November 19th is World Toilet Day, an international day of recognition started in 2001 to highlight one of the world’s biggest problems — inadequate sanitation for 2.5 billion people. Unfortunately, millions of people dying from poor sanitation is no laughing matter. One in three people do not have a safe, clean and private toilet.

Most of the people without access to a clean toilet live in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Illnesses that are a direct result of bad sanitation affect the quality of life of millions of people around the world, especially children. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), diarrheal diseases alone are responsible for the deaths of 2 million people every year, and it’s estimated that 88% of those deaths are attributable to unsafe water supply, sanitation and hygiene. Diarrheal diseases are the second most common cause of death of young children in developing countries, killing more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined, and resulting in 1 death every 20 seconds.

The positive effects of a clean toilet on society lead to a healthy life, greater human dignity, freedom, equality between women, men, girls and boys, and finally, a catalyst to the development of communities and countries. There is a strong link between the absence of good sanitation and poverty. The economic growth in Europe and North America went hand in hand when the sanitary conditions improved markedly, resulting in individual health gains and increased labor productivity. Toilets are a symbol of better health, higher income, more education, higher social status and a cleaner living environment.

During this Thanksgiving week, let’s be thankful to our access to clean, private, and sanitary toilet facilities. In the meantime, take a moment to consider global sanitation and how you can help: http://www.worldtoiletday.org/learn.php

Continue reading →

Earth Day is right around the corner. Are you ready to Mobilize the Earth™? More than one billion people around the globe are expected to participate in Earth Day 2012, which is on Sunday, April 22^nd. It’s a dedicated day for all nationalities to voice their appreciation for the planet and demand its protection in hopes of a sustainable future.

Since Earth Day is a day for action, it’s the perfect chance to show how important the environment is to you. Individuals, organizations, and governments should all do their part.

Stumped what you can do for Earth Day? Here are a few ideas:

• Bring your own reusable shopping bags to the store. There’s no need for a proliferation of plastic and paper bags, which are so bad for our environment.
• Pledge to use paper carefully and encourage others to do so, too. Opt to go paperless wherever possible.
• Encourage healthier eating habits. Try to eat a sustainable healthy plantarian, pure vegetarian, vegan diet. Support your local farmer’s markets for fresh local produce. They usually grow organic vegetables which are better for our environment and your body as they don’t use harmful pesticides or fertilizers. Or better yet, grow your own garden and make sure not to use any pesticides or harmful fertilizers.
• Conserve water. Take shorter showers. Try to limit showers to 10 minutes or less. Also, switch off the tap while brushing.
• Conserve electricity. Turn off the lights if you don’t need them, and never leave your laptop ON when not using it. Use ceiling fans in the summer and winter months for climate control. Replace older light bulbs with energy-efficient CFL or LED bulbs.
• Raise awareness about Earth Day. Continue to educate yourself and others on how to save our resources and act green. A good resource is the Earth Day site: www.earthday.org
• Walk or bike instead of driving places if you can. It will help reduce our dependence on oil.
• Lower Use of Bottled Water/Beverages. Although it may be convenient, purchasing bottled water should be avoided if possible. Try filling reusable containers with tap water and leaving them in your fridge as an alternative.
• Finally, plant a tree. Besides producing oxygen and removing carbon dioxide and contaminants from the air, trees provide other numerous social, economic, and environmental benefits.

What will you do to honor Earth Day?

Image by Yann Arthus Bertrand Continue reading →

We drew awareness to World Water Day and the troubling statistic that 1 in 8 people do not have access to clean water. Clean water is good, but that doesn’t mean we need to infiltrate the environment with plastic water bottles. Unfortunately, the growth of plastic pollution continues to devastate our earth in alarming rates. Sadly, every square mile of ocean has about 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in it.

Here are a few sobering facts regarding just plastic bags. Yikes.

Fast Facts on Plastic Bags

• Over 1 trillion plastic bags are used every year worldwide. Look at this link http://plasticbagbanreport.com/ that counts the number of plastic bags consumed this year (as of this writing, almost 113 billion).
• About 1 million plastic bags are used every minute. The U.S. goes through 100 billion single-use plastic bags. This costs retailers about $4 billion a year.
• Plastic bags are the second-most common type of ocean refuse, after cigarette butts (2008).
• Plastic bags remain toxic even after they break down and a single plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to degrade.
• An estimated 3,960,000 tons of plastic bags, sack and wraps were produced in 2008. Of those, 3,570,000 tons (90%) were discarded. This is almost triple the amount discarded the first year plastic bag numbers were tracked (1,230,000 tons in 1980). (EPA)

So what does this mean?

The extremely slow decomposition rate of plastic bags leaves them drifting on the ocean for countless years. According to Algalita Marine Research Foundation, these plastic bags then cause the death of many marine animals (fish, sea turtles, etc.), when animals mistake them for food.

Moreover, when plastics break down, they don’t biodegrade; they photodegrade. This means the materials break down to smaller fragments which readily soak up toxins. They then contaminate soil, waterways, and animals upon digestion.

In order to stop this growing environmental hazard, we need to limit our plastic bag use and encourage a cultural shift away from use-and-toss culture. We encourage starting using re-usable bags since each reusable bag can eliminate thousands of plastic bags.

Finally, encourage your home state, similar to California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Washington, to enact plastic bag bans, or impose a tax for those who need to use a plastic bag.

We can all make a difference with just these little steps. Let’s ensure the ocean and our marine animals are safe! Continue reading →