Ensuring Chemical Safety in Food Packaging: Migration Testing for Sustainability and Health

Ensuring Chemical Safety in Food Packaging: Migration Testing for Sustainability and Health

Food packaging testing involves testing of any packaging material that contains food items. Food packaging testing helps manufacturers ensure that the packaging on their food items is functional, and of course, safe – for both people and the environment.

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Environmentally Friendly Ways to Manage Infestations of These 5 Pests in The Home

Environmentally Friendly Ways to Manage Infestations of These 5 Pests in The Home

Knowing how best to deal with pest infestations without the use of harsh chemicals can be challenging. Pesticides, poisons, and other commercial pest control products can damage the environment and harm wildlife. If you’re dealing with an infestation or hope to prevent one from happening in the first place, there are better ways to handle it than with harsh chemicals.

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How Did the Water Contamination at Camp Lejeune Start?

How Did the Water Contamination at Camp Lejeune Start?

Camp Lejeune is a United States Marine Corps base located in Jacksonville, North Carolina. The base was established in 1941 and served as a training and deployment center for Marines and their families for decades. However, it has also been the site of one of the worst cases of water contamination in American history. Find out more about the situation and how to file a lawsuit if you or a family member is experiencing the side effects of consuming unsafe water. This article will examine the history of water contamination at Camp Lejeune, including how it started, the impact it had on the health of those who lived and worked there, and the government's response to the contamination.

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How is formaldehyde exposure affecting your health?

How is formaldehyde exposure affecting your health?

Back in 2015, a predictable public outrage and panic followed the "60 Minutes" report that blamed Lumber Liquidators for offering laminate flooring, manufactured in China, that was tainted with larger-than-permitted levels of formaldehyde. The company immediately went into damage control mode, offering buyers free home air quality test kits among other things. Many people who purchased the tainted products wondered whether the flooring had already done irreparable harm to their health.

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The Impact of Black Mold Exposure on Your Health

The Impact of Black Mold Exposure on Your Health

Guest post by Claire Zimmerman

Black mold can grow on different surfaces around your house and it might be the cause of certain health concerns without you realizing it. Therefore, you must understand what mold is and what it can do to your health and that of your loved ones. By learning about this, you can identify the signs and symptoms of mold exposure and make sure you tackle the issue before it compromises your health.

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Stay Healthy at Home with Natural Pesticide Solutions

Stay Healthy at Home with Natural Pesticide Solutions

Guest post by Jaclyn Crawford

Pesticides are some of the most toxic chemicals to be found around the home — and unfortunately, they are found around the home all too often. Consider the risks. According to the National Cancer Institute, childhood cancer has increased nearly 30 percent since pesticides became commonly used household products. In addition to the cancer link, chemicals found in pesticides have been associated with allergies, birth defects, and even psychological disorders.

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What if we could see exhaust emissions?

What if we could see exhaust emissions?

guest post by Select Car Leasing

Have you ever been walking down a busy high-street and been overcome by the smell of exhaust fumes from cars passing by? The air in front of you seems to be clear, but the smell is overwhelming. This is because once the initial white smoke comes out of a car exhaust and dissipates, harmful chemicals remain in the air but appear invisible to the human eye.

Research by The Independent used an infra-red camera to look at a bus stopped at some traffic lights surrounded by cyclists and shoppers. The camera showed that harmful particles such as nitrogen oxides were swirling around the cyclists and being blown to the other side of the street, where they would balloon up into the shoppers’ faces without them knowing.

It makes you wonder how differently we would feel if the chemicals emitted from car exhausts were visible in the air around us.

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DDT was banned long ago, so why is it still affecting your health?

DDT was banned long ago, so why is it still affecting your health?

The New Year always encourages us to look ahead to the (hopefully brighter) future, but sometimes moving ahead means reconciling with the past. The lingering presence of DDT, and its continued effects on the health of the environment and, really, most of us, is one stark reminder of how harmful practices of the recent past continue to threaten lives in the present.

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What You Should Know about Radon Poisoning

What You Should Know about Radon Poisoning

(updated November 14, 2022)

Guest post by propertEco

A killer might be lurking in your house: no, it is not a person, but an invisible odorless and colorless gas known as radon. Radon gas is formed when the uranium that is naturally present in the ground decays. The gas that travels to the surface of the earth is called Radon.

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Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals: How to Reduce their Impact on Your Family’s Health

Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals: How to Reduce their Impact on Your Family’s Health

What are endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs)?

Many of the chemicals that are included in the personal care products we use every day are endocrine disruptors (EDCs). EDCs are a class of synthetic chemicals that have been clinically proven to interfere with the normal functioning of the endocrine system in the bodies of humans and some animals. The endocrine system regulates the metabolism and function of the body. Endocrine glands secrete hormones that act on our organs through cognate receptors. Some of these hormones regulate brain and reproductive functions, including reproduction.

Common ECDs that you may have heard about include BPA, phthalates, dioxins, and organochlorine pesticides like DDT and DDE. Altogether, over 800 chemicals are known to be endocrine disrupting, although only a small number of these have been tested to determine their overall effects on human and environmental health. However, what is clear is that levels of exposure to EDCs have been steadily increasing over the years, as has the incidence of disorders and diseases known to be caused by EDCs. While everyone has been exposed to ECDs, children are particularly vulnerable to their health effects.

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10 Ways that Endocrine Disruptors are Screwing up your Health

10 Ways that Endocrine Disruptors are Screwing up your Health

We are all exposed to endocrine disruptors like BPA, dioxin, lead, arsenic, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals. Here's a list of what they can do to the human body and the environment, along with a resource to help you minimize your exposure to these harmful synthetic chemicals.

 

 

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The Health Dangers of Prolonged Mold Exposure

The Health Dangers of Prolonged Mold Exposure

guest post by R.S. Hall

Mold is a word used to describe an array of spore-producing fungi. Mildew is another term for certain types of mold and is generally associated with the growth in showers and tubs. These allergens pose a health risk, particularly with prolonged exposure.

While the mold growing in your shower may be obvious, there are many places in your home where you may have an undetected patch lurking, such as inside the walls. Although it prefers a warm, damp environment, the spores can survive in less hospitable conditions and wait to land in a moist area. You and your family may come in contact with the spores and begin to experience troubling symptoms before you realize what is causing these health challenges.

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Are BPA-free plastics still poisoning you?

Are BPA-free plastics still poisoning you?

In my book on toxic chemicals, I wrote about the health effects of Bisphenol-A (BPA) as being pervasive: this chemical compound, found in plastics and even in some cash register receipts, has been linked to problems with metabolism, behavior, reproduction, the development of placentas and stem cells, and the growth of cancerous tumors. BPA has been blamed (at least in part) for obesity, diabetes, asthma, infertility, and even…

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Why Your Mattress May be Making You Sick

Why Your Mattress May be Making You Sick

Chemical sensitivity affects an unknown number of sufferers worldwide. As I explained in a post that went live on November 27th, chemical sensitivity (also known by other names like multiple chemical sensitivity, idiopathic environmental intolerance, environmental illness, and environmental sensitivity) is the name given to a chronic medical condition in which the sufferer becomes sick or experiences one or more allergy-like reactions after being exposed to toxic chemicals at doses that have generally been deemed safe for humans.

Organizations now exist to help MCS sufferers find a physician who is experienced in diagnosing and treating this condition. However, there has generally been little support from doctors for patients who are suffering from the effects of their exposure to toxic chemicals. As the story of Anna[i], a woman I interviewed last September will show, MCS is poorly understood within the medical community, and it can take a sufferer months or years to figure out what is causing her ill health.

[i] a pseudonym

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Are you chemically sensitive? Why MCS may be the answer to your unexplained illness.

Are you chemically sensitive? Why MCS may be the answer to your unexplained illness.

While working on a blog post about one woman’s experience of debilitating illness after being exposed to toxic chemicals, I realized that at the heart of this story is an issue that is poorly understood, and under-discussed within the medical industry. It’s called Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), and no one really knows how many people are affected by it. Basically, it is a chronic medical condition in which a person becomes sick, or exhibits allergy-like reactions to chemicals that he or she has become exposed to at doses that are generally considered safe for humans.

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