In 1977, a new variable was introduced to the retail market: plastic shopping bags. The inventors and marketers of plastic bags thought they could fill a vacuum by marketing plastic bags as the solution to the problem of paper bag production: having to cut down trees. This threw the old paper bag into a funk.

Plastic bags became one of those pyrrhic victories. It won over paper but lost in helping us achieve the original goal of sustainability. Both plastic and paper came hand in hand with the single-use principle. They were convenient and easy to throw away. Such disposability has resulted in urban landscapes strewn with random plastic trash. Beyond the land, our oceans are filled with similar consumer trash. In the Northern Pacific Gyre, an area twice the size of Texasis filled with plastic. Its name, the Eastern Garbage Patch, is a lovely evocation of our postmodern era of unintended consequences and recovery. Visualize this last half century’s legacy as a whirlpool of plastic junk.

Plastic bags are also petroleum products and have all the associated problems of fossil fuels. The most immediate is the environmental and health impacts from extracting crude oil, the production of plastic and finally, its longevity. A single fragment of plastic can last for four hundred to one thousand years. As it degrades, its chemicals leak into the ecosystem and up the food chain.

Additionally, plastics have varying degrees of recyclability. More...

Some people have complained that California is overregulated and tied up in red string. But a rising national green consciousness validates one aspect of California regulation: product safety.  In 1986, Californians voted into law Proposition 65: The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act.  Prop 65, as it is better known, requires businesses to inform the state’s public about significant amounts of toxic chemicals in products purchased for the home and workplace or released into the environment.  The EPA’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) annually publishes an updated list of chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects.  Prop 65 also forbids the release of these chemicals into sources of drinking water.  Businesses are required to note the amounts used and post warnings at sites and on products.  It was a proposition that anticipated such product safety alarm triggers as last year’s consumer fears about toys manufactured in China containing lead paint.

By law, 1STOPLighting, Amazon and other lighting merchants are required to give the Prop 65 warning for products that have lead content, namely crystal products. Many manufacturers use lead crystal for chandeliers.  In the manufacturing process, they add lead oxide to molten glass to produce a product with higher brilliance.  Other common things like Christmas tree lights contain lead in their PVC insulation.  For the public, lead exposure may hinder a child’s cognitive development and other health problems. But adults, not children, are responsible for the installation, cleaning and disposal of these materials.  Please wear gloves or wash your hands after handling these products.

Product Safety isn’t just a matter of allowing consumers to make informed decisions about their health. In a larger green context, your personal health belongs to a larger exposure chain.  Chemical Body Burden is the accumulation of synthetic chemicals and metals in individual bodies.More...