Day 73 of our Green Year: Spreading Word of the Oil Sands

Cruising headlong into July, Layla and I were very troubled to read a story on Treehugger.com today that talked about how Alberta's library users are fined more for late fees than oil companies in the province.

According to the story, located here, library patrons in Edmonton and Calgary were fined $4 million in library fines last year. How much were the oil companies fined last year? $249,000. That is about 6.3 percent of what library users were fined in Alberta.

This is a serious problem. It was only a few months ago that about 500 birds died in a toxic tailing ponds, not to mention other environmental problems that have occurred in the past few years. Several reports from environmental organizations call the Tar Sands Projects, the most destructive project on the planet right now according to Treehugger.com

Here is a few statistics from Treehugger.com to show just how damaging it is.

• Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary, the largest city in Alberta, uses in one year.
• 90 percent of the fresh water used by the oil sands ends up in tailing ponds that are so toxic, ducks have to be kept from landing there or they will immediately die (as 500 did earlier this year.)
• The processing of the oil sands uses enough natural gas in one day to heat three million homes.
• The toxic tailing ponds are one of the largest human-made structures in the world and they can be seen from space.
• To make one barrel of oil from oil sands than from conventional oil takes three times more greenhouse gases.

Day 66 of our Green Year: Homemade Air Fresheners

Day 66 has come and it is time to make the house smell nice. Not that it smells bad, but there is something about a house that smells great. However, in most air fresheners, that smell comes at a price, and that price is your health. How bad can it be? You may not want to know....

In a study done in 2007, the Natural Resources Defense Council looked at 14 air fresheners and found that 12 contained phthalates. If you don't know what those are, then ignorance is bliss. They are a group of chemicals that are used to dissolve and carry fragrances. They can also soften plastics and companies also use them as sealants and adhesives. They are found in many products, including children's toys, and they have health consequences.
Studies have found that high exposures to Phthalates can cause cancer, sex-hormone abnormalities, development problems in children, malformed sex organs in infants and problems with fertility.

Now, you may think that buying 'all-natural' or 'unscented' air fresheners is the way to go. Well, in a study by the NRDC, they found that some of those 'all natural' products carried as much as 7,300 parts per million of phthalate content. Phthalates are also listed in California's EPA's Office of Encironmental Health Hazard Assessment as a developmental toxin.

Therefore, Layla and I are making our own air fresheners. Previously in the blog, we have mentioned how a bowl of lemon juice can freshen up a room, as can vinegar or baking soda. Well, if you want to do something a bit different, try this.

1. Take 1/2 cup of salt and a one and a half a cups of flour.
2. Mix together with some food coloring and some essential oils (Lavender for example).
3. Add 2/3 cup of boiling water
   
4. Once mixed so that it is clumpy, then form into small balls.
5. Let sit on the counter so they dry.
6. Put some more essential oil on them.

There, you have a great air freshener. There are not byproducts in this, no chemicals, it is all-natural and good for your home environment.

UPDATE: The soda is ready after sitting in the fridge for days and it is great. Really, it is very good. I love it and am going to be making more soon.

Also, if you want to see what the world will be like after cheap oil is gone (which may be happening now), then check out this CBC documentary I watched last night.

The Future Without Oil