Why is BPA the only concern?

The humble rubber duck made from Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) receives less recognition as a harmful product but places equal health concerns to Bisphenol A (BPA).

The term ‘BPA-free’ is well-known due to the Australian Government’s regulated actions in 2010 to declare a voluntary phase out of Bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles. Research has found BPA to cause numerous health concerns due to its ability to percolate food and beverages, however the chemical Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) used in many everyday products places equal health concerns but is significantly less recognised.

Similar to BPA, PVC contains phthalates to make the plastic soft and malleable and is used in various consumer products including raincoats, shoes and rubber duck bath toys. PVC is currently one of the most common plastics produced and is made using numerous toxic chemicals that are harmful to both humans and the environment including lead, cadmium, organotins, colourants, fire-retardants, anti-oxidants and phthalates. Approximately 95 per cent of phthalates made in the world are produced specifically for the production of flexible PVC attributing it to the world highest environmental pollutant.

The use of BPA and PVC in certain consumer products is banned or restricted in many countries around the world including Europe and the United States of America. Australia is very slow to prohibit the use of certain chemicals that other countries have ruled out and I feel that as consumers we shouldn’t leave it up to the regulators. Consumers are choosing products that are being put before them by companies that are purely profit-driven.

As a society, we need to make a different choice that has no questions around its safety. There are many products on the market that offer a natural alternative to chemical produced plastics. Natural rubber is nontoxic to humans and biodegradable as opposed to chemical produced plastics that can take over 450 years to decompose. So why do we continuing to produce toxic plastic when we have safe and natural alternative?

I believe it is up to us as a society to decide what is good for ourselves, our families and the environment and we can influence change through our purchasing power. So why choose a PVC synthetic rubber duckie when you can choose a truly from nature rubber duckie?

Make a change by signing our petition to ban Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) in products for children under 12 years of age in Australia!

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Fighting to save my home reefs | WWF-Australia BLOG

We recommend a read of this informative and engaging blog post from WWF team member, Nick Heath > Fighting to save my home reefs | WWF-Australia BLOG  Nick's connection with the Great Barrier Reef began from a young age on his father's dive boat and he writes about the decline he sees in the Great Barrier Reef today.


Among the issues, Nick explains "We’ve learned that outdated farm practices cause 14 million tonnes of mud, fertilizer and pesticides to pollute up to 700 reefs within the World Heritage Area every year, where the mud kills the inshore seagrass habitats of turtles and dugong. A thousand turtles died last year from causes related to seagrass loss."

He talks about the work by WWF to fight for the reef and achievements such as the fishing ban across 33 percent of the reef. There is still much work to do -- and you can help by sending a message to Queensland politicians before the 26 March election. See the link at the end of Nick's post.

Introducing this environmental message to children
One of our favourite children's books at Biome is Kim Toft's "The World that we Want" (pictured above).  Each illustration has been exquisitely created by hand painting on silk.  The World That We Want brings to centre stage the rare beauty and fragile environment of North Queensland and its native inhabitants of this great land for all to share.

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Spending for positive change

For all of us concerned about the earth's precious and limited resources, Christmas time really stretches and strains our conscience.  We think carefully about the purchases we are making, about whether they are necessary and whether they are responsbile.

At Biome Eco Stores, we agonise over finding the balance between encouraging consumption at Christmas and operating a viable business.  For any retail business, and particularly one like ours that operates at the margins, Christmas is vital to our survival throughout the rest of the year.

Our mission at Biome has to be two-pronged - one is to help everyone who visits our stores make a difference to the planet, and secondly, to continue to exist so that we may help people with those choices!

While loading the brilliant new range of Tegu magnetic building blocks onto our website, there was the reminder we needed about what we are doing.  In the below video, the founder of Tegu, Chris Haughey says that parents will always spend money on toys for their children.  Tegu's aim is to help people spend that money where it will have a positive social impact.

As Chris explains, Tegu is a "for profit" engine for positive social change in Honduras. Being able to support businesses like Tegu is what makes us at Biome happy!

Some of us choose to live a minimalist, buy nothing life, and some of us choose to consume with a conscience.  Obviously, Biome is a store for the later - but, we have great respect for the former!
 
For every product we choose to stock, we run through our selection criteria assessing what the product is made from, where it is made, who made it and under what conditions, how long will it last and what will happen to it at the end of its life.

We need stores such as ours with an ethical and eco focus to ask the questions and demand standards that profit focussed retailers overlook.

Thinking about reduce & recycle at Christmas

Planet Ark has produced an excellent list  "The 12 do's of Christmas" (thank you to our facebook friend for letting us know about this!).  All very easily achieveable actions to help you reduce and recycle this Christmas.  Ideas like:

• Buy good quality decorations that can be reused many times, or make your own from reused materials.
• Gather all your steel bottle caps and save them in one can, then fold down and send the whole lot off to recycling.
• When giving new electronics, recycle the old electronics - Planet Ark's RecyclingNearYou.com.au has an excellent resource on where to find places to recycle just about anything.
• Invest in a battery recharger for your home and give rechargeable batteries with gifts.

Introducing Tegu magnetic wooden blocks

Tegu's product designer talks about the thought process and 'maths' behind Tegu's magnetic wooden building blocks, which have the unique ability to build stronger minds for children.

See the Tegu range available in Australia at Biome.  Visit here for our green christmas ideas.

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Recycling, the art of re-invention

 

A gorgeous new product we have in store at Biome has inspired this post for Planet Ark's National Recycling Week being celebrated right now.

Made from reclaimed cotton shirts, this little recycle yourself doll on a key fob is accompanied by a booklet that tells its story from cotton on the bush transforming to a smart business shirt, then to a discarded shirt, before its re-invention into this quirky doll.  As the story concludes: 
And today, someone who reminds you that in your heart you have the strength to recycle yourself into whatever you want to be.

Isn't that so true about all recycling?  A material or an ingredient has a useful life in one form, but when that use comes to an end there are so many ways it can be re-invented, re-loved, re-used or upcycled. Upcycled being the term de rigueur that refers to the process of converting waste or useless products into new materials or products of better quality.

We don't recycle at Biome - well not much...

With all the deliveries of stock we receive in our stores, we gather a mountain of cardboard boxes and stuffing of various kinds from bubble wrap to polystyrene beads, shredded paper and compostable beads - but we take joy in not recycling.  Don't panic!  We re-use -- rather than recycle -- as much as we can.  Where ever we can re-box (as in re-use a box) or re-stuff (re-use stuffing materials) we will.  In fact, we even have our neighbours on the bandwagon.  The restaurant gives us their wine cartons, the laundromat gives us freebie magazines and the coffee shop gives us boxes.  They love it because their bins are less full and we love it because we don't have to buy boxes and stuff.  Some of our suppliers send re-boxes to us as well, then we use them again to send to you...so that is at least three useful lives before any more energy is used to recycle them!

Where can I recycle certain things?

Planet Ark's Recycling Near You program is gold. That is, Planet Ark deserves a gold medal for all their incredible work to promote education and uptake on recycling.  They have a telephone hotline, or, visit the website where you can type in your location and it delivers links on where you can recycle certain things.

The page for recycling in the Brisbane area has a wealth of leads.  For example, one link tells me what materials I can put in the household kerbside recycling bin in Brisbane
All these materials are collected:

• Glass Bottles and Jars (but not drinking glasses and plates)
• Aluminium Cans
• Aluminium Foil
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Office Paper
• Envelopes Without a Window
• Envelopes With a Window
• Phone Books
• Pizza Boxes (scrape the food out, some grease is ok)
• Egg Cartons (unless you know someone with chickens that can reuse them)
• Cardboard
• Steel Food Cans (does a magnet stick to it? it's steel if it does)
• Steel Paint Cans (empty)
• Steel Aerosol Cans (empty)
• Milk cartons
• Juice cartons
• Tin-plate or aluminium lids from steel food cans
• Plastics marked with
   

The last one is great news - they accept all plastics marked from 1 to 6, which is pretty much most firm plastics these days.  This was not always the case.
We aim to ensure that every plastic item stocked at Biome has a recycling symbol stamped on it - without that symbol there is no hope of it being recycled.

If you are into re-crafting, there are so many books and internet resources on how to make new things from old things.
Happy re-inventing!

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Easter gift ideas

Painting Easter Eggs with Natural Paints
GLOB arts and crafts paints are made from fruits, vegetables, flowers and spices with natural food-grade ingredients - like Berry Blue, Pomegranate, Basil Green and Plum Purple. They even smell fresh & fruity!
Art pigments (colors) are commonly made from petrochemicals and ingredients are rarely listed on the packaging.  Arts and crafts paints often contain lead, cadmium, and other toxic ingredients like formaldehyde, one of the most common paint preservatives.

Here's a quick recipe for using GLOB paints to colour Easter Eggs.
Mix 1/4 tsp of GLOB powder with a 1/4 tsp of water using a brush.  Brush on eggs with a thin layer of paint. Dab off excess with a tissue. Set to dry.
For darker colors apply a second coat. Or, repaint over with a different color to make interesting hues.

Dyeing eggs using fruit, vegetables and spices
Boil eggs in a mixture of fruits, vegetables and spices found around the home to create lovely natural coloured eggs.  Adding vinegar to the water produces a deeper colour.

Dyeing eggs red has a special religious significance at Easter.  Create red using one of these:
Lots of Red Onions Skins
Canned Cherries with Juice
Pomegranate Juice
Raspberries

This About.com website has a great table with ideas on how to create different dye colours like yellow, blue, green and pink with all sorts of natural ingredients.  Some ingredients can just be soaked in cold water, but some need to be boiled to bring out the colour.

Fairtrade chocolate
 
What are you thinking of for an Easter gift? A little indulgence can go a long way by supporting Fair trade chocolate.    Choose from fairtrade, organic, Australian-made and vegan chocolate bars, chocolate eggs and bunnies!
 
Organic Cotton Maud n Lil Bunny

Velvety soft delicious organic cotton bunnies that are beautifully made from certified organic cotton with a natural filling.  They are designed in Australia and hand made in a socially compliance audited factory to the highest quality, health and safety standards.

Chicken love

Book: Zen and the Art of Raising Chickens

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A message from the Zen Tails books

Our online team has this postcard near the phone for inspiration when they are speaking to our customers - possibly you!  We have written a lot on the blog recently about people and companies speaking the truth (or shades of the truth) and I thought this message sums it up perfectly.

This image of Guru Walter Wombat is from the captivating Zen Tails series of books by Australian author Peter Whitfield (available from the children's book section of Biome).  Zen Tails are classical philosophical tales adapted and beautifully illustrated for children.  Each book contains a moral as well as the original Zen Tale.

As Peter says, the messages he teaches are thousands of years old and developed by far wiser souls than himself. I feel there are many adult business leaders who would benefit from the wisdom in these children's books.  

© Walter Wombat image is provided by courtesy of Zen Tails and can not be reproduced.

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Landcare calls on everyone to help

Landcare Australia and Coastcare are calling on all Australians to join their register of volunteers to help our country and planet.

Landcare's Your Planet Needs You campaign aims to make it easy for you to sign up to a volunteer register to say what skills you can offer. Everyone can help, whether it be pulling weeds, making coffee, transporting equipment, designing or distributing posters to promoting events within your company.

On World Environment Day, Landcare staged a flash mob event to promote Your Planet Needs You. Look at those awesome inflatable globes being tossed around... Biome's Earth Balls. We were very chuffed that Landcare chose our Earth Balls for the fun. And, yes, among the celebs in this photo is French ‘Spiderman’ and climate campaigner Alain Robert (who else could look so cool in a red suit?).

Check out the Flickr album with more photos of the Landcare event

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