Uh oh! Looks like my time outside yesterday left me sunburnt — entirely my fault, of course, as I didn’t update my sunscreen application as the day went on. So now here I am with hideous white stripes on my back where my tank top was and bright red patches everywhere else the sun hit. I partially blame the unusually nice weather in mid September for my screw up. Shouldn’t it be Fall right now? I haven’t even broken out my sweaters yet.

Don’t have an aloe plant? Here are some other around-the-house tips for treating a sunburn without having to invest in nasty chemicals or lotions. They worked very well for me, try them out yourself!

• Use honey as a salve — put a healthy smear of it onto the burnt areas. It apparently helps ease the pain and helps to encourage the healing process.
• Liquify some potatoes. I know, sounds weird, right? But potato paste can be applied to the sunburn and when it dries, it sucks all the excess moisture (what’s keeping it hot and burning) out of your skin.

These more eco-friendly ways to treat a sunburn have the added benefit of having great odds of being in your home just when you need them. I don’t always have pain killers or burn spray in my medicine cabinet, but 99% of the time I have potatoes!

As I’m sure plenty of you reading know by now, SIGG bottles manufactured before August 2008 have recently been found to contain Bisphenol-A (BPA) in their liners. I know it’s bad, but… what exactly is BPA?

Turns out that BPA is a chemical used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins and is part of a group of molecules known as ‘endocrine disruptors’.

Endocrine disruptors are defined by the National Institute of Health as

“…naturally occurring compounds or man-made chemicals that may interfere with the production or activity of hormones of the endocrine system leading to adverse health effects. Many of these chemicals have been linked with developmental, reproductive, neural, immune, and other problems in wildlife and laboratory animals. Some scientists think these chemicals also are adversely affecting human health in similar ways resulting in declined fertility and increased incidences or progression of some diseases including endometriosis and cancers.”

Eeep! Way to let us all down, SIGG! And I was so proud of you recently, too. Look into your reusable bottles before you buy them, folks!

[via]

Thanks to nanoparticle “inks” you’ll soon be able to print off solar panels just like you would newspaper. And if that’s not futuristic enough for you, why not paint your roof in nanoparticle paint?

These products will apparently work as well as any other kind of solar cell to absorb electricity-producing sunlight and will cost only a tenth of what current solar panels cost.

Shown recently in an issue of Journal of the American Chemical Society, the inks must be printed on plastic substrate or stainless steel.

“You’d have to paint the light-absorbing material and a few other layers as well,” Korgel said. “This is one step in the direction towards paintable solar cells.”

[via]

So why eat organic foods anyway? Why are they better than your average grocery store fare? Well, for one, organic foods are foods that aren’t covered in chemicals such as insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers. I, for example, am violently allergic to a lot of preservatives and a lot of these spray chemicals trigger the same reaction: sore stomach, headache, nausea, blurred vision, cold sweat… I could go on. And it can be a bad scene for those who aren’t even allergic to any chemicals, too!

Plenty of EPA-approved pesticides were approved a long time ago –before research linked these chemicals to cancer and other debilitating diseases. Currently the EPA considers 60% of all herbicides, a whopping 90% of all fungicides and 30% of all insecticides to be potentially carcinogenic.

Taste is an individual matter, but many gourmet chefs are choosing to use organic foods in the recipes, due to the superior flavour and quality of these products. A growing number of consumers — including yours truly as part of my attempt to go green — are also claiming that organic food tastes better.

I mean, doesn’t it make sense to you that foods grown naturally in well-balanced soils and ripened by the big, happy summer sun will be healthier and tastier than products raised on a diet of smelly, wildlife and bug-killing chemicals? Then they’re sprayed with preservatives that allow them to sit for months in storage (I could make a really easy movie star joke here, but I’ll leave that one along). What are these chemicals and preservatives doing to your insides? Do you think it’s possible that they’re strong enough to kill pests, make plants grow faster/bigger, and last for weeks on a shelf without having a negative affect on your insides? I don’t know first hand, but I’m sceptical at best.

Try organic food for yourself and see what you think — is it tastier? Does it smell better? Check out the ‘Organic Recipe Friday’ section and try out some of the recipes. I guarantee you’ll find some that you love!

Drop me a line and let me know!

Alright, this might be the coolest DIY I’ve ever stumbled upon!

How to make eco-graffiti — no spray paint, markers, or nasty toxic chemicals, just… moss! I have a few friends who are guerrilla gardeners here in Ottawa and I’m definitely going to recommend to them that they try this out.

The moss continues to grow and changes patterns — it really is living art. How creative is that? Living and breathing art!

I, for one, could definitely see decorating the back of my house in a giant green piece of art. It’d really be something to see it move and grow over the summer. Maybe next year!

How-to: How to make moss graffiti

A hydrogen car uses hydrogen as its onboard fuel for motive power. Wikipedia tells me that the power plants of such vehicles convert the chemical energy of hydrogen to torque (or mechanical energy) in one of two methods: combustion, or electrochemical conversion in a fuel-cell:

• In hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicles, the hydrogen is combusted in engines in fundamentally the same method as traditional internal combustion engine vehicles.
• In fuel-cell conversion, the hydrogen is reacted with oxygen to produce water and electricity, the latter being used to power an electric traction motor.

It goes on to say that hydrogen is one of two natural elements that combine to make water — oh hey, something I knew! Thank you, bio-chem! What you may not know, however, is that hydrogen is not an energy source itself, but an energy carrier because it takes a great deal of energy to extract it from water.

After reading about Jesse James looking to beat the landspeed record with a hydrogen-burning car, I wanted to look into what dangers may be lurking with such a feat.

Here’s what I came up with (with some help, of course):

The show spots on tv aren’t really saying much about the car that Jesse will be using and there’s not much info about it online, so it’s hard to know how it will compare to what’s already been done.

The current land speed record for a hydrogen-powered vehicle is 286.476 mph (461.038 km/h) set by Ohio State University’s Buckeye Bullet 2, which achieved a “flying-mile” speed of 280.007 mph (450.628 km/h) at the Bonneville Salt Flats in August 2008. For production-style vehicles, the current record for a hydrogen-powered vehicle is 333.38 km/h (207.2 mph) set by a prototype Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999 Fuel Cell Race Car at Bonneville Salt Flats in Wendover, Utah in August 2007. It was accompanied by a large compressed oxygen tank to increase power. Jesse James is going to have to beat 333.38 km/h!

But what we really want to know, of course, is how dangerous is this stunt? I mean, they bill all of his stunts as being super dangerous and death-defying. Well, I’m no rocket scientist — err at least not a hydrogen-powered rocket scientist — so I searched and came up with a great site for you, my readers. Here’s all you’d ever need to learn about hydrogen!

H2 and You

Read, learn, and enjoy! It took me a few times through, but I think I’ve got the general idea.

No more will I let my brain make the connection between the hydrogen and the Hindenburg (whose shell was basically covered with solid rocket fuel, incidentally). More on that? Right here.

Hydrogen has the ability to help us improve the environment, reduce fuel imports and create green jobs. Why do you think so many companies are pursuing it? Because they already understand the great things it can do.

Growing up, my family wasn’t too concerned with the environment — I mean, it’s not that we had a hate for it or anything, we were just… indifferent, I suppose.

In talking to my mom about it yesterday, she said that the reason we weren’t a more eco-friendly family was because of financial reasons rather than moral ones. We lived in a very small town. The grocery store was accordingly small — the type where broccoli only came in one variety — broccoli… nevermind organic. We were lucky to have a choice between 2 or maybe 3 varieties of apples, though still no organic ones.

Thinking about this kind of amazes me though, as the town was a farming town.

Now here’s what Gwyneth Paltrow’s upbringing was like — nearly the opposite of mine (not that I thought my childhood would be at all similar to Gwyneth Paltrow’s, heh).

“My mom has always been conscious of the environment and health issues. When I was growing up, we would go to farmers’ markets and even had wheatgrass in the kitchen. She started a curbside recycling program in Santa Monica, CA, in the seventies, and each week I drove with her to the recycling center.

Keep reading Gwyneth Paltrow on her super-eco-friendly childhood:

I remember watching a Sesame Street clip (or was it Mister Rogers?) about glass recycling when I was a kid but I definitely spent more time being wowed by the conveyor belts of pretty coloured bottles than actually learning about glass recycling.

So here are the straight facts!
Everything you ever wanted to know about glass recycling.

• Citrus oil is your friend
• Rub a bar of soap directly onto the bug bite. Now, for all of you nay-sayers… no, there is no scientific proof behind this one. But try it, it works!
• Ice cubes can numb the itch temporarily
• A paste made from baking soda and water applied to the bite can work to dry it out and relieve itching (works for me every time)
• Apply a banana peel (inside towards your skin) to the bug bit. Banana peels contain polysaccharides that help soothe the skin.
• Lavender and tea tree oil. The tea tree oil works as a natural disinfectant and lavender oil is an anti-inflammatory. And hey, it smells pretty good too!

When I think of hazardous waste, I think of a big, yellow bucket with a radioactive symbol on the front. And that radiative bucket makes me think of Ninja Turtles. And Ninja Turtles are awesome. So here’s my conclusion:

Hazardous waste = Radiation, Radiation = Ninja Turtles, Ninja Turtles = Awesome

Therefore: Hazardous waste = Awesome.

But for some reason I have this nagging feeling that my conclusions are miscalculated, or at the very least misguided.

So here it is, the simple facts of hazardous and industrial waste. **

What is industrial waste?

Material – for example, certain chemicals or even very hot water—left over from a manufacturing process. It can be harmful sometimes and may pollute the water and the environment if not treated and/or disposed of properly.

How are these types of wastes generated?

• Hazardous wastes are primarily generated by industrial and manufacturing processes; however they can also be generated from the commercial and institutional sectors, and from households. Hazardous wastes include a broad range of materials such as manufacturing residues (e.g. waste acids, contaminated sludges and complex chemicals), biomedical wastes from hospitals, spent photo finishing chemicals, waste pesticides, PCBs, motor oil, unused cleaning products from homes and discarded batteries.
• Most materials are consumed during use. Some hazardous materials, however, may no longer be required, such as laboratory chemicals, some may have reached the end of their lifespan, such as batteries and used oil, and some may have been found to be a health or environmental concern, such as leaded paint and asbestos. These hazardous materials, and sometimes their containers, become waste and must be disposed of safely.

Types of Waste

Toxic Waste – waste that can produce injury if inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the skin.
Chemical Waste – waste of a chemical nature that can cause harm.

How to Get Rid of Hazardous and Industrial Waste Safely

There is a hierarchy of options when choosing a disposal option for material that is waste at a particular site:

1. Re-use or return If the material can’t be re-used at the facility where it is waste, it may be useful at a nearby federal facility. Alternatively, the manufacturer may accept return of unused product.
2. Recycle Can the waste be returned to the manufacturers for recycle?
3. Reject Waste may be properly disposed of at provincially licensed landfills or by licensed haulers at licensed waste facilities.

**I apologize — there are no Ninja Turtles in this story. In fact, it’s entirely likely that a turtle exposed to this kind of sludge would painfully and oh-so-alarmingly… melt.

[via]