continuing my rant on earth day...
other than reducing energy usage, we should also focus on reducing the amount of waste we generate each day. (and not just one hour, sorry, another dig at that earth day thingie.)
now, we can't simply reduce the waste our bodies put out (how to shit less? unless we eat less...) but we can at least minimize the impact the waste we put out.
now, let's look at our daily routine. we wake up in the morning, shit/bath, brush our teeth, then go to work, come home, bath, brush our teeth, go to sleep. this is a typical routine no? more or less.
now what happens to all that water that we use when we bath and brush our teeth? all flows to our drains and eventually to our rivers, and the oceans. so far so good.
but what are we putting out? when you brush teeth, you spit out used toothpaste. when you shower, you use shower cream or soap. all this will be washed down our water ways. so what's in these that prompts me to write this?
without even focusing on other ingredients, i'll just talk about one common ingredient found in our toothpaste, soap, shower cream, liquid dish wash, floor cleaner etc --- sodium lauryl sulphate.
this chemical is found in these "cleaners" as they help in lathering and cleaning. it's a CHEMICAL, not found in the natural world. its impact on human bodies is found to confuse the body's system as it mimics the hormone estrogen, a female hormone. click on the above link to learn more.
so what, since no one eats these "cleaners", you may ask? yes, you have a point but like in the case of shower cream, don't tell me none gets absorbed into our bodies?! or tooth paste when you brush your teeth?
and just imagine how much we put out all these "cleaners" into our water ways which is later consumed by all sorts of wildlife and plants, and which in the end, comes back to the water we drink.
so the easiest way to go about this is... not to use products containing such chemicals.
a bar of soap only needs fats/oil plus lye to make. animal fats used to be the choice but nowadays natural soap made from vegetable oils is available easily. the byproduct is glycerine and it's already in the soap. the chemical soup known as "commercial soap" has the glycerine taken out and put into another product called "body lotion".
use bio-degradable, natural dish washing detergent. currently using biohome from lam soon.
use natural tooth paste which doesn't contain sulphate or any of those chemical soup.
i'll share more about these products soon.
other than reducing energy usage, we should also focus on reducing the amount of waste we generate each day. (and not just one hour, sorry, another dig at that earth day thingie.)
now, we can't simply reduce the waste our bodies put out (how to shit less? unless we eat less...) but we can at least minimize the impact the waste we put out.
now, let's look at our daily routine. we wake up in the morning, shit/bath, brush our teeth, then go to work, come home, bath, brush our teeth, go to sleep. this is a typical routine no? more or less.
now what happens to all that water that we use when we bath and brush our teeth? all flows to our drains and eventually to our rivers, and the oceans. so far so good.
but what are we putting out? when you brush teeth, you spit out used toothpaste. when you shower, you use shower cream or soap. all this will be washed down our water ways. so what's in these that prompts me to write this?
without even focusing on other ingredients, i'll just talk about one common ingredient found in our toothpaste, soap, shower cream, liquid dish wash, floor cleaner etc --- sodium lauryl sulphate.
this chemical is found in these "cleaners" as they help in lathering and cleaning. it's a CHEMICAL, not found in the natural world. its impact on human bodies is found to confuse the body's system as it mimics the hormone estrogen, a female hormone. click on the above link to learn more.
so what, since no one eats these "cleaners", you may ask? yes, you have a point but like in the case of shower cream, don't tell me none gets absorbed into our bodies?! or tooth paste when you brush your teeth?
and just imagine how much we put out all these "cleaners" into our water ways which is later consumed by all sorts of wildlife and plants, and which in the end, comes back to the water we drink.
so the easiest way to go about this is... not to use products containing such chemicals.
a bar of soap only needs fats/oil plus lye to make. animal fats used to be the choice but nowadays natural soap made from vegetable oils is available easily. the byproduct is glycerine and it's already in the soap. the chemical soup known as "commercial soap" has the glycerine taken out and put into another product called "body lotion".
use bio-degradable, natural dish washing detergent. currently using biohome from lam soon.
use natural tooth paste which doesn't contain sulphate or any of those chemical soup.
i'll share more about these products soon.
