Daily Loaf

The $500 billion beauty industry is embraces a message that tells women they must correct, conceal and camouflage. Peel away the glitz and glamour, says Stacy Malkan, co-founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, and you’ll expose the toxic truths lurking beneath the beauty industry’s seedy underbelly. Malkan shares five of the biggies that the major beauty purveyors would rather keep under wraps.

1. Many skincare products contain chemicals toxic to the skin

“A mind-boggling array of products contain chemicals that sensitize skin and trigger skin problems such as rashes, redness, acne, and other symptoms of contact dermatitis”, says Malkan, who notes that doctors often misdiagnose these problems as eczema and prescribe drugs such as steroids or immunosuppressants. Then, of course, there are the toxic chemicals that are known or suspected causes of long-term health effects such as asthma, infertility, learning disabilities, and cancer—ingredients that companies persist in including despite the fact that they “already know how to make great products without these hazardous chemicals,” she says.

2. Companies that donate to breast cancer research still use carcinogens in their products
Read the rest of this entry »

Check out this hilarious clip from the Colbert Report where Stephen sticks it to environmentalists who are against 3-ply toilet paper. It highlights the environmentalists main arguments, such as comparing what quilted toilet paper is to the paper industry what a Hummer is to the car industry.

According to Colbert, the “best, fluffiest toilet paper is made from old wood,” (meaning it’s made from trees that are decades or even centuries old) and environmentalists are taking action against the production of this commodity.

Colbert threatens to start wiping with a spotted owl if the environmentalists take away his precious plush toilet paper.

See the video after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the buzz on the latest issues in the Green Community? Check out what you may have missed this last week:

The Earth Charter: How ethics can change the world (video) – The Earth charter was created by thousands of people representing hundreds of countries aiming at a universal ethical code of conduct for human beings. How do we treat each other? How do we treat the world? These questions were raised and answered.

City of Tampa Green Business Designation Program- As of this week, the City of Tampa became one of just a handful of cities nationwide to start a green business designation program.  Outside of the West Coast (California and Washington state), Tampa will join major metropolitan areas like Philadelphia and Knoxville in rewarding private businesses that have become or want to become more environmentally-friendly.

Why buying recycled, repurposed products is so important- Preserving the Earth’s natural resources is vital to the future of the planet and all of its inhabitants. Buying recycled and repurposed products is a great way to make a positive impact on the environment by cutting back on waste and the resources needed to make new items.
Read the rest of this entry »

This Saturday, August 1 join e-tba (Emerging Tampa Bay Architects) for the third installment of Pecha Kucha.  For those not familiar with the event, designers, activists, artists, advocates and generally creative people are given 20 slides shown for 20 seconds a piece to present an idea, theme, cause, or project.

Pecha Kucha originated in Japan and takes place in over 200 cities worldwide. It was invented by Tokyo-based architects Mark Dytham and Astrid Kleins who turned PowerPoint, fixture of monotonous cubicle life, into both art form and competitive sport. Their innovation, dubbed Pecha Kucha (Japanese for “chatter”), applies a simple set of rules to presentations: exactly 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. That’s it. Say what you need to say in six minutes and 40 seconds of exquisitely matched words and images and then sit the hell down. The result, in the hands of masters of this art form, combines business meeting and poetry slam to transform corporate cliché into surprisingly compelling beat-the-clock performance art.
Read the rest of this entry »