Happy Earth Day

Here are FIVE quick things you can do today to make your surroundings healthier! Remember just ONE SMALL ACTION can make a REALLY BIG DIFFERENCE! #1 Watch TOXIC BREW. Invest just 20 minutes of your time for this Canadian "MarketPlace" TV show. Go to www.theglobalsuccessteam.net, then "Click Here to Enter Site." Then click on "TOXIC BREW MOVIE." #2 GO THROUGH YOUR BATHROOM, KITCHEN, LAUNDRY, GARAGE, AND YARD. As you go, dump Febreze, Clorox, Listerine and other toxic products. This information may shock you! This is not from a "kook" source! To find out what's lurking on your shelves, click here: the National Institutes of Health Library of Medicine Household Products Database. You can search almost any brand of product you use daily, find out what's in it, and uncover its links to health effects. Or search by chemical ingredients (see list below for some examples) and discover what brands contain it. Chemical ingredients to look out for: Sodium Hydroxide, Hydrochloric acid, Butyl cellosolve (2-Butoxyethanol), Formaldehyde, Bleach (sodium hypochlorite), Ammonia, Sulfamic Acid, Petroleum distillates, Sulfuric acid, Lye (potassium hydroxide), Morpholine. Did you know that women at home have a 54% higher risk of cancer? And that a study linked that statistic to harmful household cleaners? Let's turn that around fast! [SAVE THIS FOR FUTURE REFERENCE: http://www.householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/products.htm] #3 CREATE A SHOPPING LIST. How soon can you switch brands to safe alternatives? I can help you figure out some transition orders of non-toxic make up, daily care items, shampoos, conditioners, baby products--as well as nutrition products that help bodies detox. Do it all at once or little by little. Our GET CLEAN kit of cleaners for $150 (featured 5 times on Oprah) saves you from buying $3400 worth of the "bad stuff." The large kit makes a big impact as it keeps 108 pounds of packaging waste out of landfills, eliminates 248 pounds of greenhouse gases, and is the equivalent of planting 10 trees. A smaller HEALTHY HOME kit is a great gift for weddings, showers, etc. #4 CALCULATE YOUR HOUSEHOLD'S CARBON EMISSIONS. It's easy. Go to SHAKLEE's page at American Forests http://www.americanforests.org/campaigns/shaklee/ and fill in info about your cars, your heating/air, etc. When you push "calculate," you're shown how many trees you could plant to erase your CO2 footprint on the earth, and offset your pollution. #5 JOIN OUR SHAKLEE MILLION TREES/MILLION DREAMS campaign by planting as many trees as you can! Did you know that a mature tree absorbs between 120-240 pounds per year of small particles and gases, like carbon-dioxide, which are released into the air by cars and industry? A single tree also produces nearly three-quarters of the oxygen required for one person; and a canopy of trees in an urban environment can slash smog levels up to six percent. American Forests reports that just 25,000 acres of forest can offset the equivalent emissions of 10 billion automobile miles. And you can plant right online! My faves are http://www.americanforests.org/, or http://www.arborday.org/shopping/gifts.cfm, or http://www.treesftf.org/main.htm, or http://www.treegreetings.com/

The Real Dirt on Clean

Are you really living in a healthy home?

You know that good, healthy feeling you get when you've just cleaned house? Sorry to spoil it, but you may have just made your home dirtier.

Think of it this way. You wouldn't let your kids play with toxic chemicals, so why would you let the baby crawl over a floor that's just been wiped with them? That's much more dangerous than the orange juice that was just there.

How dangerous? Just take a look at these statistics.

• Over 90% of poison exposures happen at home.
• Common bleach is the #1 household chemical involved in poisoning.
• Organic pollutants, found in many common cleaners and even air fresheners, are 2 to 5 times higher inside your home than out.
• A person who spends 15 minutes cleaning scale off shower walls could inhale three times the "acute one-hour exposure limit" for glycol ether-containing products set by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
• Common cleaners give off fumes that have been linked to increasing the risk of your kids developing asthma, the most common serious chronic childhood disease.
• 1 in 13 school-aged children has asthma. Rates in children under five have increased more than 160% from 1980 ? 1994.
• Children are highly vulnerable to chemical toxicants. Pound for pound of body weight, children drink more water, eat more food and breathe more air than adults. The implication of this is that children will have substantially heavier exposures than adults to any toxicants that are present in water, food or air.
• If your home is anything like the average U.S. home, you generate more than 20 pounds of household hazardous waste each year (the EPA designates toilet cleaners, tub and tile cleaners, oven cleaners, and bleach as hazardous waste)