Sign of the Times: The
Ecology Center in Ann
Arbor, Mich., has announced that next Wednesday, Dec. 5,
it will release a Consumer Guide to Nontoxic Toys, timed
to coincide with the Christmas shopping season.
"At www.healthytoys.org," the center says in an e-mail
sent to media outlets, "parents will be able to check how
products rank in terms of lead, cadmium and other
chemicals that are associated with reproductive problems,
developmental and learning disabilities, hormone problems
and cancer. Toys made with PVC were also tested because
they often contain phthalates and other hazardous chemical
additives."
Insidious stuff. Itīs a scary world out there. It makes
me long for yesteryear, when the worst toy-related hazard
we kids faced was the remote possibility of a stray
projectile putting someoneīs eye out.
Clackers, anyone?
Fancy a round of
Jarts?
Noah Would Approve (or, Never Mind the Bollards):
PC World
reports that a
national recycling program in Australia, "Cartridges 4
Planet Ark," has diverted 5.5 million printer cartridges
from the nationīs landfills.
That figure sounds impressive, but not so much when you
put it next to another figure: 18 million printer
cartridges still end up in Australian landfills every
year.
The cartridges that are recycled are incorporated into
E-wood, a synthetic lumber used to make outdoor furniture,
fencing, bollards and the like.
This Car Eats Candy: Two British
environmentalists have hit the road for a three-week
trip to (where
else?) Timbuktu, Mali, in a car fueled by (what else?)
chocolate.
The two men
obtained the
experimental fuel for their trek from a British biodiesel
producer, Ecotec, which takes chocolate waste from a
confectionery factory and converts it into cheap,
eco-friendly fuel.
This item amuses me greatly because (A) I am a
chocoholic, and (B) among the four members of my household
-- my wife, two sons, and me -- my chocolate addiction
ranks perhaps No. 3 on the crave-o-meter. OK, maybe tied
for No. 2, but definitely no higher than that.
So you see, where I come from, the term chocolate
waste constitutes the ultimate oxymoron.
Pete Fehrenbach is
managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this
column are collected in
the Inbox archive
To subscribe or visit go to:
http://www.wastenews.com
