Toxin Toxout

Wonderful information yet so scary! I really enjoyed this book by Bruce Lourie and Rick Smith since it's so relevant to today's chemical saturated life. They take you on their journey of living in today's toxic world and try to see how they can limit the amount of toxins they're exposed to while detoxing (or at least trying to) from the things they cannot avoid. I found this book before I heard of " Slow Death by Rubber Duck" so I'm reading part 2 before part 1 - that one is on my reading list already and will be reviewed soon as I get to it. Some fun facts I learned reading this book is: Aveda cosmetics is 100% organic, anything that a manufacturer says is part of their "secret fragrance formulation" doesn't need to be disclosed on an ingredient label - including phthalates and mercury, in 2012 a group of scientists found up to 600,000 plastic pieces per kilometer in water samples from the Great Lakes, and scientists examining birds on British Columbia's coasts found 93% of them had plastic in their stomach. But what about recycling? Shouldn't that help deal with the problem? On page 188-189 Lourie and Smith examine that and find that eventually, the garbage just gets dumped in the environment anyway. Some things get farther along the recycling chain than others but few things actually are fully broken down. One hopeful thing is Green Chemistry. The 5 underlying principles of it are outlined on page 198: 1. Standardize toxic testing protocols, 2. test products, not molecules, 3. label products, no ingredients, 4. establish timeline for companies to phase out toxic products, 5. create a network of toxicology testing centers and train a workforce of testing technicians. Hopefully it gains momentum!

#toxintoxout #brucelourie #ricksmith #environmentalhazards #greenparenting