While many of us are trying everything we can to reduce the amount of plastic in our lives, some inventors are working on a variety of flavored plastic to make plastic objects taste better.

PolyFlav produces LDPE plastics in two flavors - strawberry and mint - and hopes to add more in the future. The plastics are used in things like dental tools for pediatric dentists but also in food and beverage packaging.

I could see how it might be nice at the dentist or in athletic mouth guards, but overall, it seems like a bad idea. If the plastic tub my yogurt comes in tastes like strawberries, what is going to stop my dog or my toddler from grabbing it off the recycling pile and chewing it up in an unsupervised moment?

While there are lots of things that can annoy your skin after a visit to the beach, like the sand, the sunscreen and the sun, you may also be bring home some staph bacteria, according to a new study.

A study from researchers at the University of Miami showed that swimmers at crowded public beaches in the subtropical zone, such as Florida, have a 37 percent higher risk of being exposed to staph, including Methicillin- resistant staph, or MRSA. The researchers believe that the staph comes from other swimmers, and then is transferred in the water. It is also possible that the bacteria is in the sand, but even then, it would originate from other people.

The researchers recommend showering before the beach as not to deposit your own germs into the water, and showering once you leave. They also note that as long as you don't go into the water with an open wound, you should be "fine." I would also think avoiding overcrowded beaches could lessen the risk a bit, if the staph is indeed coming from people.

After using a public bathroom, are you secretly disappointed to find an air dryer to dry your hands, instead of some good old-fashioned paper towels? Well now, according to this study via Effect Measure, you can use a safety reason to justify your preference.

A study of paper towels and warm air dryers looked four areas: drying efficiency, bacteria counts on hands before and after, potential contamination of other users and bacterial sampling.

On bacterial counts, paper towels were found to reduce the number of all types of bacteria on the fingerpads by up to 76% and on the palms up to 77%. Here's the real shocker though: The warm air dryers increased the number of bacteria on the fingerpads by 194% and on the palms by 254%.

The authors of the study conclude that the use of warm air dryers and jet dryers "should be carefully considered in locations where hygiene is of paramount importance.

Here's something to think about- heavier people have a larger carbon footprint. If two people are the same height and do the same things overall, the heavier person will have a larger carbon footprint.

It will take more power for your car to move you around, which will use up more gasoline. And, theoretically, heavier people would be eating a bit more, adding to food miles, production, etc. It's an interesting thing to add to your reasons to lose weight and something I hadn't considered before.

If you combine some things like walking or biking instead of using the car and eating more locally produced vegetables you'll be accomplishing green goals and hopefully, losing some weight in the process.

We all remember Beijing's monumental -- and sometimes overzealous -- attempt to make last year's Olympic Games a little easier on the planet. Since then, they've cracked down on vehicle emissions and made some small improvements to their air quality, but they might want to reevaluate the way they party. Despite their efforts, it appears that one massive fireworks display celebrating the lunar new year was so incredibly dirty that it caused Beijing's pollution levels to triple overnight.

Not to mention, it got so out of control that an errant rocket crashed into the 34 floor Mandarin Oriental Hotel setting the unfinished, yet already iconic, skyscraper ablaze. Not super great for the environment. According to the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, particulate levels reached 810 micrograms per cubic meter in some places. To put that in context, the WHO's standard for long term exposure is a concentration of 20micrograms per cubic meter. So, to answer a question I asked last 4th of July -- yes, your fireworks can blow up the environment.

[via Treehugger]

The Blacksmith Institute, a New York-based non-profit, has found a non-confrontational technique to embarrass major polluters into action: put them on a worldwide top 10 list of shame. What could be better? Instead of following the traditional model and fighting expensive courtroom battles, Blacksmith sends their reps all over the world to hunt for the most polluted sites, ranking them by the danger they pose to the human life around them -- and of course identifying the polluter.

By publishing the results of the Global Inventory Project -- a list of the world's most polluted sites (nearly all in the developing world) -- the Blacksmith Institute helps to bring the shame that often times isn't felt by the industrial polluters without a little public ridicule. Strange how that works isn't it? In that way, these toxic crusaders encourage companies to clean up their own mess. Some even seek out the agency to find out how to get their name removed. For the Blacksmith scientists the 2009 hunting season has just begun. If you've got a site you'd like to nominate, you can do so online.

I try to buy organic whenever I can - when it is a food that would easily absorb pesticides, and when my wallet can afford it and I'm guessing you probably do the same thing. There are other places besides the produce department to look out for pesticides though, some of which might surprise you.

• Coffee - go for organic. Coffee comes from tropical places with lots of bugs, which could mean lots of pesticides if it's not organic.
  
• Milk - organic milk comes from cows that are fed pesticide-free food, and that's a good thing.
  
• Toothpaste - look for brands without triclosan, especially if you are currently (or considering) breastfeeding since it leeches into breastmilk. It's not good for guys to brush with pesticides either though!
• Make your food at home - that way you have control over the ingredients, can include organics and know what your family is eating.
  
• Skip fruit-based soft drinks - the fruit used is probably treated with pesticides, which are then in the drink. Go for water or organic juice if you need some liquid fruitiness.
  
• Chocolate - cheap chocolate uses cheap ingredients, which are likely to include some pesticide residues. So, go for organic on this one. Quality over quantity wins in this area.
  

Also consider what you are using for bug spray, lawn and garden care and weed killers and such in your own yard. You're much more directly exposed to those types of chemicals than any you are getting through food.

Have you ever tried to find an ingredients list for a bottle of dish soap? It's nearly impossible. Sometimes mainstream corporations will publish ingredients on their website but more often than not, their formula is so secret that they won't tell you what you putting on your dishes. This very issue is what drove a lawsuit against the likes of Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive by environmentalists.

Six different organizations including the Sierra Club and the American Lung Association have banded together to file suit against several detergent making companies. Representing the claimants is Earthjustice, a non-profit public interest law firm in New York.

The crux of the suit falls on the New York's Environmental Conservation Law passed in 1976 that requires companies to file ingredients lists semiannually with the State of New York. Not surprisingly, the only two companies who have been in compliance are Method and Seventh Generation. The rest were put on notice last September.

I would like to see more ingredients listed on detergents that line the shelves. Then again, I spend most of my time cleaning with vinegar.

Firefighters often use a foam to douse a fire instead of water because it reduces the damage water can do to property. They are also useful in fighting petroleum-based fires. The foams have been used for decades, but any made before 2002 likely include PFOs and PFOAs. PFO is a chemical from the family of perfluorochemicals.

They do not break down in water or in humans and animals. The chemicals, used frequently in 3M products until 2002, have been shown to do liver damage, cause birth defects and impair growth in off-spring of animals that were exposed to the chemical while pregnant. It's They are also likely carcinogens.

While 3M no longer makes products with PFOs, fire departments have stockpiles of the foam containing these chemicals, and recent testing in Minnesota shows that the chemical is entering surface water, and staying there. The levels in several suburban, natural lakes were well above state health guidelines. The chemicals likely arrived in the water via the sewer systems: waste water treatment plants aren't designed to remove PFOAs.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency will begin testing communities around the state to see if groundwater has been affected. Firefighting News believes this could have national implications.

If you're a wind power fan like me, you're probably thinking: oh great, here we go again. This is by no means the first time wind turbines have been blamed for a smattering of health problems, but the most recent outbreak of what is being called "wind turbine disease" sounds somewhat legit. According to the Japanese press, over 70 residents living near wind farms are complaining of ill health, which they believe stems from low frequency sounds emitted from the turbines.

The Okawa family, living only 350 meters (less than a quarter mile) from one turbine, reported symptoms like dizziness, numbness, and insomnia soon after the turbine was activated. To test their suspicions, they rented an apartment away from the turbines to sleep each night, where they say symptoms quickly dissipated. Acoustics experts tested their home and found that extremely low frequencies were present in the Okawa home, but reassured them that low frequencies weren't harmful. With so many complaints, the Japanese Environmental Ministry has stepped in to investigate the health effects of these vibrations.

[via CleanTechnica]

Gwyneth Paltrow writes a bloggy-newsletter thingy called GOOP, with all sorts of tips from Gwyneth herself on health, fashion, home, parenting, life. You can enjoy GOOP straight from the website or sign up for the weekly newsletter that will promptly end up in your spam folder if you're me.

Back around the New Year, GOOP focused on detoxing, and Paltrow talked about her experience with the Master Cleanse. The Master Cleanse consists of consuming only lemonade made from lemon or lime juice, maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper. According to Paltrow, it caused her to hallucinate. Nice. She then asked her doctor about it and he advised her that the Master Cleanse could be dangerous and that one can safely "detox" while eating food, as long you cut out whatever is presumably toxic.

So what's the real deal on detox diets and do they work? According to Dr. Michael Picco at the Mayo Clinic, people do report feeling better after a detox diet, which can include cutting out meat, sugar, certain grains, dairy, alcohol and caffeine. Picco says that this feeling of well-being could come from a feeling that you are doing something good for yourself, or could come from calorie restriction, which can lead to feelings of heightened well-being. However, there is no evidence that detox diets remove toxins from the body and most toxins are removed by the kidneys and liver and excreted.

According to Dr. Picco, there can be dangerous side effects of some detox diets including headaches, anemia, low blood sugar and irregular heartbeats. I would assume hallucinating, like Paltrow did, is also not a good sign.

In short, the best detox diet is a good everyday diet, based on fruits, veggies, whole grains and lean sources of protein, along with exercise and stress reduction techniques.

Have you ever tried a detox diet?

Join the Green Challenge every month and make one small change to help the environment. Keep us posted on your progress throughout the month and keep an eye out for spectacular giveaways.

I did a big grocery shopping run over the weekend. I hate to admit that something as simple as shopping for groceries has gotten out of hand for me. I now shop two stores. I choose Whole Foods for various specialty items in addition to dairy, organic produce and chocolate croissants (doesn't everyone?!). I save the big stores for everything else. That's where I found myself on Sunday.

Throughout history, society's mass fears have worked their way into the quaint psychoses of each generation. Whether it's the threat of nuclear annihilation, AIDS, going to school in your underwear, or just about anything else that you can have bad dreams about, seemingly unrelated cases of mental illness can be fixated on a single delusion. These days, psychiatrists are tracking an outbreak of freak outs that all seem to hinge on the fear of global warming.

Doctors are calling it climate change delusion. The first case was recorded in Australia, when a 17 year old boy was admitted to a psychiatric unit because he refused to drink water, believing that it would result in millions of deaths. Now, doctors are noting a rise in all kinds of psychosis and anxiety disorders that center around climate change. At this point it seems important to study whether climate change is creating mass hysteria, or whether it's a topic of societal obsession seized on by susceptible minds.

Either way, if your starting to feel that climate change paranoia is dominating your every move, you might consider taking An Inconvenient Truth out of your DVD player and ignoring mass media -- except Green Daily -- for a little while.

I posted on the bed bug problem spreading across the U.S. last month, but I never got around to thanking the people who wrote in with their own approaches to dealing with a bed bug infestation.

Here are a few of the things I heard.

Aaron Edwards was featured in the photo I posted of a man attacked by bed bugs. He says a friend in Brooklyn had an infestation and used an electronic device from Good Life to get rid of the creatures. The Pest Repeller Ultimate uses "Super Sonic and Electro-Vibrawave Technology" to drive indoor pests mad. The consumer guide doesn't mention bed bugs, but Edwards says his friend washed all of his clothing and linens well, then turned on the device, and hasn't had a problem since.

Thomas wrote that Kleen-Free Naturally worked for him. The product is non-toxic, but it does eat away at the exoskeleton of bed bugs. The trick with this product is that you must locate the bed bugs and spray the formula on them. The Bedbug Terminator is a new item of theirs, EPA exempt. They say all of their products are environmentally safe, and have conducted studies. No information, however, is available on what exactly their products are made of.

Finally, Chris from Xero Bugs wrote in to mention his cedar oil based cleaning products. The smell Cedar-cide is toxic to pests, much like ammonia to humans. These products are not safe for plants, but they are safe for people and animals. Best Yet Insect Spray can be applied to the skin to form a barrier against bed bugs, as well as applied to areas that are infested with bed bugs and other insects. The product description boasts instant death for bed bugs, and is considered a minimum risk pesticide.

Salmonella tainted peanut butter strikes again and this time it is in packets of peanut butter in military Meal-Ready-To-Eat (MRE) packages that FEMA passed out to victims of Hurricane Ike in Texas and now the ice storms in Kentucky and Arkansas.

MREs already distributed in Kentucky were being recalled and those in Arkansas have not been passed out yet according to news sources. Those with the meals are being advised to throw out the peanut butter packets included. The remainder of the meal is safe to eat.