My Apologies. Apparently you now get to see ads here.

Someone clicked on a link here alerting me to the fact that WordPress has now decided to show advertisements here. I guess that’s what happens when someone posts enough  content that other people find useful or interesting on a site that is free to use.

About These Ads

The site you just visited is part of WordPress.com. There are two reasons why you might see ads on a WordPress.com site:

  1. The site is part of the WordAds program and has elected to show ads to earn money from their site.
  2. The site is one of the sites hosted on WordPress.com that has not purchased the No Ads upgrade, and we are running ads to cover the costs of operating the site for the user. We run these types of ads sparingly in an attempt to interfere as little as possible with the experience of reading a site and for logged in users we don’t show ads at all. There’s more info about our approach to ad serving in this blog post.

Since I’m not part of WordAds (they’ve never contacted me and it’s unlikely I’d have enough control over the ads to want to inflict them on you) it looks like the only way to get rid of the ads is by paying WordPress $30 a year. As I live off a very limited income, I’m unable to pay. If any of my readers find the ads bothersome enough to donate that fee (via paypal), I will gladly confer the benefits to all of you.

Otherwise, if you see an inappropriate ad, please report it to support@wordpress.com. I’d think any ad that is for anything that harms the environment or health in any way during it’s life cycle would be inappropriate here…

UPDATE: On April 4th, 2013 I paid to have no ads for 1 year.

Safe Housing – One Brick at a Time

The Environmental Health Association of Québec (EHAQ) is ready to build an ecological, affordable housing community for people with Environmental Sensitivities and related conditions. This type of housing will provide a roof for those in dire need of a healthy home, free of the triggers that make them ill.

safe and healthy home

A home that will restore dignity and health…how amazing is that?

Please watch the video

JOIN EHAQ TO BUILD A HEALTHY COMMUNITY, ONE BRICK AT A TIME
BUY A BRICK @ $10 A BRICK!

To donate and learn more:

http://www.aseq-ehaq.ca/donation/donateonline.php

banner_english_fundraising-4

Detox Fashion (thank you Greenpeace)

Greenpeace is running an excellent campaign to detox the fashion industry. Sadly, textiles these days are full of toxic chemicals, chemicals which are harming the health and environment everywhere in their life-cycle, where they are made, and where they are used.

This video shows a bit of the background:

You might wonder why water pollution in China is a problem for us?

from: How to get rid of chemicals in fabrics. (Hint: trick question.)

http://oecotextiles.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/how-to-get-rid-of-chemicals-in-fabrics-hint-trick-question/

“How do these chemicals get into our bodies from the textiles?  Your skin is the largest organ of your body, and it’s highly permeable.  So skin absorption is one route; another is through inhalation of the chemicals (if they are the type that evaporate – and if they do evaporate, each chemical has a different rate of evaporation, from minutes or hours to weeks or years) and a third route:  Think of microscopic particles of fabric that abrade each time we use a towel, sit on a sofa, put on our clothes.  These microscopic particles fly into the air and then we breathe them in or ingest them.  Or they  fall into the dust of our homes, where people and pets, especially crawling children and pets, continue to breathe or ingest them.”

Going after  manufacturers to detox their practices is a logical step.

And it’s working:

Levi’s shapes up to become a Detox leader
http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/Blog/levis-shapes-up-to-become-a-detox-leader/blog/43437/

read more here:

Toxic Threads – Product Testing Results
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/toxics/water/detox/Toxic-Threads/

And if you can’t wait that long for safer clothing, you can check the list of safeR options listed in the “CHEMICAL-FREE CLOTHING (WE WISH)” tab at the top of the page here and then work on detoxing those at home using decontamination protocols found here: https://seriouslysensitivetopollution.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/laundry-decontamination-protocols/

P.S.

I forgot to mention that if you are trying to get toxic chemicals out of your clothing, using conventional, everyday laundry products isn’t going to get you non-toxic clothes… Not when the laundry products themselves are full of toxic chemicals: https://seriouslysensitivetopollution.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/toxic-chemicals-in-everyday-laundry-products/

 

MCS Video compilation from Alison Johnson

Alison Johnson’s film
“Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A Short Introduction”

For more information see her website

MCS_cover_new

Gillian’s Den

Some of you may remember Gillian McCarthy from a few years ago. Her housing situation was atrocious. I lost touch due to my own housing crisis, and only recently started remembering her and wondered what had happened.

To my delight, some people have finally taken it into their own hands to keep her from freezing this winter. Somehow, they are making a small, safe, warm natural den for her, but they need our help. This is so long overdue, it brings tears to my eyes.

Building a Low Impact Den for Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

“Gillian McCarthy is a sufferer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity caused by organophosphate poisoning early in her career. Without a warm roof over her head she will not survive this winter.

Tony Wrench and a group of natural builders are building her an emergency den. …”

http://www.permaculture.co.uk/news/2711122573/building-low-impact-den-multiple-chemical-sensitivity

The above link has the most recent updates

Gillian McCarthy

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The Alternative Shopping List: Becoming a Caring Consumer

Can you grow it or make it yourself?

If not, then consider the following:

1. Do I really need this? Is there anything I can use instead?

Here’s where the joys of ingenuity come in. It’s fun to find  substitutes. For instance, do you really need a nightgown  or pajamas when a big shirt will do as well?

2. How will this item affect the quality of my life?

Will it help me engage in life more fully, like sheet music or gardening supplies or a swim suit? Or will it just make me more passive – like an extra TV?

3. Is the cost of the item worth the amount of time it takes to earn the money to buy it?
This is the question suggested by Dominguez and Robin in Your Money or Your Life.  For instance,
How many hours do you have to work to buy your daily espressos?
Is it worth it?
You may say yes, but at least you’ve thought about it.

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Chemical-free clothing (we wish)

I’ve just added a new page to the top of the blog.

If you are looking for safer clothing, textiles, footwear or bedding, I’m adding links of places that offer them to hopefully make the search a little bit easier, since so many people land on this blog when searching for chemical-free clothing.

Since the level of sensitivities varies between people, there’s no way to say that something will be safe for everyone, or how many washings it might take to make something safe.

Some of the places deal with chemically sensitive clientele on a regular basis. This doesn’t mean that you can assume they know what you as an individual might need, so please be very clear if you have severe sensitivities. Discuss in advance the circumstances for returns also, as it’s unlikely anyone will accept anything that has been washed a dozen times if it still isn’t safe enough for you.

Some places will wrap things in extra cellophane or foil or even plastic, if postal fragrance and pesticide residues are of concern. Other places might not be willing to do that. Ask, and ask nicely.

This list is just a starting point for people who are searching, and will be a work in progress… Also, if I only listed places that met my standards in all areas, there wouldn’t be a list… And I’d be naked…

See the list here (or click on the tab at the top of the page):

https://seriouslysensitivetopollution.wordpress.com/chemical-free-clothing-we-wish/  

Friendship and Fragrance

There are reasons people choose and enjoy isolation, but developing disabling adverse effects from the toxic chemicals in everyday products and materials is seldom one of them.

Do you know someone who says fragrances bother or disable them? Chances are pretty good that you do, now that 34.7% of the population experience adverse effects, ranging from mild to severe and disabling, from fragrance exposures.

When your friend, family member, or colleague informs you that something you use has an adverse effect on them, how would you respond?

Do you choose the friendship? Or the product?

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Canadian Recognition of MCS/ES (Multiple Chemical Sensitivities/Environmental Sensitivities)

The Canadian Human Rights Commission

Policy on Environmental Sensitivities

Individuals with environmental sensitivities experience a variety of adverse reactions to environmental agents at concentrations well below those that might affect the “average person”. This medical condition is a disability and those living with environmental sensitivities  are entitled to the protection of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. …

UPDATE 2013: see Canadian Human Rights Documents Archived

Ontario’s Human Rights Code

What is disability?

“Disability” covers a broad range and degree of conditions, some visible and some not visible. A disability may have been present from birth, caused by an accident, or developed over time. There are physical, mental and learning disabilities, mental disorders, hearing or vision disabilities, epilepsy, drug and alcohol dependencies, environmental sensitivities, and other conditions.

The Code protects people from discrimination because of past, present and perceived disabilities. For example, the Code protects a person who faces discrimination because she is a recovered alcoholic. So is a person whose condition does not limit their workplace abilities, but who is believed to be at greater risk of being able to do less in the future.

http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/disability-and-human-rights

CERA the Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation

…While environmental sensitivities are not well understood by the general public, they are recognized by Health Canada, the Canadian Health Network, the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Canadian and Ontario Human Rights Commissions, the Ontario Medical Association and the Environmental Health Committee of the Ontario College of Family Physicians – among others….

http://www.equalityrights.org/cera/?page_id=674

Environmental Health Clinic

The Environmental Health Clinic is a unique multidisciplinary clinic, and the only one of its kind in Ontario. It was established in 1996 by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to be a provincial resource in promoting environmental health, and to improve health care for people with environment-linked conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivities.

The Environmental Health Clinic is the clinical part of a joint clinical and research program of Women’s College Hospital and the University of Toronto.

http://www.womenscollegehospital.ca/programs-and-services/environmental-health-clinic469/

This post is in response to a request.

If anyone can provide other links, including the sources mentioned by CERA, I will add them.  Thanks in advance.

HRV and MCS… an update

The HRV (heat recovery ventilator) broke down in March.

September 25th was the 1st time they came to install the new one. At that time it was discovered that neither the people ordering the HRV, the people selling HRVs, or the people installing them thought to ask if the intake and exhaust vents would be in the same location on the new machine as on the old machine.

They were not.

After a lot of humming and hawing it was decided to keep the new unit and build out more ducts to make it fit. The duct material had to be ordered in. Apparently it was special and not in stock.

They finally came back, Friday the 16th of November. Now that it is too cold out to open windows without the heating system coming on (or freezing, I still don’t have adequate safe warm clothing, but that’s another story) they came back.

And wouldn’t you know it, there is something in the new system that isn’t good for me, and, it gets sucked through the ducts whenever the heat goes on, even if the HRV is turned off.

It might be because

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