This year, I just learned about Environmental Working Group’s annual sunscreen guide. Why am I so excited, given that I have a bathroom closet full of sunscreen bottles, enough to protect every family in my neighborhood for the whole summer? Well, because as you, my loyal readers know, over the past year I have been learning about the incredible number of toxic chemicals found in consumer products and I had my suspicions that sunscreen probably has its share of stuff that does more harm than good.

Of course, I was hoping that my pick of sunscreens – yes, those I have already spent valuable greenbacks on – were going to be tops in EWG’s ranking of sunscreens, but such was not my luck. The bigger surprise was their findings, not just on harmful ingredients, but on the effectiveness of SPF ratings on the label. Let’s just say that this explains a lot of why I still get sunburned even after applying sunscreen liberally.

The EWG researchers tested 500 sunscreens and would only recommend 39 of them. Check it out to see if your bottle made the cut. Shelling out another $10 to replace that ineffective bottle is not a lot of money to save your skin and better protect yourself against skin cancer!

The reason so many of the sunscreens got low ratings was not at all what I expected. I assumed they were giving low ratings solely because of toxic ingredients. But, no, much worse than that if you have my fair skin. Exaggerated SPF ratings – yikes!! 

And, even if you buy a product with a high SPF rating, which protect against sunburn, they often provide very little protection against UVA radiation which, while not burning your skin, can still damage it and eventually lead to cancer in some people. I’m on the high risk list, if you haven’t figured it out yet.

Two other common ingredients were flagged by EWG researchers:  a vitamin A compound called retinyl palmitate and oxybenzone. The former can accelerate skin damage and raise your skin cancer risk and the latter can disrupt hormones inside your body once it penetrates the skin and enters your bloodstream. Beware! 

I got a nice sunhat from a friend recently which I decided was going to be my gardening hat. Now, it will be traveling with me farther than the confines of my yard and I will be even more conscious than before of limiting my sun exposure during the peak hours of the day (which used to be 12 to 3 and now I’m hearing is really from 10 to 4, oh my!). And, tomorrow, I think I’ll head to a consignment shop to find some floppy sunhats for the kids…

The women rented out a gym (windowless was key as people were stripping down to try on clothes!). Participating women registered on the Swapapalooza website for a fee of $10 which covered the costs, with extra dollars raised going to their kids’ coop preschool. The event was limited to 75 women. We were all given detailed instructions of what clothes to bring to the swap (consignment-worthy clothes, shoes, scarves, hats and purses), what not to (bathing suits, jewelry, and all ratty, unconsignable-in-the-real world clothes). 

On the night before the swap we brought the clothes to the gym where the clothes went through a “fashion filter” — a designer type gal weeded out the good stuff, and tossed the not so good stuff. I, of course, disagreed heartily with her judgment call when most of my clothes were rejected (i.e., placed in the pile to donate to the local women’s shelter or the YMCA’s Dress for Success program). The number of items accepted equaled the number of tickets you got to “purchase” for free clothes at the swap. Any other items you wanted at the swap were yours for $5 each. Given the high end items available at the swap this was quite the deal, not to mention, a good way to raise money for their preschool.

The morning of the swap we women dashed through the doors at the appointed time and made beelines to the racks and tables containing our desired items, be they pants, shorts, skirts, dresses, tops, shoes, purses, scarves or the like. There were lots of mirrors scattered around the room so you could assess how the clothes looked on you before deciding on your “purchase.” Let’s just say, we pretty much all felt like we scored, because we walked out with a lot of nice stuff for nothin’!

This is the most organized clothing swap I have ever been to. Usually, my friends and I organize clothes swaps on our own once a year, with rotating hosts. If you are the host, you send out an evite or email inviting all your friends to invite all their friends to your house on a Saturday or Sunday. Husbands, kids, dogs and cats have to clear out for the two crazy hours of the swap. Folks arrive with their bags of clothes, etc. that they haven’t worn in a year, or years, and then we toss workout wear on one sofa, skirts over a chair, pants on the coffee table…you get the picture.

Once everyone has arrived and sorted their clothes into the appropriate piles the hostess says “Go!” and people start grabbing stuff. The rule is that you have to try on an item before you take it home. It may look good lying there on the pile, but it might not look so good on you, so this trying it on first rule allows someone who looks great in an outfit be the one to take it home. Over two hours you will hear 20 different kind ways of saying that something doesn’t look good on you or your friend. All in good spirit as women are generally quite happy when they are loading up on a whole new wardrobe while unloading their old stuff.

If you like the idea of giving clothes a second or third use, and can handle it if So and So is looking hot to trot around town in your now too tight jeans, then clothes swaps are for you. And, in my case, my pocket book and my husband love me for it!

First, since we are on the topic of electronics, you should check out Seattle-based Basel Action Network’s website and videos on overseas “digital dumps”…think alleys in Lagos, Nigeria and small villages like Guiyu, China. And, don’t forget to picture a 7 year old child disassembling your old computer and exposing themselves to toxic chemicals like dioxin. Second, don’t be the last person on your block to view Annie Leonard’s Story of Stuff video to get you thinking about where your ”stuff” goes!

What I’d like to write about – in honor of Earth Week (since Earth Day is technically not until April 22) – is a solution for your own electronic waste (e-waste) disposal issues at home or at your office…whether you are a prolific technology upgrader or someone who uses your stuff until it breaks down, but still need to dispose of the old stuff and get a new this or that.

Last Thursday Basel Action Network announced the official launch of the world’s first global e-Waste Recycler Certification, called e-Stewards. This is the first such program backed by environmental organizations and major corporations alike. The rigorous certification program has not only been endorsed by Greenpeace USA, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) but has also drawn the support of major corporate “e-Stewards Enterprises” including Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Samsung. And even the little guys like my own communications firm, Resource Media.

So, if you want to do a little act of kindness in honor of Earth Week, check it out and be sure to recycle your old electronics through a certified, bona fide e-waste recycler. And, while you’re at it, get your own company to sign on to the initiative by contacting BAN. Piece of cake!

For those looking for ways to show their love and affection and who want to do it in a way that doesn’t make someone else’s life a little less good (the person who made the product in some country far, far away), there are soooo many great choices these days! 

For this blog post, I want to focus on gold jewelry since Valentine’s Day is the number two holiday for jewelry sales (and the upcoming Olympics in Whistler also has me thinking of gold!). My story begins when my husband asked to marry me way back when I was doing a public education project on hard rock mining. It was a classic dirty industry back then, with lots of bad side effects attributed to mines — pollution in nearby rivers, boom and bust local economies, mining companies getting out of town without cleaning up their messes, and the list goes on.

So, when my husband and I discussed ring shopping, I couldn’t see us buying new gold rings. But, I wanted us to wear rings to show our commitment to each other. What to do? My father had passed on to me my mother’s jewelry and to this day I happily wear one of my mother’s diamond-studded gold rings as my wedding ring.

So, you may not have that option…the good news is that the No Dirty Gold campaign has brought us a long ways from the choices consumers had ten years ago. More than 60 jewelry companies, including Sears, Herff Jones, and Tiffany & Co., have committed to purchase cleaner sources of gold by endorsing the “Golden Rules,” a set of principles for more responsible mining. These companies are calling on the mining industry, one of the world’s dirtiest , to move away from current practices that harm local communities and generate millions of tons of toxic waste. Give these folks a gold medal!

And that is news that warms my heart on Valentine’s Day!

Well, word on the street is that a bill will be introduced into the U.S. Senate by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in December to update the badly outdated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which regulates (or not, as is now the case) chemicals in the U.S. What does this mean for us?  Chemicals will be tested before they go to market, what a concept!  I know, you already thought that was the case. Sadly, it is not. Asbestos is banned in many countries around the world, but not the U.S. Oh, we tried. But the current failure of a law didn’t allow us to ban it. It’s time for change!

Not only are there a number of women’s groups, health groups, nurses groups, autism groups, and about 100 others coming together to give this a good grassroots push through the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition, but there are also businesses who have demonstrated that there is a hungry market in the U.S. for safer products.

On Wednesday I brought my 3 year old to the Million Baby Crawl event at the Seattle Center. He is no longer crawling, but he had a ball rocking out to the Caspar Babypants band while I learned about what the company Seventh Generation is doing to help update the Toxic Substances Control Act. Don’t be cynical, this company is saying, bring it on, we’d welcome more competition from companies selling toxic chemical-free products, the world would be a better place. They are willing to petition Congress, so we should, too. We certainly will have more and better choices if we do, and so will our children.

In the meantime, you can go to their super fun animated website for the Million Baby Crawl and create your own crawler (animated baby) who will symbolically crawl with, hopefully, 999,999 other crawlers to DC in January. You don’t need a real baby to do this and it took me just a few minutes to do this!

What prompts me to do this blog entry is that there was one standout treat station staffed by someone handing out Lara Bars and cards advertising GreenHalloween.org.  Awesome!  Check it out for this year and next…recycle those costumes (we found some great costumes at garage sales this summer), get ideas for making your own and, best of all, find alternatives to the gigantic amount of candy bars kids get when they trick or treat. Give out granola bars that parents will actually want to pack in kids’ lunchboxes on Monday morning!

Happy Halloween from our Batman and General Grievous!

Having read several essays on how kids who spend a lot of time in the woods and out in nature are creative, have long attention spans, do well in math, and are generally calm, perfect children (ha!), I thought this would be a win-win for the family. Mom and Dad get to recharge from their hectic work life in the city and the kids get to romp freely, not surrounded by primary colored plastic parts.

We did indeed get out a bunch this summer to the point that by August I was hoping against hope that it would rain, so we could finally have a weekend at home to just veg out! And, we have opinions on how to have even better camping experiences next year. It pays to research sites ahead of time. You see, when it comes to campsites, not all campsites are created equally. Several times we have ended up at campsites where we can smell the stinky armpits of the man camping next to us, to exaggerate just a little to make our point. At other times we can’t even see the tent in the site next to ours. If you are going with a group, the side by side camping experience might be just right for you. If not, definitely ask around with your friends and study the campground map before picking your site…or go midweek.

We went to Mt. Rainier National Park one weekend this summer and were thrilled with the diversity of park users. None of this wilderness is for wealthy white urban elitists garbage! Even our 6 year old was old enough to appreciate the beauty of the scenery. It is my hope that by giving him experiences like this, he will continue the long family tradition of hiking, backpacking, camping and working to protect America’s INCREDIBLE wilderness.

So, it’s logical to follow with a question as to why I’m writing about this topic already in mid-February, which is definitely not high season for garage sales in Seattle. Well, because if you are like me, and like to buy used toys for both environmental and economical reasons, then January and February are high season for shopping!  Simply because this is when consignment stores get loads of unwanted, often unopened gifts from the many disgruntled children from the Christmas of yore. So…start shopping now and get ready for some bargains!

Not so last year. In 2008 I decided that I would challenge myself to remember to bring Tupperware to restaurants, so that I didn’t need to ask for unrecyclable takeout containers when I inevitably didn’t finish my entree.  I go out to eat rarely and when I do it is often to places with delicious food (Seattle has heaps of good restaurants), so there is no worry that I’ll send the half-full plate to the dishwashers in back – leftovers for the next day are the way to go for me!

But, keeping leftovers from going to waste, while packing them in wasteful containers is not my thing. I’m not Catholic, but I’ve got heaps of guilt when it comes to walking the talk on the green living front!  Well, I didn’t go out to eat all that often, what with working and two kids and a husband who can whip up a fantastic dinner in less time than it takes you to say, “You are so lucky!”  But, when I did, I inevitably forgot to bring that Tupperware.

So, having failed on that resolution last year, what do I do to myself? I make it my resolution for 2009 as well. If you don’t succeeed the first time, try, try again.

And, with one month in to the year, how am I doing so far? Well…sad to say, I have gone out to eat with Brian once and…forgot to pack the Tupperware. And, of course, I had leftovers and insisted on bringing them home in the takeout containers. To paint the picture fully for you all, we went out to a nice Spanish meal, with aromatic sauces and all. Then, we rushed into the movie theatre across the street to see Slumdog Millionaire. Got the last two seats in the theatre.  Under which I stowed my takeout container with aromatic food for all in the theatre to smell. Which my husband duly noted, suggesting that the Tupperware would indeed have been a good thing to remember if one chooses to take one’s takeout food into a movie theatre…

Any advice on how to help me remember next time? Is there a cheering squad out there, so that I can succeed on this one, and get the opportunity to have a new, perhaps less dorky resolution next year? (Because I’m going to keep on with this resolution, no matter how many years it takes until I get it right!). Do I pack Tupperware in my car at the ready like I do with cloth shopping bags? Oh, dear…