Contaminant-Free Shopping Simplified with the IES Buyer’s Guide
Avoiding consumer products with toxic contaminants is an effective way to prevent water pollution and reduce your chemical footprint. The IES Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) project team has produced a Contaminant-Free Shopping Guide to simplify contaminant-free shopping for food and personal care and household products. The Shopping Guide includes:
- A glossary of contaminants to avoid and shopping advice for common food, personal care and household cleaning items.
- Product alternatives such as locally produced hand soap, DEET-free insect repellent, paraben-free lotions, shampoos and shave gels.
- Information on toxic preservatives found in food and food packaging, and recommended alternatives.
- Tips on how to avoid bisphenol A, a chemical found in plastics and aluminum cans.
Trees for Storm Water Management
When urbanization isn’t properly planned and managed it can dramatically alter the natural hydrology of an area, making storm water management a costly challenge. As Colorado land continues to be developed, rainfall and snowmelt runs off impervious surfaces such as buildings, roads, and parking lots into storm drains, collecting pollutants. Best Management Practices (BMPs), specifying engineered controls, have become the standard mechanism for managing storm water runoff in urban settings. Strategic tree planting can control storm water volume and pollution, often more effectively and at lower cost than engineered strategies. Trees increase soil infiltration and water filtration, to remove pollution and reduce storm flows. Despite the well-known benefits of trees for storm water management, these strategies have not been widely adopted. IES is planning a pilot project to demonstrate the effectiveness of planting trees to minimize storm water runoff and reduce pollution. The project will address multiple variables including optimal species selection and related environmental benefits. For more information, contact Ryan Moore, Tree Project Coordinator, Ryan@i4es.org.
Community Survey on Contaminants of Emerging Concern in Golden – Volunteers Welcome
IES volunteers are surveying hundreds of Golden residents on their attitudes towards and use of potentially hazardous household and personal care products. The CEC team will evaluate results to determine how Golden community members have changed their buying and usage habits in response to IES’s education campaign on preventing CECs in wastewater. Volunteers to work with IES project associates in conducting the surveys would be greatly appreciated! If you are interested in contributing one to two hours in September to help support an important environmental cause, please contact Zoe Keve, CEC Outreach Coordinator, Zoe.Keve@i4es.org. If you live in Golden, please complete a survey! Go to www.i4es.org and click on the 2010 Golden Community Survey.
IES Plans Second Community Forestry Carbon Credit Workshop
IES is planning the second workshop to discuss community forestry carbon credit projects in October, following the successful gathering of foresters, sustainability coordinators and other key stakeholders last May in Denver. The upcoming workshop will focus on how communities and businesses can collaboratively fund and implement this new type of greenhouse gas offset project for climate change mitigation and integrated environmental improvement. IES’s Guidelines for Community Forestry Carbon Credit Projects, a practical resource for people considering implementing a carbon credit project in their community, will be published this fall. To stay informed of urban forestry carbon credit workshops and publications, contact Ryan Moore, ryan@i4es.org.
Beetles, Climate, and Strategic Tree Planting
The impact of the species and health of trees on the larger environment, the heart of IES’s Tree Project, has become more evident with the outbreak of the mountain pine beetle in Colorado mountain communities. Beetle populations have spread across the state because recent winters have not brought prolonged deep-freezes to control their population. As affected trees decay, they release carbon dioxide (CO2), contributing to the greenhouse effect, allowing for further spread of the beetle.
IES’s Tree Project is designed to provide guidance to communities with atmospheric carbon reduction goals in the face of acres of dying trees. Proper species selection in revegetation efforts will be critical to balancing environmental goals. Certain species absorb more CO2 at a greater rate. Other species contribute to the formation of ozone, which worsens air quality. For more information on community tree planting efforts to achieve optimal environmental improvement, contact Ryan Moore, ryan@i4es.org.
New Standards for Ozone May Require Strategic Tree Planting
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to release stricter National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, the main component of smog, this fall, increasing pressure on communities to reduce ozone-causing emissions. The current standards were set in 2008 and are considered insufficient to protect human health, according to studies showing damage to healthy adults at allowed levels. The new standards, which EPA may implement on an accelerated schedule, will provide incentive to find additional ways to cut ozone-causing emissions. Ozone is not emitted directly, but forms through reaction of nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and sunlight. Biogenic sources – trees, shrubs, and grass – are the largest contributors to VOC emissions – larger than all anthropogenic sources combined. The IES Tree Project has developed strategies to control ozone pollution through strategic tree planting, integrated with other environmental benefits such as carbon sequestration, storm water management, water conservation, and energy conservation. For more information on the new standards, contact Susan Welch, welch_sm@i4es.org.
ChemicalFootprint.org is Under Construction
The Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) Project team is developing www.chemicalfootprint.org, the new website for CEC information, including where contaminants are found, health and environmental risks, and safe alternatives to chemicals found in everyday items such as personal care products and household cleaners. Avoiding these contaminants can be challenging. The new website will offer tools to reduce one’s exposure and impact. It will feature a Chemical Footprint Calculator, an Interactive House, and videos for steps to live a healthier, safer lifestyle. Website visitors will find convenient tools to learn how to reduce their chemical footprint. The website launch will be announced in the next Stakeholder Connection.
What Can IES Do For You?
Through our scientific research and educational outreach for The Tree Project and the Contaminants of Emerging Concern Project, IES has developed extensive resources that are available to Friends of IES and potential Friends. These include presentations, articles, and briefings on current environmental challenges such as trees and their environmental benefits, water pollution, air pollution, chemical footprints, pollution prevention, fostering sustainable behavior (community-based social marketing), urban forestry carbon credits and the mountain pine beetle’s impact on forest health. IES also offers hands-on workshops on reducing your exposure to harmful contaminants found in many everyday household and personal care products and food. If you know of opportunities for IES to provide information to audiences who share our mission -- engaging stakeholders to deliver technically sound solutions to complex environmental and health problems -- without unwanted side effects, please contact Carol Lyons, Carol@i4es.org.