D.I.Y. Cleaning Products

  • Reporter Karen Kelly's daughter making safer cleaning products at home (Photo by Karen Kelly)

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:

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Veterans’ Benefits for Agent Orange Exposure

  • A poster from the Department of Veterans Affairs offering help and resources to veterans exposed to Agent Orange. (Photo courtesy of the Department of Veterans Affairs)

The US Department of Veterans
Affairs is offering new help to
Vietnam-era vets. The VA says
it can now assist vets who have
ailments related to Agent Orange
exposure. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

The US Department of Veterans
Affairs is offering new help to
Vietnam-era vets. The VA says
it can now assist vets who have
ailments related to Agent Orange
exposure. Mark Brush has more:

During the Vietnam War, the herbicide known as Agent Orange was sprayed over jungles and forests. It was used to strip the leaves from the trees and expose enemy soldiers.

Some US soldiers who were exposed to the herbicide have long complained about health problems.

Now, the Department of Veterans Affairs says it will help these veterans with disability benefits.

Exposure to Agent Orange has been tied to health problems like parkinson’s disease, cancer, and heart problems.

Allan Oates is with the US Military Veterans with Parkinson’s. He served in Vietnam. And was exposed to Agent Orange. He says his group was thrilled by the VA’s decision.

“It was just an exhilarating feeling to have these people knowing that they were going to get the help that they deserved.”

Oates says many Vietnam era veterans don’t know yet that help is available to them.

The VA estimates that 2.6 million military personnel were potentially exposed to sprayed Agent Orange.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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D.I.Y. Cleaning Products

  • Reporter Karen Kelly's daughter making safer cleaning products at home (Photo by Karen Kelly)

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:

Transcript

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.”

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Green-Ed for Realtors

  • Nathan Kipnis calls this condo building in Evanston, Illinois a "calendar that happens to be a home." Kipnis says he positioned windows and floor tiles to heat the home in the winter and keep it cool in the summer. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

The recent housing crisis has taught us
home values don’t always rise. So, people just
want to make sure they get what they pay for in
a house. That’s especially true with green homes
that are supposed to provide extra value – like
healthier air and lower energy bills. But does
your real-estate agent know enough about green
homes to make sure that’s the case? Shawn Allee reports says many do not, but the
industry’s working on it:

Transcript

The recent housing crisis has taught us
home values don’t always rise. So, people just
want to make sure they get what they pay for in
a house. That’s especially true with green homes
that are supposed to provide extra value – like
healthier air and lower energy bills. But does
your real-estate agent know enough about green
homes to make sure that’s the case? Shawn Allee reports says many do not, but the
industry’s working on it:

When Nathan Kipnis showed me a green home he designed – I spotted some green
features all by myself.

For example, it was hard to miss the solar water heater.

But it turns out, I missed stuff.

The architect had to show me the living room tile.

“What you’re seeing here is the dark grey slate. This is set to take sun in the
winter, fall and spring that comes in here. As the sun gets lower in the sky,
more sun comes in here and it heats up the floor with that.”

“What’s striking about this is that you have these little placards that read,
‘floor absorbs sun, creating thermal surfaces’. These are green crib notes so
to speak?”

“Yes. We definitely needed these because there was the chance that of
course realtors would come through here unaccompanied.”

Kipnis sweated over this solar tile, but at first, real-estate agents were like me – they
missed it, or they didn’t get how it worked.

Kipnis says, it’s likely some potential buyers went home clueless.

Still, he doesn’t blame the agents.

“They’re just kind of used to here’s the crown molding and here’s the
fireplace trim and here’s the pantry. That’s what we call, their expert
knowledge base.”

Some realtors are expanding their knowledge base to include green homes.

There’s a certification program that gets agents up to speed on energy conservation,
water use, and other green home features.

It’s called EcoBroker.

John Beldock runs EcoBroker.

He says it trains agents to protect home buyers.

“Many people stay in their houses longer than five years. If you’re really
watching out to make sure a consumer is buying a house that she can afford
to buy but afford to operate, you’ve really provided a valuable service to
society.”

Four thousand people have EcoBroker certification.

That sounds like a lot, but there’re more than two million real-estate license-holders
in the US.

So, most home buyers will encounter agents who are not trained, or ones who
mostly trained themselves – like Celeste Karan in Chicago.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to the table with some high-level people in the
industry who’ve been kind enough to explain things to me over coffee.
They’ve become part of my network and through that I’ve learned more
than anything else.”

Karan says formal certification is great, but when it comes down to it, buyers should
press agents about a home’s green claims.

And when possible – ask for numbers.

“There are certain properties where I know it’s been computer modeled and
the claims are likely to be true because they’re based in performance
testing rather than somebody just coming up with a number that sounds
good.”

Karan says there’s a lot at stake in getting green housing claims right.

The trend’s young, and it’s vulnerable to realtors who over-sell green features.

“Building better quality buildings has to be the norm. In order or that to
happen, the claims about them have to be honest, and people have to
continue to buy them. If buyers want it and builders build it, the market will
expand and move forward.”

Karan says it’s not like realtors are trying to screw people over.

There’s room for trust.

It’s just that for now, it’s best to back up that trust with a bit of skepticism.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Setting Traps for Emerald Ash Borer

The emerald ash borer has been destroying ash trees in Michigan, Ohio, Ontario, Virginia and Maryland – and the bug is spreading. Now, agricultural officials in Michigan are developing an early warning system. By detecting the insects early, they hope to slow or even prevent their spread. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

The emerald ash borer has been destroying ash trees in Michigan, Ohio,
Illinois, Maryland, and Ontario – and the bug is spreading. Now,
agricultural officials in Michigan are developing an early warning
system. By detecting the insects early, they hope to slow or even
prevent its spread. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports:


Forestry agents will be designating a number of so-called trap trees in
every township in Michigan. The ash trees will act as sentinels. A
strip of bark will be removed from the trees, which stresses them and
makes them attractive to insects. A sticky substance called tanglefoot
will then be applied to the trees to catch the borers. Kara Bouchay is
with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.


“Part of the struggle with having a borer that you can’t see most of
time because it’s underneath the bark, is when it’s in a low level
population, it basically flies under the radar. So the trap tree is a
way to bring it to a single location to detect it.”


If borers are found on a tree, all ash trees within a half-mile will be
destroyed to contain its spread. Bouchay says if the early detection
system proves itself, it will likely be implemented in other states as
well.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tracy Samilton.

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