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Plastics: What’s Dangerous, What’s Not details the possible dangers of some plastics. Many debate the safety of plastics to our health and environment, but more evidence continues to point to potential dangers. What's the best approach? Reduce your exposure:

1. Don't use plastic #s 3, 6 or 7 for food storage.

2. Don't cook in any plastics.

3. Use either a BPA-free, resuable water bottle or go stainless steel.

-D

For those of you who think the government is concerned about the environment and your health, the latest from an ongoing Associated Press investigation proves otherwise. Excerpts:

U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlook...

The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking.

FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly noted that his agency is not responsible for what comes out on the waste end of drug factories. At the EPA, acting assistant administrator for water Mike Shapiro — whose agency's Web site says pharmaceutical releases from manufacturing are "well defined and controlled" — did not mention factories as a source of pharmaceutical pollution when asked by the AP how drugs get into drinking water.

Most cities and water providers still do not test. Some scientists say that wherever researchers look, they will find pharma-tainted water.

Researchers have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of drugs harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs. Some scientists say they are increasingly concerned that the consumption of combinations of many drugs, even in small amounts, could harm humans over decades.

Your city water may not have a lot of bacteria in it. But it sure has a lot of expensive drugs. You know all of those side effects the durg commercials list? Common sense seems to conclude that exposure to all of these drugs over time is probably not a good thing. -D

Winter is mostly over. When the snow melts, I get disgusted with all the litter I see laying about. So part one of the challenge is:

1. Walk to the end of your driveway, look both ways, and commit to at least keeping that area free of garbage.

This is also the time of year that people start spreading herbicides and pesticides all over the place. Part two of the challenge is:

2. Don't use any herbicides (try eating those extremely healthy dandelions ) and use pesticides only when there's no other choice (and try natural methods first). Same goes with fertilizers.

-D

Prevention reports:

Tossing them in the sink or toilet is no longer advisable--traces of prescription drugs are showing up in lakes, rivers, and drinking water, raising questions about harm to wildlife and people. (The pills you do swallow also get into the water supply as part of normally eliminated human waste, but in smaller amounts.) Some communities are developing prescription drug "take back" programs. The government suggests throwing most old meds in the trash--mixed with undesirable material such as used coffee grounds, then sealed in a plastic bag. See more details [here], which includes a few best-to-flush exceptions to this rule.

-D

Most of my plastic bags used to get thrown away. Then I read some of the disturbing facts in The World Without Us  about plastics in the ocean. How they break down into tiny particles, surviving for endless time scales, being eaten by millions of animals. Quadrillions of particles. Plastic bags are a big part of this problem. Now I recycle them and often tell the store when I don't really need them. No, I don't have any reusable bags yet. Learn more at PlasticBagRecycling.org and discover there is a demand for your used bags. And the less you use at stores reduces their costs (and yours). -D

Colleges across the country are participating in RecycleMania, including some Christian institutions of higher learning. More:

RecycleMania is a friendly competition and benchmarking tool for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities to their campus communities. Over a 10-week period, schools report recycling and trash data which are then ranked according to who collects the largest amount of recyclables per capita, the largest amount of total recyclables, the least amount of trash per capita, or have the highest recycling rate.

 -D