Shellfish Solution
Bivalve Farming May Purify Fouled Waters Scientists are investigating whether mussels can be grown in urban areas as a way of cleansing coastal waters of sewage, fertilizers and other pollutants. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has placed an experimental raft at the mouth of New York City’s Bronx River with long tendrils seeded with geukensia demissa hanging beneath it. The two-year experiment will test whether the ribbed mussel can survive in the industrial and organic effluent found there. If it does, that could have implications for cleaning up coastal waters all over the world. The idea of using bivalves like mussels, oysters and clams to purify waterways has been on the minds of conservationists and scientists for decades. If the creatures can absorb enough nitrogen from the polluted water, it will prevent algae blooms that deprive waterways of the oxygen needed to support life. Other researchers also are investigating the beneficial effects of raising seaweed and kelp in conjunction with bivalves to clean coastal waters. Source: E360.yale.edu
Scrub Up
Cleaning the Environment a Step at a Time Unilever, one of the world’s largest consumer product companies, which makes Vaseline and Dove soaps, is doing away with a longtime manufacturing process because scientists and environmental groups are concerned that it contributes to polluting oceans. The company has decided to phase out the use of plastic micro-beads as a scrubbing agent in all personal care products by 2015. Small pieces of plastic material under five millimeters in diameter, referred to as micro-plastics, originate from a variety of different sources, including the breakdown of larger plastic materials in the water, the shedding of synthetic fibers from textiles during domestic clothes washing, and the micro-beads used for their abrasive properties in a range of consumer and industrial products.
It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. ~Mahatma Gandhi
Fashion Freedom
Fair Trade Comes to Retail Clothing The revolution that started in food is expanding to clothing: origins matter. With fair trade coffee and organic fruit now standard on grocery shelves, consumers concerned with industry working conditions, environmental issues and outsourcing are now demanding similar accountability for their T-shirts. As a result, some retailers have started supplying information about how and where their products are made. “There’s real demand for sweat-free products,” observes Ian Robinson, Ph.D., a lecturer and research scientist at the University of Michigan who studies labor issues. “Consumers don’t have the information they need, and they do care.” The New York Times reported that a recent factory collapse in Bangladesh might play a part in changing that. Loblaw Companies Limited, the parent company of Joe Fresh, which produced clothing there, has vowed to audit factories more aggressively and compensate the victims’ families. “The apparel industry can be a force for good,” vows Galen G. Weston, Loblaw’s chairman. natural awakenings
September 2013
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