Your right to know!

The Health and Environment Alliance (along with a number of other organisations)have created a leaflet as a part of the Chemicals Health Monitor Project. The aim of the leaflet is to ensure that key scientific evidence on the links between chemicals and health are placed within policy making as soon as possible.

The leaflet includes a sample letter that one can use to request information about chemicals and ingredients from companies as well as a link for the respective obligations companies have to consumers.

Print it out....use it....share it!!

http://www.chemicalshealthmonitor.org/IMG/pdf/REACH_consumers_FINAL.pdf

New year, new you!

WEN invites you to....the launch of the new WEN Careful Beauty Checklist hosted by Jo Fairley (author of the Green Beauty Bible and founder of Green &Blacks) at Neal’s Yard.

Come and find out about safe alternatives and have a go at making your own cosmetics. Get informed about the thousands of potentially harmful chemicals used in skincare products and the effect on our health.



Please join us at:
Neal’s Yard Remedies, 124b King’s Road, London SW3 4TR
6.30-8.30pm
Wednesday 28 January 2009

(organic wine, nibbles and a goodie bag included)

Choosing our Future

The Health and Environment Alliance and David Ratte have published a dark yet humourous comic strip to highlight of chemicals one comes in contact with on a daily basis. The stories illustrate the association between exposure to manmade chemicals and adverse health affects such as asthma, allergies, cancers, reproductive disorders and hormone disruption, to name a few.

The publication is titled “Choosing our Future – For A Healthier Life, Consume Chemicals in Moderation!” and is in both English and French. The comic can be downloaded from www.choosingourfuture.eu

Please forward to all your friends and why not comment on this blog what your thoughts are on the strip!

Top 5 Eco-holiday tips

Thank you to Deborah and the Vale of Evesham WEN for sharing their ideas for the upcoming holiday season.

1. Buy Local & Organic

- Concentrate on quality rather than quantity (it seems a very common problem to buy too much food at this time of year)! Plus it is much healthier and cheaper if you bake your own mince pies etc.than to buy the pre-pack stuff

2. Make your own gifts

- Eco, personal and fun! Try making herbal oat bath sachets out of muslin and ribbon, which can be washed after use and remade.

- Most importantly when gift buying make sure your gift is tailored to the person & won't end up in landfill by January! If in doubt go for a charity gift or voucher.

3. Decorate Naturally

- Try holly, ivy, mistletoe and evergreen boughs on picture frames
- Use icing sugar coated pinecones, dried leaves and berries for table decoration
- Try making your own vegetable wax candles.
- Use oranges with cloves or dried orange segments for the tree
- Get the kids involved with old cereal boxes, egg boxes and recycled foil!

4. Save Energy

- LED Lights last a long time
- remember to turn off the lights when you go out and when you go to bed.

5. Recycle, reuse, rewrap

- Buy recycled brown paper and pretty ribbon,avoiding the need for tape altogether and then use the same stuff year after year!
- Use last year's cards to make this year's gift tags or even as part of your own homemade cards
- Try gift bags that can be used time and again.

If you have any hot tops tips you would like to share with other like minded individuals, perhaps even have a delicious low carbon recipe you'd like to share, please comment on this entry and share the link with your friends!

If you have any additional entries you would like to see on here, please email health@wen.org.uk with what you would like to have added.

Using the Blog

Dear WEN friends,
It has come to my attention that it is a bit difficult to add things to the blog. Perhaps, we will have to explore other options on how to use the tool.

Have a look around the site and please do comment on any previous post or idea you are interested in.....OR email me at health@wen.org.uk with BLOG POST as the subject and the idea you would like to see on the blog. I will try to put it online each Wednesday.

Hopefully this will work for the moment and if anyone has any thoughts on how to create a blog site that enables more posting and interaction please comment to this site!

Hope that helps! Thank you all for your continued interest!

Laureen
London Local Groups and Health Officer.

the plastic debate continues.....

It was interesting reading about your group's plastics discussion and one area which I'd like to know more about is the question of which plastics are likely to be most toxic and what products they are in. I believe that Bisphenol is a 'baddy' and is present in lots of plastic products although it has been banned in Canada and also by the EU for products used by young children.

My grandchildren and their friends go to school hugging a plastic water bottle which has one of those pull-out tops which are often chewed when they are pulled out using the teeth. The two schools attended by my grandchildren both ask children to bring bottles of water to school presumably because they don't have access to water in school. Have the water drinking fountains which were a familiar and well-used essential in schools in days past disappeared from schools? If so, why? If the reason is 'health and safety' my guess is that a child's health is more at risk from chewing on plastic than from using the same drinking fountain as their friends!

I'd be really interested to hear whether all schools now ask children to bring a plastic bottle filled with water to school. In addition to the potential risk from toxic plastic, just think about the massive land-fill problem produced if each child has a bottle. Or two or three each to allow for lost bottles. Then there is the hastle each morning when we can't find the bottle just when we are rushing to get to school .. and the moans when the bottle is left in school at the end of the day. We desparatley need a campaign outlawing the need to take a bottle of water to school!!!

Eileen Peck
(S E Essex Group)

Nobody likes a nag?

Upon coming back to a very crowded inbox after my annual leave, I stumbled across a fun, interestingly presented, quirky website that introduces a different way to be informed and aware.

http://www.thenag.net

The basic idea??

To create a sustainable lifestyle is through what they call 'nagging'.

However, it's not as daunting as it sounds. The Nag desires to "make it easy for people to do one thing each month to contribute to a more sustainable lifestyle." Through low-effort, high impact activities and action, The Nag promotes and expresses a number of ethical, carbon friendly, community driven efforts.

It is a fun website to explore and check out and could be a source of ideas for locals group discussions and events.

Have a look and let us know what you think?