Tag: son

Phthalate Concerns Cause Company Makeovers

  • Women marching on behalf of a campaign to remove phthalates and other chemicals from cosmetics. (Photo courtesy of the Breast Cancer Fund)

There are new concerns that products we use every day to keep us clean and make us beautiful may contain toxic chemicals. The targets are things like shampoos, deodorants, hair dyes and cosmetics. Some companies are taking these concerns seriously and giving themselves a makeover. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert has this story:

Transcript

There are new concerns that products we use every day to keep us clean and make us beautiful may contain toxic chemicals. The targets are things like shampoos, deodorants, hair dyes and cosmetics. Some companies are taking these concerns seriously and giving themselves a makeover. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Halpert has this story:


(Sound of woman and child talking)


Teri Olle is playing dress-up with her two-year-old daughter, Natalie, in the family’s bathroom. Teri is applying lotions to her daughter’s chubby cheeks, while Natalie puts lipstick on her mother.


Little girls like Natalie have been playing dress-up for generations. But Natalie’s game is slightly different. She’s using nail polish, lipsticks and creams made without man-made chemicals.


That’s because her mother is an environmental activist who lobbies against toxic chemical use. With cosmetics, her biggest fear is a group of chemicals called phthalates. Phthalates increase the flexibility of plastic and keep nail polish from chipping.


“Phthalates are testosterone-suppressing synthetic hormones, essentially. And they’ve been linked with all sorts of developmental problems, including, most dramatically, a set of male genital defects that show themselves as birth defects in infant boys.”


Last month, scientists released the first study on male babies. They found a strong link between high levels of phthalates exposure in pregnant women and damage to their sons’ reproductive tract. Studies like this, and others on lab animals showing possible links to reproductive problems, prompted the European Union this past March to ban two types of phthalates from all products sold in Europe. The states of California, New York and Massachusetts are also considering similar plans.


Olle is five months pregnant with her second child. She doesn’t know if she’s carrying a boy, but she says chemicals in cosmetics could be risky for any fetus. So she’s not taking any chances.


“For me, as a person, if someone said to me, ‘You can either use this product that may cause a genital defect in your baby boy or not’, I would think most people would go, ‘Really, we probably shouldn’t be using these products.'”


And it’s not just phthalates that could be a problem. Environmentalists say that the ingredients in cosmetics haven’t been evaluated for health or safety effects. The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t do that kind of testing. And in 60 years, it’s banned only nine ingredients. So there are other chemicals, like coal tars used in hair dyes and formaldehyde used in nail polish, that might cause health problems as they’re absorbed by the skin into the bloodstream.


Because of these concerns, a group of environmentalists called the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has convinced 136 natural cosmetics companies to sign a pledge to check for potentially toxic chemicals and eliminate them.


One of those companies is Avalon Organics. Over the past year, Avalon’s spent two and a half million dollars to reformulate their products and switch to more natural alternatives. Gil Pritchard is the company’s President and CEO. He says the jury’s out on whether these chemicals definitely cause harm. Even so, he didn’t hesitate to make the investment.


“It’s convincing enough for me and our company to exercise what we call a precautionary principle – to adopt it and say look, we may not have direct scientific evidence, but there’s enough evidence here to say whoa, I can feel the heat from the stove. I don’t need to put my finger on and burn myself to know that that’s one of the likely outcomes.”


But not all companies feel this way. Procter & Gamble, in Cincinnati, Ohio, has not signed the pledge. Nor have any other major cosmetic companies. Tim Long is a company spokesman. He says environmentalists are blowing this issue way out of proportion.


“The amounts of most of these ingredients that the activists have concerns about are, in fact, extremely small and at the doses used in our products, there’s no scientific evidence to support that they’re resulting in any harm to consumers.”


Long says Procter & Gamble complied with the EU directive and took the banned phthalates out of all of its products both in Europe and the U.S. But he says that wasn’t necessary, since phthalates, along with all other cosmetic ingredients, simply aren’t dangerous. He says his company wouldn’t be using them if they were. And the FDA says that these cosmetics are safe.


Environmentalists say that more research needs to be done to better understand the effect of chemicals used in cosmetics on the body. But Teri Olle says that with so many natural alternatives available, it makes sense to be careful.


“When I became pregnant, I definitely became more conscious of what I was putting on my body. I mean, if you’re supposed to avoid soft cheeses and cake batter, it certainly can’t be good for you to be spraying petrochemicals on your body. That definitely can’t be good for the baby.”


So when the baby’s born this September, instead of using products with man-made chemicals, Teri Olle will be spreading diaper rash ointment with beeswax and apricot oil on her newborn baby.


For the GLRC, I’m Julie Halpert.

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Recent Deer Hunts Help Feed the Poor

  • Overpopulation of deer is causing problems for forest understory, farmers, and increased car/deer accidents. Some programs are encouraging hunters to take an extra deer and donating the meat to charity. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The hunting season for deer has ended or is about to end in most states. But the deer are still plentiful. Overpopulation of deer has led to an increase in deer-and-car crashes. Too many deer also damage the understory of forests. In some states, though, the deer overpopulation also means more deer meat is made available to low-income people. That’s because hunters, meat processors and food banks are working together to get venison to the poor. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde
reports:

Transcript

The hunting season for deer has ended or is about to end in most states. But the deer are
still plentiful. Overpopulation of deer has led to an increase in deer and car crashes. Too
many deer also damage the understory of forests. In some states, though, the deer
overpopulation also means more deer meat is made available to low-income people.
That’s because hunters, meat processors and food banks are working together to get
venison to the poor. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Skye Rohde reports:


It’s only been in the last decade or so that states have begun allowing hunters to donate
wild game to charitable organizations. In New York, meat processors and hunters started
the Venison Donation Coalition in 1998. Starting out, they gave a thousand pounds of
deer meat to food pantries in two counties.


Kathy Balbierer handles the coalition’s public relations. She says since that first thousand
pound donation, the program has grown…


“Last year, we had 108,000 pounds of venison donated, which on the average is, you
know – a deer is 40 pounds. It was approximately 27,000 deer. This year we have 119
participating processors throughout the state serving 52 counties.”


It’s an idea that hunters and meat processors across the nation are embracing. There are
venison donation programs in almost every state. Some, such as those in New York and
Illinois, are administered by state government. Others, like Michigan’s and Minnesota’s,
are run by private organizations.


Here’s how it works. First, a hunter who wants to donate meat takes it to a participating
processor. Ed Tanguey operates a meat processing facility in Kirkville, New York. He
says it’s a pretty simple process.


“Once the hunters show up to the building, we’ll have them come into our skinning room.
We’ll have them fill out some paperwork and once it’s brought in, we’ll start to skin the
deer, remove the hide and trim off any meat that’s not edible. We’ll bring the deer into
our cutting room.”


Butchers section the deer into shoulder, torso and hindquarters.


(sound of grinder starting up)


Then Tanguey sets up the grinder and grabs the meat from the cooler.


He packs the ground meat into five-pound black-and-white tubes and slaps a label on
with his name and the hunter’s license number on it.


Tanguey has processed 250 deer so far this season, 44 of them for the Venison Donation
Coalition. The coalition pays him a reduced rate, about a dollar a pound. Once there’s
enough meat in Tanguey’s cooler, he calls the Food Bank of Central New York to pick it
up.


Tanguey says this is his way of giving back to his community.


“When I see a hunter bringing in his son or grandson and they’re giving a second deer or
a third deer to the food bank, I think it’s going to pass it on to them. And years from now
we’ll keep the coalition supplied with some more food for the food bank.”


Jim Giacando is operations manager at the Food Bank of Central New York. He says
200 of the 600 agencies he works with ask for venison.


“In our freezer, we have almost 1,000 lbs ready to distribute, and it’s already committed
to a number of agencies throughout our 11-county area. And we’ll be distributing it this
week and next week, and then hopefully we’ll receive more in and fill more orders.”


The food bank will receive venison up until January. But Giacando says the greatest
challenge is keeping up with the demand for deer meat. A lot of people want it.


“I think we actually may have to get to a point where we might have to say ‘you know,
you can’t order that much. We have to keep it for all the other programs.'”


(ambient sound in church)


One of the food pantries asking for the deer meat is the University United Methodist
Church in Syracuse, New York. Norma Goel ordered venison from Giacando’s food
bank. The church’s food pantry feeds about 150 people every week.


Goel says she can’t buy as much food for the pantry as she’d like to because of the
church’s limited budget and an increase in the number of poor people asking for food.
She says farm-raised meat is a high-priced commodity…


“We’re always looking for a way to provide meat to participants in the pantry. And it’s
become increasingly difficult to buy frozen meat that the food bank has. By and large,
we’re not purchasing frozen meat from the food bank because we can’t afford it.”


So the deer meat is a cheaper alternative. Last year, Goel ordered venison too late to
receive any. This year she got all she could for the pantry: 60 pounds. She only has to
pay the handling costs – the coalition covers processing.


Goel says she’ll encourage people to use the deer meat in place of ground beef because
it’s high in protein and low in fat. She says the 60 pounds will feed a lot of hungry people
in her community.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Skye Rohde.

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Soap Makers Revive History and Family Farms

  • Kim Brooks makes a batch of her Annie Goatley Hand-Milled Soap in her kitchen. (Photo by Tamar Charney)

For many of us, soap is just another mass-produced product we buy at the local supermarket. But in recent years, all-natural handmade soap has been showing up in galleries, gift boutiques, craft shows, and farmers’ markets. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney has more:

Transcript

For many of us soap is just another mass-produced product we buy at the local supermarket.
But in recent years, all-natural handmade soap has been showing up in galleries,
gift boutiques, craft shows, and farmers’ markets. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Tamar Charney has more:


Kim Brooks’ home smells clean – like lemon, rosemary, citronella and well,
soap. The smell’s so pervasive that it wafts onto the school bus with her
12-year-old son, prompting taunts. His response to the kids teasing is he smells
like profit. See, his mom is a soap maker.


“I think I need to make some goats and oats with a dab of honey. So we’ll take oatmeal…
then I also want to add a little fragrance to this…”


(bottles clinking)


She makes 30 different types of bars for her Annie Goatley line of homemade soap.


“My soap is hand-milled, so what that means is I take olive oil, palm oil and coconut oil
and then I melt it down and add the lye and it saponifies, and then I make a base that
comes out in big chunks of hard soap and then I take these big chunks…”


It takes about two months from the time she starts a batch of soap until she
has a finished bar.


Kim Brooks started her business last June. She says she’s one of those
people who’d buy handmade soap any time she saw it. She says it was an
inexpensive way to feel like she was pampering herself. Eventually she
learned how to make it.


“There is a group of people that whenever they go to a craft show they buy soap. It’s
odd to think of it, but there is actually a culture of people that seek it out.”


Enough that Brooks says she can make soap seven days a week and still have trouble keeping up
with demand.


“As long as people get dirty, there’s always a market isn’t there?”


Patty Pike is another soap maker. She lives near Rogers City in northern Michigan. And she runs
an e-mail list for soap makers all across the state. More than 170 people are on the list.


“There are many women who are at home, either by choice or otherwise, and they are looking for
something to do to keep busy or to have a home-based business.”


She says for some, soap making is a creative outlet or a craft. For others,
such as Patty Pike herself, soap is a way to beef up a family farm’s bottom
line.


She raises goats, cattle, and chickens for show and for meat. And
soap was a way to make some money off the extra goat milk.


If you drive around rural communities you’re likely to see hand-lettered signs for soap outside
family farms.


In recent years, there’s been a renewed interest in how things used to be back before soap became
a mass-produced product advertised on TV.


(sound of soap ad)


At The Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, crowds of people who
grew up humming the ads for Dial, Zest, and Irish Spring show up to watch soap making
demonstrations.


Jim Johnson is with the Henry Ford. He says in colonial times, soap was just something everyone
made at home.


“As we move towards the whole convenience thing… this starts really at the end of the 19th
century and takes off at that point. By the time you get to the other side of Depression, the other
side of World War II, homemade soap is something only of folklore at that point.”


He says with the back-to-land and natural foods movement in the 1960’s and 70’s there was a
return to handmade, homemade soap. Since then, it has bubbled up from being a counterculture
interest to a more mainstream one.


One that’s been encouraged by the slow food movement, interest in organic products, and even
the popularity of how-to shows on television.


“It may be just sort of a whim or a hobby trying to make a connection to the past, other times they
might attempt it for practical purposes, you know, where they want something that they’ve done
with their own hands and they know what’s in it.”


And for a lot of people that itself is rewarding.


Kim Brooks takes a break from stirring a big pot of soap and she goes out to feed her goats and
chickens.


(barnyard sounds)


Like many of her customers, she has discovered she gets a certain satisfaction making things
herself or from buying things from someone she knows or at least has met.


“You know, we have heard so many things about ‘well this has been put in our
foods or that has been put in our foods’… and ‘this is a cancer-causing agent’ and you know, ‘this
is safe’ but then later on we find out well it’s not really safe. And I think that just as a culture
we’re really trying to get back to more of the natural products. I think handmade soaps go right
along with that.”


And she thinks people may be realizing they value things more when they’re made by people, not
machines. Handmade soaps might be all the rage at craft shows, gift boutiques, and farmers’
markets, but even soap manufacturers have caught onto the trend. In the aisles of many
supermarkets and drug stores, more and more soaps are showing up that look handmade even
when they’re not.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.

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