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Some Really Expensive Toilets are Terrible. Intini, J. 2006.
Maclean’s. 119(10):84. (Magazine article)
If you’re thinking about greywater for the toilet idea... not
all low-flow toilets are created equally efficient, and price is not always
indicative of a toilet’s efficiency. This and other points are made by Bill
Gualey, an engineer who tests the performance of low-flow toilets. Obviously
invested seriously in the subject, Gualey has engineered a test to gauge how
well low-flow toilets perform, and he is currently working on a new ranking
system similar to the energy star rating for appliances that will identify the
best-performing toilets for shoppers.
Flushable Diapers from gDiapers. 2007. gDiapers Homepage.
www.gdiapers.com
Here you go Mom and Dad! The official website for gDiapers
includes a wide range of information about flushable diapers. Topics include
history, environmental impact, labor and manufacturing details, customer
testimonials, and a listing of local stores that carry the product. Flushable
diapers go right into the toilet, are chlorine-free, contain no perfumes or
smell, and do not create garbage: the flushables with urine can be completely
composted in one cycle, 50 to 150 days. Watch the video on the website showing
their biodegradable qualities.
Two reasons to choose flushable diapers are to avoid sending
poop from disposable diapers to the landfill where the potential health risk and
ground water contamination from viruses and bacteria in feces are real threats,
and to flush the flushable to the wastewater treatment facility where it can be
treated safely with the rest of our human wastes. At the wastewater treatment
facility valuable nutrients can be recovered and utilized as biosolids. It is
not recommended to flush gDiapers into a septic system and some reports claim
that gDiapers may clog older toilet systems.
Flushable diapers are competitively priced with disposable
diapers, enabling a family to make the switch. This is a great option if yours
is a family with a new baby, although you do need to get used to the idea of
flushing diapers!
Additionally, we’ve had friends tell us they had great success
with buying cloth diapers on eBay or using the cloth diapers with Nikky covers
(check out the local store, Baby Works, they always have them in stock
http://www.babyworks.com/catalog/Default.asp).
While the Nikky is easy to use, they seem expensive at first. A diaper cover
costs $20 for one size, and you’ll be doing laundry more often. gDiapers are not
hard to find; they can be found at New Seasons, Whole Foods, Wild Oats, Fred
Meyer, and others.
Your Drinking Water and Pesticide Use. Abraham, H., (ed.).
2000. Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides. (Brochure)
www.pesticide.org/OF3.pdf
The Oregon Pesticide Education Network (OPEN) is an advocacy
group formed by the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP),
Oregon Environmental Council (OEC), and Oregon State Public Interest Research
Group (OSPIRG). They are all well-regarded non-governmental organizations. As
this site says, the information provided “discusses the threats that pesticides
pose to drinking water in Oregon, the weakness of protection programs, and how
the new pesticide tracking law can help address these problems”. Less than half
of Oregon’s public water systems are required to test for chemical contaminants,
and even then only every three years, and for only 29 of the 300 pesticide
ingredients. Half-hearted monitoring is not doing a very good job: lab tests
have confirmed that even banned pesticides are present in local waterways
(Drinking Water Program, Oregon Health Division 1999).
Research has shown that in communities with contaminated
drinking water, birth defects such as heart disease, urinary and genital
defects, and limb reduction defects increase significantly. Even with this data,
the EPA has set standards for acceptable levels on only 3 of 13 pesticides that
were detected in a USGS study of the Willamette Valley and the standards have
been based on economics rather than health factors. Furthermore, private,
domestic drinking water wells in Oregon are not subject to the same standards,
meaning they could be more polluted than public systems. This article provides
the reader with valuable information about state-level drinking water
regulations and an awareness of the shortcomings regarding public safety. After
reading this article, a homeowner should be moved to stop using pesticides and
possibly contact state legislators urging them to act more aggressively on this
important topic.
Protecting Our Water from Pesticides. Hassanein, N., (ed.).
February 2000. Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides.
www.pesticide.org/OF4.pdf
We hear a lot about the harm to fish and other aquatic
organisms from pesticide use and we know that pesticides often move away from
the area of application into streams and ultimately throughout watersheds. A
USGS report from the mid-90s revealed that 50 out of 80 pesticides tested were
present in Oregon’s Willamette River. In the Hood River Valley, the insecticide
azinphos-methyl was detected at 90 times the amount allowed by the State of
Oregon. This website underscores the need to test more of our rivers and reduce
the use or eliminate altogether the use of pesticides. Two common household
pesticides, atrazine (a common weed killer) and diazinon (an insecticide) are
also mentioned — indicating that homeowners can beneficially impact the water
quality in local streams and waterways by not using products with these
compounds in them.
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