pollution.
Beluga Whales along the Canadian Atlantic coast developed tumors after they came in contact with chemicals from aluminum smelters. And some fish and clam species have developed cancers after being exposed to pollution.
Denise McAloose is a veterinarian with the Wildlife Conservation Society. She’s the lead author of the paper.
“People should care about cancer in wildlife because, especially in those cancers that are driven by environmental factors, those environmental factors affect not only the animals, but people as well.”
For example, the people who worked in those aluminum smelters also had higher rates of cancer.
She says more research into the link between pollution and cancer in animals needs to be done. Because looking at how the disease affects wildlife might help us treat or prevent cancer in people.
Styrene is one component in styrofoam containers (Photo by Renee Comet, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
The styrene industry is suing to stop environmental officials from saying styrene could cause cancer and birth defects. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
The styrene industry is suing to stop environmental officials from saying styrene could cause cancer and birth defects. Lester Graham reports:
Styrene is used in all kinds of products – containers like coffee cups, egg cartons, in construction, in cars.
The state of California wants to add it to a list of cancer-causing materials. The International Agency for Research on Cancer found styrene is “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”
Joe Walker is a spokesman for the Styrene Information and Research Center.
“Styrene is not a carginogen. Any listing that would categorize it as such basically would be illegal and would be erroneous and would have the potential of alarming the public unnecessarily about products that are made from styrene.”
If the court does allow California to put styrene on its cancer list, the styrene industry has a year to prove it doesn’t belong on that list.
A mechanic works on the bikes to make them as compact as possible - removing pedals, kickstands, and turning the handlebars
(Photo by Karen Kelly)
A volunteer stacks the bikes into a pile at the back of a huge shipping container
(Photo by Karen Kelly)
Bicycles from the program in Tsumeb, Namibia
(Photo courtesy of Bicycles For Humanity)
So many of us have an old bike collecting
dust in the garage. More often than not,
they end up in the garbage. But, as Karen
Kelly reports, one group has found a unique
way to recycle them:
Transcript
So many of us have an old bike collecting
dust in the garage. More often than not,
they end up in the garbage. But, as Karen
Kelly reports, one group has found a unique
way to recycle them:
(sound of banging)
“That’s a sweet ride!”
A volunteer drops a bike into a pile at the back of a huge shipping container in Ottawa, Canada.
The bikes are stacked one on top of the other.
(sound of tools)
Just outside, a mechanic is stripping the bikes down to make them as compact as possible.
“If it has a kickstand, we have to remove it. We take the pedals off and turn the handlebars.”
In a few hours, this cargo container will be jammed with hundreds of donated bicycles, bike parts, and backpacks.
The gear is collected by a group called Bicycles for Humanity.
They have 20 chapters, most of them in North America.
Each chapter raises a couple of thousand dollars to buy a shipping container.
They pack it full of donated gear, and send it off to a community in Namibia, Africa. The shipping cost – another several thousand dollars – is also raised by the group.
A volunteer group there turns the container itself into a locally-run bike shop that provides jobs and transportation.
Some of the bikes are donated to health care workers who use them to pull patients on a stretcher.
Others are piled high with stacks of food and household items that defy gravity.
Martin Sullivan points to some of the pictures on display.
“These are the bakers who are able to sell their bread. And also wood, you can stack wood. It’s just amazing what they do, how they make use of these bikes that we take for granted. We throw them out, and they can do so much with them.”
(sound of traffic)
In Namibia, cars – and even bicycles – are scarce. Sullivan says these bikes make life easier for people who are used to walking miles to get to school, work, or to find the basic necessities.
Seb Oran is the co-founder of Bicycles for Humanity in Ottawa.
This is the fourth container of bikes that she’s sent to Africa.
Each one supports a local community group.
Sometimes its a hospital, sometimes an orphanage, sometimes a women’s empowerment group.
She remembers one run by former prostitutes.
“Six of them became bicycle mechanics now. And now, they don’t have to sell their bodies to put food on their plate.”
But there are some challenges.
Michael Linke runs the Bicycle Empowerment Network.
He helps the Nambians set up the bicycle shops.
“Because this is the first time a lot of these people have had formal ongoing work, it’s often difficult to get people to understand a long-term ongoing business.”
But with some mentoring, they’ve been able to make it work.
There are now 13 successful projects, with more containers filled with bikes on the way.
The group estimates that these bikes will last another 20 or 30 years in Africa. They might be junk to us, but in Namibia, they’re a precious resource.
Downstream view of Roberts Creek, IA, where USGS scientists conducted a study of the degradation of atrazine, a herbicide, in streams. (Photo courtesy of the USGS)
