Doing it for Ourselves

(promoted for excellent content and in hopes that this will become a series in the future. Many informative comments, too – promoted by Cronesense)

This is the first in what I hope will be a continuous series here in Dharmaland. This series will be about the broad theme of self reliance. Each week’s post will have a different topic or focus, though I hope people will use the comments to talk about whatever their self-reliant interests and specialties might be or ask questions that others can answer. I also hope people who have a special topic they’d like to cover in more depth will pipe up and run the show now and then. Today’s installment will focus on how to find out about hazardous materials found in our own homes.

As a way of further introducing this series I’d like to tell you a bit about my background. I grew up in a classic nukular post WW II household where if anything broke it was sent out for servicing. My parents didn’t know how to repair anything. They both grew up during the depression and had left their working class roots behind for the Jetson’s suburban lifestyle of the early 60’s, which is when I popped out.

My entire world view was altered when as a young thing I dropped out of college to live on a small farm. I learned to grind flour from grain and make bread from scratch. I learned to milk a cow and make butter and yogurt. I learned to grow vegetables and how to can them. I learned to kill a chicken with my bare hands and how to slaughter it. I learned how to shear a sheep and how to spin and weave its wool. I learned how to prime a pump and irrigate a field and how to bale hay and shuck the bales. I learned to use a chainsaw and how to fell a tree and split it’s wood. I even nearly became a certified auto mechanic at the local community college so that I could help fix the beaters and the tractors.

I later moved (after finishing college) back out to the land to an intentional community in the woods where I helped build the house I lived in and helped dig the spring from which I drank. Our eventual meager 12 volt electricity came from car batteries and everything else was passive solar, wood heated or propane run, well, except for our rototiller, chainsaws, motorcycles and automobiles. We never did bother to get a telephone.

Those years of living close to the land and on not very much money gave me an excellent foundation for survival skills. Though I now again live a pretty suburban existence due to the requirements of my chosen profession and I am very much back on the grid, I know I could make do again with much less and I would know how to do it.  Given the current political climate and the effects of Republican rule I think we may need to strengthen our self reliant skills.

I’d also like to offer this community the skills and knowledge I’ve acquired as one who works in the field of historic preservation. I repair and preserve antiques, cultural artifacts and art objects of the three dimensional sort made of a wide variety of materials.  I will focus on some of that specialty in future editions, but if anyone has any questions about how to repair or care for things to make them last,  feel free to ask. Now on to the topic at hand…

Hazards in our homes
I’m sure you’ve all heard the news over the last several months of all the recalls of pet food, our food, toys and other commodities due to the presence of lead and other toxic chemicals. I’m also fairly certain that the trust level of the membership here is as likely as skeptical as mine regarding current government agencies that are supposed to be looking out for our health and safety. I’ve come to believe that we really need to look out for ourselves and arm ourselves with as much information as possible. Knowledge is power.

One way to find out about the safety of the products we bring into our homes is to investigate their ingredients or composition. There are now many sites available on the tubes with databases that provide excellent information about chemicals and their health effects. Another way to protect ourselves from potential hazards is to physically test whether toxic materials are present. I often use chemical spot tests and commercially available testing kits to characterize materials in my work in historic preservation. I have also used such tests to analyze my tap water, it’s a good starting indicator for when I’d need to use something like easy and quick plumbing services in Sydney.

Good sources for info

Household products

Household Products Database:  This database allows you to search by product type, product name and by chemicals. The search results then link to all kinds of other sites for more specific information on health and safety. You can use it to compare products within a specific genre to find those with the safest ingredients. For example, compare the ingredients in these three general cleansers:

  —Lysol disinfectant

  —Formula 409

  —Earth friendly Orange Plus :

Another good source of information is the National Resources Defense Council

  This page Toxic chemicals at home has some great articles.
  This page on Green Living also provides all kinds of useful tips.

Recalls

US FDA Recalls, Market withdrawls & Safety Alerts
This site provides the latest information on recalls issues from the Food and Drug Administration in list form.

US Consumer Product Safety Commission
This site also provides information about recalled products
For example, here is there list of  all recent toy recalls

Below are links to specific lists with photos and links to more information of items recently recalled due to lead contamination, all from the Centers for  Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Toys – lead related recalls

Crafts – lead related recalls

Children’s jewelry – lead related recalls

Office supplies – lead related recalls

Clothing – lead related recalls

Furniture – lead related recalls

Foodware – lead related recalls

-  Cost Plus Speckleware beverage container recall due to suspected lead

Lead
One of the biggest concerns right now is the extent of lead contamination of products being made in China intended for children. Lead is a heavy metal and is cumulative in effect. It is extremely dangerous for children as it detrimentally and permanently affects their mental development.

Here are a number of informational resources about the lead problem:

CDC Lead Poisoning Information

National Safety Council, Lead fact sheets 

There are many ways in which humans are exposed to lead: through deteriorating paint, household dust, bare soil, air, drinking water, food, ceramics, home remedies, hair dyes and other cosmetics. Much of this lead is of microscopic size, invisible to the naked eye. More often than not, children with elevated blood lead levels are exposed to lead in their own home.

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Until 1978, lead paint was commonly used on the interiors and exteriors of our homes. Today, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) estimates that about 38 million homes in the US still contain some lead paint.

The best way to determine whether you or anyone in your household has been exposed to lead is through a blood test performed by your physician. The spot tests I will discuss in a minute only qualitatively indicate the presence of the metal, but do not provide any quantitative or diagnostic information.

There are many different health effects associated with elevated blood lead levels. Young children under the age of six are especially vulnerable to lead’s harmful health effects, because their brains and central nervous system are still being formed. For them, even very low levels of exposure can result in reduced IQ, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, behavioral problems, stunted growth, impaired hearing, and kidney damage. At high levels of exposure, a child may become mentally retarded, fall into a coma, and even die from lead poisoning.

Snip

In adults, lead can increase blood pressure and cause fertility problems, nerve disorders, muscle and joint pain, irritability, and memory or concentration problems. It takes a significantly greater level of exposure to lead for adults than it does for kids to sustain adverse health effects.

Snip

When a pregnant woman has an elevated blood lead level, that lead can easily be transferred to the fetus, as lead crosses the placenta. In fact, pregnancy itself can cause lead to be released from the bone, where lead is stored-often for decades-after it first enters the blood stream. (The same process can occur with the onset of menopause.) Once the lead is released from the mother’s bones, it re-enters the blood stream and can end up in the fetus.

Here is some information about lead in drinking water.

Although there is no “safe” level of lead in water, the EPA has established an “action level” for lead in drinking water at 15 parts per billion. All drinking water that does not come from wells is treated before it reaches the service lines that direct the water to individual residences, thereby removing any lead that may be present in the water at its source. However, lead can still leach into drinking water from certain types of plumbing materials, such as lead pipes, lead solder, brass faucets and some water meter components.

Arsenic is also a problem in drinking water around the country as you can see in this image below. For a useful discussion or arsenicals in our water, see this from the National Resources Defense Council, Arsenic in Water 

Testing for Lead and other metallic ions

There are many test kits available these days from inexpensive lead test kits like the two immediately below, which you should be able to find in any hardware store.
Lead Inspector Spot Test

Lead in paint test kit

You may also purchase more specialized testing kits, still not too expensive, for analyzing your drinking water, such as from this company:
Discover Testing.com

Then there are the more expensive and more accurate EM Quant test strips, which are generally only available through scientific supply companies. These ion specific dip strips provide a rapid method for the detection and semi-quantitative determination of cations and ions in solution. Each Quant is provided in a package of 100 dip strips along with color scale and instructions.

Here are two different suppliers with links to the several tests available. These are the brand I use for material characterization in my lab/studio.

Cole Parmer
VWR Lab Shop

As I mentioned above, the test strips aren’t the end all be all of testing. They only indicate the presence of something and don’t quantify how much is there, or how hazardous the amount there is. They are also not always accurate depending on shelf life and such. Studies have shown that they can  give false positives, though false negative are rare. Think of them as a first step in screening. If a positive result is given you can make a decision to test further from there or dispose of whatever you are testing to be on the safe side, unless of course it is the walls of your house you are testing. Then you need to find out about abatement procedures.

There are other far more accurate qualitative and quantitative tests that require specialized laboratories such as Atomic absorption spectrophotometry , X-ray electron spectrometry , Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, scanning electron microscopy and the more recent hand held X-ray fluorescence devices.

I would recommend that anyone concerned about lead or other toxins in the home to do initial screening with the do it yourself tests and then have your physician run blood tests to determine if there has been exposure, because that is what the real concern is, particularly with children.

And on that happy note, I wish you all a very good weekend. I promise the next one won’t be so scary!

Other Helpful On Line Toxicity and Health & Safety Resources:
ATSDR Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry 
ToxFAQ
Toxnet (US National Library of Medicine) 
Medline Plus (US National Library of Medicine /National Institute of Health)

Conclusion:
Stay away from Heavy Metal! It will make you sick and ruin your ears!

I hope this essay will stay visible throughout the day so that people can drop by and share their backgrounds a bit, talk about self reliance and ask any questions they might have. I’ll check in throughout the day.

Also, if you think this series should be posted at a different time or on a different day, let me know in the comments.

Thanks! 🙂

~CD