Today I’m celebrating Rachel Carson’s birthday with my guest Patricia DeMarco PhD. In 1962 Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, the book about toxic pesticides that laid the groundowork for the environmental movement and the establishment of the EPA. But she also wrote many other books and papers as a naturalist. Today we will be talking about what Rachel left us and what we can still learn from her work today. Patricia has been a Rachel Carson scholar since 2005, with service as the Executive Director of the Rachel Carson Homestead Association and as the Director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University. She writes and speaks extensively on the environmental ethic of Rachel Carson and her relevance to modern times. She is currently writing a book titled “Pathways to Our Sustainable Future.” www.rachelcarson.org/ | www.rachelcarsoncouncil.org | www.rachel_carson_homestead.myupsite.com

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
An Environmental Ethic for the 21st Century—Without Toxic Chemicals

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Patricia DeMarco

Date of Broadcast: March 27, 2014

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free. And we just had a long weekend. It’s Tuesday, May 27, 2014. And it’s Rachel Carson’s’ birthday. I’m so excited because, as those of you who have been listening now, I do love Rachel Carson and we talked about her on Earth Day—and you can go listen to that show too.

But today, I have one of my guests back who was here on Earth Day talking about Rachel Carson then. Her name is Patricia DeMarco, Ph.D. And she’s a Rachel Carson scholar. She’s going to be telling us today about—she’s actually writing a book called Pathways to Our Sustainable Future, which is about what she knows about what Rachel Carson has left us—her legacy—and how we can apply that today, what we can learn from that today to move forward in creating our toxic free world.

One of the things that I’m very interested in about—Patricia sent me her first chapter of the book. And one of the things that really was interesting to me is that, in my own life, I long ago made a decision that—well actually, I had a realization that the way to get out of living toxic is to live in harmony with nature. And I’m reading her chapter, and she says that Rachel Carson says exactly the same thing. So, great minds think alike.

And so, we’re here today to hear more about what Rachel Carson has to say about how we can move beyond our toxic world with Patricia DeMarco.

Hi, Patricia. Thanks for being here.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Hi, Debra. How are you?

DEBRA: I’m really good.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: It’s my pleasure to be here.

DEBRA: Thank you. It’s a pleasure for me to have you. And let’s say happy birthday to Rachel Carson.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Happy birthday!

DEBRA: And I was just reading again your wonderful first chapter this morning, and two sentences are my favorites. The first one is:
“The planet earth operates on a set of natural laws, to the most extent ignored in the crafting of human laws that drive the economy.”

And then you also say:
“It’s our challenge to transition quickly from a fossil-dependent economy to an economic system operating on renewable and sustainable basis in harmony with the natural laws of the universe.”

And I just put a big star next to that last one and wrote, “Yes!” In the margin, a big yes.

But the thing that I ran into when I had my realization about that was, “Okay that makes perfect sense.” And for me it was a time when I was looking for some solution. If I’m not going to live according to the toxic industrial way, what can I use as a model? What can I use as a basis?

I was living out in a forest at the time. I just looked around and said, “Ah! Well, nature knows how to do it. If we weren’t doing these toxic things, nature would just sustain life.” And there are laws. And everything, even human beings, operate by those laws.

But then the question is, “What are those laws? And how can we actually apply them?”

Before we get into that though, I want you to tell us how did you get interested in this subject?

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: I was given a copy of Silent Spring by my Dad for a high school graduation present. And it just came out the fall before my graduation. So Rachel Carson was one of my heroes.

But I had lived all over the world by the time I was out of high school. My father was in the Foreign Service, so we moved every two years to a different country, which means I didn’t have the same kind of peer group that people get whenever they’re in first grade to high school—the same bunch of people from the same town.

So, similar to many people who travel all around during their growing up, I developed an interest in the natural life that was around me—butterflies in particular, and also creatures of the sea because we often lived on the sea shore.

And that really stayed with me as an interest in biology for most of my life. And I have my degree in biology in fact.

DEBRA: So then you have this interest. And then what made you decide to be a Rachel Carson scholar?

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Well, I have been away from Pittsburgh for about almost 30 years, working in energy and environmental policy in both Connecticut and Alaska. I came home to Pittsburgh in 2005 partly because my parents have died, and I needed to be closer to my family. And Alaska is a long, long way from Pittsburgh.

So, it happens that Rachel Carson Homestead was seeking a director. And I took the five years contract to help them look at homestead, rebuild it and restore it to [programmatic] functioning—which I did between 2005 and 2010.

DEBRA: Well, you know what? Until yesterday, I didn’t actually know there was a Rachel Carson homestead. But I looked it up. I was looking for some links we could put on ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com that would lead people to more information about Rachel Carson. And I found the website for the homestead.

So, could you tell us a little bit about that? That’s exactly the kind of thing I love to go to when I travel.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Well, the best link for information on Rachel Carson is RachelCarson.org, which is Linda Lear’s website. And she is the biographer, the […] biographer of Rachel Carson. There’s a wealth of information there.

Also, if you go to the Fish and Wildlife Service, FWS.gov, they have preserved there all of her original papers—the conservation and action papers and much of her writings.

And so, those are both really good sources.

If you want to visit the places that were important to her, she was born in Springdale PA, on the Alleghemy River, which is where the way to Carson homestead is. And they are restoring it now to the four room farmhouse configuration that it held when the Carsons lived there.

Now, she was not there for very long. And when she graduated from college at what was then the Pennsylvania College for Women, now Chatham University, she then went on with her studies and her work outside of Pittsburgh and really didn’t come back until about 1952 when she received an honorary degree.

There also is a Rachel Carson Refuge in Maine nearby where she lived and wrote Silent Spring and where her family still has a little cottage in I believe Southport, Maine.

And then, in Silver Spring, Maryland, the house where she lived when she was working in Washington—and even until the end of her life—was in Silver Spring, Maryland. And you can find out about that in the Rachel Carson’s Council.

DEBRA: Yes. I’d put the links for RachelCarson.org, and the Rachel Carson Council, and the Rachel Carson Homestead on ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com next your interview. So people can go there, and also click through to get a copy of Silent Spring, if you don’t already have one and a copy of Rachel Carson’s biography, which I’m in the middle of reading. It’s very excellent.

So, can you tell us—one of the things that I noticed about myself actually is that I tend to think not the way the rest of society is thinking. It’s like I have my own thoughts. And I like people who have their own thoughts. I see that in Rachel Carson. I see it in a lot of people who are thinking differently ahead of their time, that instead of just following along with what society is saying, that they’re looking for themselves and observing the world from themselves and making their own conclusions.

Can you speak about her? What was it about her that she could, not only observe life differently, that she could see what was going on, but then speak out about it?

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Well, there are some interesting things about Rachel Carson. First of all, her mother was in the [Nancy Comb] arena of children’s education. And she believed that nature was the best teacher.

DEBRA: Wow!

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: So, during the time that she was growing up, they had about 58 acres of undeveloped land in their immediate neighborhood. They lived on a graveled road. And it wasn’t built up the way it is now. So, Rachel and her mother would have many, many times where they could just roam the woods and fields—

DEBRA: I need to interrupt you for a second. I want you to continue your story after the break. But we need to go to the break because the commercial’s going to start.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And we’re here with Patricia Demarco. We’re talking about Rachel Carson on her birthday. Sorry I had to interrupt you, but I was listening to you. I’m so engrossed that I forgot to look at the clock. But we’ll be right back.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Patricia Demarco. She is Rachel Carson’s scholar. And today is Rachel Carson’s birthday.

So, we’re celebrating Rachel Carson’s birthday by talking about her, and what she has to say about living in harmony with nature. So, go ahead with your story about her childhood.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Okay. So because she was a child of the fields and woods, she learned to become a very astute observer, which is one of the most important criteria for being a scientist as you know.

She also was encouraged from an early age to write because her mother was hoping that she would be a writer. And she was published in St. Nicholas Magazine for Children at the age of 10 and was an honor author (meaning she was paid) by the time she was 14.

When she went to college, to the Pennsylvania College for Women, she began with a major in writing, and then converted to a major in science because she decided that now she knew what she was writing about. So, she really was in tune with the natural world from a very fundamental level all the way from the beginning.

DEBRA: Yes, I can see that. And I can see that in her writing. I think too, at that time in history, when she was a child, I think that people had more of an idea of being in harmony with nature than we do now. Do you think so?

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: …especially when she was beginning to work on Silent Spring. She realized it was after the second world tour and science had won domination over the […] and all of these medical discovery happened as a result of the changing of the industrial might of the country from ammunition to chemical fertilizers, pharmaceuticals because they needed to put that factory production to some commercial use.

DEBRA: Yes.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: So really, it was […] chemistry. And she was the voice of caution in the face of a predominant perception that nature was there for men’s benefit and amusement, and we can control it. She was arguing that the natural systems know more than any human invention could come up with, and that we may be had become too arrogant for our own good in technology would save us.

And I think this is one of the important messages that are still relevant to us today. I’ll give you some of her words about this.

DEBRA: Good.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: “In spite of the truly marvelous inventiveness of the human brain, we are beginning to wonder whether our power in the face of nature should not have been tempered with wisdom for our own good and with a greater sense of responsibility, welfare of generations to come.”

DEBRA: I can completely agree with that.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: She was concerned about what was going to happen as a consequence of some of the things that we were rushing into forthwith.

DEBRA: Well, I’m thinking back, I’ve done a fair amount of study like the history of industrialism. And when I said earlier that I thought that when she was born, she was a child, at that particular time, there was still some awareness of the idea of living in harmony with nature. And then you described what happened post World War II. That was really a time when there was a big shift.

So, those of us who were born after World War II, like myself, we were not raised with the same ethic that she was raised with. And even in Silent Spring, the title of Silent Spring comes from her having listened to the birds sing in the spring time. And then she went through this period that we all went through of having pesticides being sprayed, and then having some of those pesticides killing some of those song birds to the point where the spring time was no longer the spring time that she was accustomed to.

And so, for her to have that observation was the result of her being aware of those birds in the first place, and then having there be a change and her continuing to be aware and seeing that there was a change. Not many people have that level of awareness of nature.

But I think we all should be having that level of awareness of nature—and particularly, those of us who were born, as I’ve said, post World War II. We weren’t raised with that. And I think that that lack of that awareness, I know in my own life that it was like a rebirth for me to start being aware of that and to not think that I just had to live in industrial consumer culture, that there was this whole world of nature out there that I really belong to as a living being, a species like any other species.

And on that level of existence, somehow, we know that we need to be living in harmony with nature according to natural laws. Just as a tree does, or a butterfly, or all the other living things, those laws apply to us as well.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Well, I think what Rachel Carson’s gift to us was the understanding of systems and the interconnectedness of the living things. She understood from her years of study of the connections between the land and the sea, and the creatures of the estuary, how we are all connected and the smallest, little creature has a role in the web of life. We cannot perturb one part without perturbing the whole.

That concept of interconnectedness is really essential for understanding why we need to act on a broad scale to address the problems that are eroding our life support system.

And she was very aware, and very effective at communicating how the systems of the world work. And if you look at her book, To See Around Us, where she described the origin of the wave, and the origin of the ocean and how the movement of water and the difference between the salt and the fresh water drives the climate of the planet, these concepts are so relevant today as we’re trying to understand what’s going on with climate change and warming through combustion of fossil fuel.

So, I think because she understood the system so well, and was an excellent communicator, to the public, she had a great deal of credibility and a great deal of influence.

DEBRA: We’re going to take another break. And when we come back, we’ll keep talking about Rachel Carson and her gift to us through her works, and how they can be applied today.

Patricia’s going to tell us about some specific things that we can be doing to live according to natural law in our own lives and in the world. And we’ll find out what Rachel Carson has to say about this.

I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. And my guest today is Patricia Demarco. We’ll be right back.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Patricia Demarco. She is a Rachel Carson scholar. She’s writing a book about Rachel Carson’s legacy, what she’s left to us from all her observations and writing and how we can apply that to live more according to natural law.

So, let’s talk about natural law. You’ve told us about systems. What are some other points that we should be aware of.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Well, the biggest problem we have is the ecosystem services that the Earth provides us for free are not reflected in our economic computations directly.

So, when you compute gross domestic product—which is what everyone uses to determine whether we’re doing well or not—you don’t count things like wetland degradations. You don’t count things like loss of pollinators. You don’t count the services that the living systems provide like filtration, the wetness of water, like sequestering of carbon dioxide in trees, like the purification of our air. We tend to ignore those as given. They’re just there.

DEBRA: Yes.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: We don’t see a need to compute the value. So when we destroy them, they are not reflected in that market computation.

And these are not easy to ignore. When you have lost a wetland, it costs a great deal to restore it. And I’ll give you the example. The nine mile run in Pittsburgh ran through a slag pile and was—we called it Stink River when I was growing up. It was put in a pipe and ran into the river.

Now, in 2006 they finally completed a five year effort of restoring that wetland to a functioning wetland. They daylighted the stream. They cleaned it up. They put filtration in to get the slag contaminants out. And it is now a park and a wetland that actually helps to purify the watershed of that whole community. And it has also raised awareness to the whole community.

It cost $7.2 million to just restore that three and a half mile stretch.

Now, all over the country, we have 3 thousand miles of acid mine damaged rivers in just Pennsylvania. When you blow off the top of the mountain to get the […] clean out, you inevitably ruin the watershed—and the neighborhood, and the people who were living in the mountains, never mind the animals as well. So, there’s no cost to the destruction of that ecosystem.

When you tear down a forest in the Amazon, which is the lungs of the earth, it generates 50% of the free oxygen that we depend on to breathe, they don’t reflect the cost of replacing that function. You can’t replace an Amazon rainforest just by replanting it. It took years and years to grow.

DEBRA: Right.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: So, we have a flaw in how we compute the value of our economy. The essential life support system—fresh air, clean water, fertile ground, the biodiversity of species—don’t have any specific value in the way we compute our economic merit.

DEBRA: Well, I think that—yeah I agree with you on this. I thought that I’ve had in the past—because I’ve thought all of these things that we’re talking about—is if people don’t have an awareness that nature is even there, and they don’t understand the free services that nature is providing to us, and that as far as they can look as going down to the mall or going shopping or what movie they’re going to see this week—

But also—I mean, fairly I’ll say—people have a lot of attention on how are they going to pay their bills. But the thing that struck me was that we have our attention on what we need to do to survive in the industrial world. We have pretty much zero attention on what nature is providing to us in order to suppress, to survive at all—that if we don’t have air to breathe, if we don’t have water to drink, then we can’t do any of the other things that we do within our society.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Right.

DEBRA: And our awareness of this being there, it stuns me when I look around in the world how few people think that broadly. But I had to look back to earlier in my life when I didn’t have that awareness either.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: When you look at what people see in the mainstream media, and there is not a good way to learn about things like wetland restoration and the value of pollinators by watching TV. You don’t hear news stories about, “Oh, the pollinator population crashed,” and everybody’s running around ringing their heads. They don’t go back and say, “Good heavens! Is it possibly because we’re using RoundUp on everything, so that the spaces between the fields that used to have wild flowers are now gone” or, “Good heavens! Maybe because the pollens have become toxic from breathing into the plant a pesticide that was going to diminish the pests, but is now also killing the pollinators. Who would have thought?”

So, I think we need to start thinking about the implications of what we’re doing. And it’s important that we do that before we have tipped over to the point where the ecosystem services cannot be restored.

DEBRA: I completely agree with you. And so, for me at this point in time, after having become aware of these things, for me, the first thing is where are the ecosystems, what are they, where is my local ecosystem that I live in, what kind of condition is that ecosystem in, what needs to be restored, how is it maintained?

There’s a word for this, I think it’s Megalopolis or something of where cities grow into each other, and so there’s no space between the cities anymore. And then there’s whole stretches of land where there are no ecosystems because they’re all cemented over—or parking lots or all of these things.

I’ve lived in everything from living in downtown San Francisco to living out in a forest to now I live in suburbia. And in each of those places, the natural ecosystem environment has been more or less saved or damaged.

I’m looking at the clock. We have to go to break, but we’re going to continue when we come back. Oh, no wait, wait. I still have a few more seconds. So I’ll finish my thought.

But his whole idea of where is your ecosystem, and what is your ecosystem, and what is the nature of your ecosystem, and what kind of plants and flowers and things, everything about it, the first thing that should be of concern to everybody is maintain the ecosystem; and then how can humans live within it in a way that all the flows, and the animals, and the plants, and everything that makes that ecosystem alive, how can that be maintained?

We are going to go to break now. But we’ll be right back. You’re listening to Toxic Free talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Patricia Demarco. She’s a Rachel Carson scholar. And we’re talking about the laws of nature and how to live in harmony with them. So stay tuned and we’ll be right back.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And today is Rachel Carson’s birthday. We’re talking about what she left to us that we can apply in life today to make the world a better place.

Patricia, I wish we have a five hour show. We’re already to the last segment. It goes by so fast. So, I’m just going to not ask you more questions. I’m just going to let you talk—not that I might not interrupt you, but just go ahead and talk about more things you’d like to say about living by natural law.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: So, I think people need to be aware that they’re a part of the living earth and develop a sense of things like, “Where did my water come from? Where does the food come from?”

DEBRA: Yes.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: And I give an exercise to my energy policy students. I make them list all the things they use in a day, and identify where it comes from. Everything! You get up, you take your blankets off, you turn off your alarm clock, all of that stuff. Where do those come from? And how big is your footprint on the resources of the world.

The average American—although we’re only 6% of the world’s population—we use 34% of the resources of the world. If everyone on earth lives the way we do, it would take 5 ½ planet. So, we need to become more aware of what we do ourselves, use some judicial exercise and understand the problems that we’re facing—the climate change with endocrine disruptors and toxic materials in our food chain.

The answers are not more technology. The answers are a value judgment, an ethical judgment that we will make choices that will preserve the living earth.

And I think that is a good barometer to use when you’re making decisions about things. If you need practical things that you can do yourself, especially at summer time, don’t deliberately put poison in your own face.

You don’t need fertilizers, and herbicide, and pesticide in your own yard. You don’t need toxic materials to clean your property, and your house, and yourself with. You need to think about the fate of the things that you use yourself everyday and try to reduce your own toxicity.

Another thing you can do is to support the move for more responsible production of materials. There has been nine different attempts to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1996. The burden is really on the customer to try read all those labels down to the small type and figure out what to avoid. When the business is computed by how much of the poison we’re allowed to put into the air and water by permit by law, it’s now 3.2 billion pounds a year of toxic material that’s released legally.

We can change that to do what some other countries have done, and say we should prevent the production of materials that have toxic products and by-products by design. So you put the burden on the producer to produce things that are safe rather than the consumer to try to put the genie back in the bottle once it’s already distributed.

And the other we can do is to really get serious about the implication of continuing to burn fossil fuels. I know there are places—in Florida, for example—where they’ve tremendously interesting progress in linking solar and wind to the existing electric grid. If we decided to do this on a policy level nationwide, we could make a tremendous effect on the fossil footprint of this country. And then, export that technology broadly to other people who need it.

I think we have to take this seriously as a way of preserving our living earth. And I would like to leave Rachel Carson’s word with you. She said that:
“Underlying all of these problems of introducing contamination into our world is the question of moral responsibility—responsibility not only to our own generation, and to those in the future. We are […] genetic damage to generation now alive, but the threat is infinitely greater to the generation unborn, to those who have been born in the decisions we’re making today. And that fact alone is our responsibility—a heavy one.”

She asked it this way:
“Who has the right to decide for the countless legions of people who were not consulted that the supreme value of the world without insects, even though it also be a sterile world, ungrazed by the perfect wing of a bird in flight?”

We have to apply our wisdom to the application of technology. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should.

DEBRA: Well, I think that that’s where—it’s not that technology is necessarily bad, but it’s not tempered by good sense. What’s missing is this piece that says we live in a natural world that our lives are continued to be alive because of the planet and what it’s giving us, all the gifts that are there, and that we need to acknowledge and respect, and do whatever is necessary to protect that or we’re not going to be able to live at all.

I know that that is an old statement, but it really is true. We really have to be aware that air is there and we’re damaging it.

I started out during my work because of toxics—toxics in my own home, and my own health, being affected by them. But then I went into a phase where I started being aware that there was something beyond the four walls of my house. I was living in the forest. And I went, “Oh, there’s the natural world” and I suddenly realized that not only could I make choices about toxics in my house, but I could make choices about toxics in the environment.

I became interested in all kinds of different environmental issues, and nature, and how to live in harmony with nature, and all these things.

Toxics were not so interesting for me for a while because I was interested in all these other things. But a few years ago, I came back to really just focusing in on toxics again because of the fact that toxic chemicals, pesticides, cleaning products, solvents, all these things, are in virtually every household in the world unless you have intentionally removed them.

Toxics are the biggest enemy to life. And whether we’re aware of it or not, toxic chemicals are out there reducing the quality of life, killing off species, making people sick, increasing healthcare cost, all these things.

And we have a choice. There are non-toxic alternatives already for virtually everything that’s toxic. All we have to do is choose them. All we have to do is choose them.

And there are varying degrees of being toxic-free, everything from making a less toxic chemical out of petroleum is a step all the way to living as completely in harmony with nature as you can. Any step you take is a movement in the right direction.

But we have to do it, we have to do it because this is the enemy of life in my opinion. Anything else could be wrong in the world, but this is the thing that literally is killing us.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: I think one thing that we need to remember is that much of what we’re talking about here will require policy change on both the state and the national level.

DEBRA: Yes.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: And unless people makes their wishes known, and communicate the importance of maintaining a healthy world to our representative in the congress and the senate, and in the local government, they’re going to continue to listen to the loudest voice they hear—and that isn’t generally the public pointing they want public health. We need to re-establish the voice of the public interest in the public arena.

DEBRA: Yes.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: And I think if you haven’t written to your congressman about, “I’m concerned about toxics in my environment,” and demand accountability, “What are you doing about it? I’m concerned about climate change. How are we going to fix this? And what are you doing about it? And don’t tell me we’re going to use natural gas by blowing up the […] under the farm.”

This kind of thing requires public diligence. And it’s an obligation of citizens to engage in this discussion.

And this is one of the things that Rachel Carson did. She was a scientist, and she was a writer, and a naturalist. But she went to congress. She was one of the first women who actually came there as an expert. She gave them recommendations. She gave them opinions about how we go forward based on the studies and based on the science.

And I think we need to do that. We need to have the courage to do that.

DEBRA: Well, that is what this country is about. It was founded on—I remember I went to Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello, when I went to Washington DC. And there, there was an exhibit of something that he had written about the necessity of educating the citizens of the United States, so they could understand the issues and have a voice.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Yes. Yes, exactly.

DEBRA: And that is what public education was about originally as described by Thomas Jefferson. He wanted the people who were voting to understand and create a good country.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Right. And you need to really take that obligation of citizenship seriously. I think it’s pathetic that, in this country, we have very low turn-out of voting and people are not engaged with the issues that affect their lives everyday—and their children’s lives. Our grandchildren and our children are being affected irreversibly by decision that we are making or that are being made on our behalf without our voice.

DEBRA: Yeah. Thank you so much for being with us. We only have just a few second left.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Thank you.

DEBRA: So, I so appreciate the work that you’re doing and that you’re with us today. And once again, happy birthday to Rachel Carson.

DR. PATRICIA DEMARCO: Happy birthday to Rachel.

DEBRA: And you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, and check out the links and the books that we have there. This is ToxicFreeTalkRAdio.com. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Be well.

My guest today is filmmaker Ed Brown, who created the new film “Unacceptable Levels.” The film examines the results of the chemical revolution of the 1940s through the eyes of Ed, a father seeking to understand the world in which he and his wife are raising their children. This documentary was made by one man and his camera traveling extensively to find and interview top minds in the fields of science, advocacy, and law. Weaving their testimonies into a compelling narrative, Brown presents us with the story of how the chemical revolution brought us to where we are, and of where, if we’re not vigilant, it may take us. We’ll be talking about what Ed learned by making this film, how it changed his viewpoint about toxic chemicals, and what changes he’s made in his life to reduce exposure to toxic chemicals. www.unacceptablelevels.com

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
New Movie on Toxics: Unacceptable Levels

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Ed Brown

Date of Broadcast: May 08, 2014

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free.

Today is a very special day because tomorrow is the Hollywood premiere of a new documentary film about toxic chemical exposure. And it’s really, really good. I’ve watched it twice in fact. And this filmmaker who is with us today has put together a very complex subject into something that is extremely easy to watch and understand.

I would just say that he’s done such a good job with this that I would just tell everybody. Just watch this film for 120 minutes (or 1 hour and 20 minutes) and then go directly to my website because this film tells you all the reasons why you should be doing everything that I’ve been talking about people should be doing for the last 30 years.

And this is just the perfect introduction to anybody. I mean if you know all about toxic chemicals and you want to introduce somebody to the subject, this would be the perfect thing to have them watch. If you know about toxic chemicals and you want to learn more about the bigger picture, this would be the perfect film to watch. It just is excellent, excellent, excellent.

And I’m so happy to have the filmmaker on today. This is Ed Brown. Hi, Ed.

ED BROWN: Hi Debra. What an amazing introduction. Thank you so much. I’m honored.

DEBRA: You’re welcome. You did a great job. You just did a great job. And for the listeners to know, I watched the film a few months ago and then I wanted to have Ed on then, but there’s other stuff going on and the film wasn’t released at the time.

Now, the film is being released tomorrow and I watched it again today and I loved it just as much today. It’s a documentary film, but it really tells the story of Ed and his curiosity and his concern about what’s going on with the toxic chemicals in the world.

And he interviews the top people in the field. Well, I didn’t get interviewed. No, the thing is though I’m not the top person in the world about the toxic problems. I’m the top person on the world about the solutions. What are the non-toxic solutions?

And what Ed did was he went and interviewed all the people who can tell you the story of what is the problem. And it’s just an exceptional statement of what is the problem.

Anyway, Ed, tell us. I’m going to let you talk. I’m not going to talk through the whole show.

ED BROWN: No, I love you and your thoughts. I think I’m incredibly boring compared to you.

DEBRA: Well, I was not bored with your film for one second. I want to hear about—you tell in the film your story about what led you to be interested in doing this. If you would just tell us that, that would be great.

ED BROWN: Of course. I like to say you are one of the top people obviously working on solutions. And you are one of the key elements to absolutely solving this problem, which is […] across the board.

DEBRA: Thank you.

ED BROWN: And I just want to state that fact. I’m sure your listeners know that. I’m spreading the word every single day about you and your work.

DEBRA: Thank you.

ED BROWN: This film, like everyone else, our lives all tell stories, whether it’s going to be on the movie screen or whether to family members or friends. I just happened to have a camera and I started looking into this issue.

My wife had two miscarriages out of three pregnancies. And quite frankly, I believe the doctors we had on both miscarriages, they didn’t know why this happened. Nature takes its course. It’s probably for the best, et cetera.

And so, after the second one, she had a procedure, which was a D&C. It was right after that that I got really angry—not at the doctors, not at anyone in particular. But I got mad thinking what’s really going on. I keep hearing the same thing. Everybody is sick. I don’t know anyone who isn’t on some kind of medication. Everybody had some chronic illness. I mean I think we can all agree that we all know somebody who has cancer.

DEBRA: Yes.

ED BROWN: I started thinking maybe there’s something connected here. Maybe there are some dots here that I’m missing.

I started doing some research and I started to learn a little bit more about what’s really going on, I realized that there are so many dots that people haven’t been able to connect.

I just took it upon myself to learn all about this subject that affects every single human being on this planet every single day, no matter what your financial status, no matter what your race or your religion or your age or your sex. It affects everyone equally.

And what I found out is that no one lives a healthier or better life with so many toxic chemicals inside their bodies. Ultimately, that’s why I took this journey myself.

DEBRA: Yes. I agree with everything that you said. And what I found for myself was that when I did all the research that you did at the time in 1978 when I started, we didn’t have as much information as we have today. We didn’t have all those organizations and all the people that are working on it that you interviewed. Nobody, I don’t think any of them were doing it in 1978. So I had much less to work with when I started researching.

But it became really clear to me and as you state at the end of the film that we all need to do something for ourselves. In the film, you go through talking about toxic chemicals in water, in food and personal care products and all these different things. And you also talk about how our laws do not protect us from these things. And when you try to change at the regulatory level, there are lobbyists and people who are posing that.

You talk about our healthcare system. And the thing about healthcare is that you can go to so many doctors who don’t even recognize that toxic chemicals are the basic cause of most of the illness that most of us are having.

And to go to a doctor and get a drug—well, you don’t say this on the film, but I’m going to say it. To go to the doctor and get a drug does not solve the problem of toxic chemicals in your body or in the environment. It just puts another toxic chemical in your body.

We need to have this massive reorientation of every part of society to understand that this is a problem that all of us are experiencing, all of us are being harmed by. And all of us together need to change it.

ED BROWN: I couldn’t agree more. And by the way, Debra, I was only three years old when you started looking into this problem. I wish I could have been a part of it ever since then.

But let’s think about it. You’ve been looking into it for that long and other people have recognized it as well, but you’ve been incredibly influential in taking on this fight.

That’s what your viewers, I’m sure, know and your listeners. I think that they really need to understand across the board that this is everyone’s problem. It’s not going away any time soon.

And yeah, wherever you get sick—hopefully you don’t—if you get sick, you go into a doctor’s office, what they’re not trained at is prevention. What they don’t know a lot about is anything about toxic chemicals. Maybe they know a little bit.

But for the most part, what they’re really, really great at is treating symptoms of a problem. They’re not really great at getting into the root of the issue.

And so the healthcare industry, they have to re-prioritize a lot of the different ways of doing things. I think that over the course of the next 20 to 30 years, I think they have to, I hope at least.

DEBRA: Well, 30 years ago, most of the doctors were just regular medical doctors and over the past 30 years, there have been new fields coming out like functional medicine and things like that. And there are a lot of doctors now that are alternative who are MDs who have said, “Wait a minute. I need to do something else.” And they go off and say, “Let’s look at toxic chemicals. Let’s look at modalities. Let’s look at nutrition.”

I worked with a doctor who is a chiropractor by training. That’s how he gets his doctor status. But he has trained himself in all kinds of other things and he completely agrees with me that we need to reduce toxic chemical exposure and we need to get adequate nutrition. Most people don’t get enough nutrition in order to have their detox systems in their bodies working.

Simple things like this—oh, we need to take a break. I’m talking to you instead of watching the time. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is filmmaker, Ed Brown.

We’re talking about his new film, Unacceptable Levels, which is opening tomorrow in Hollywood. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and scroll down the page and you’ll see a little banner ad for his movie. If you click on that, you can order your own copy or rent it. We’ll be right back.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is filmmaker, Ed Brown. He’s the creator of the new film, Unacceptable Levels, which is all about our exposure to toxic chemicals and what’s going on in the world.

It premieres tomorrow in Hollywood. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com today and pre-order by clicking on the banner. Scroll down until you see Ed’s nice smile and below that, there’s a banner out that says, Unacceptable Levels. You can click on that.

I guess tomorrow, there’s access to the film. Is that correct, Ed?

ED BROWN: Yes, that’s correct. Yeah, tomorrow, everybody with internet connection would be able to access the film anywhere and anytime as long as you have a smart phone or a tablet, even TVs. Yeah, you connect it to…

DEBRA: Or a desktop computer.

ED BROWN: It’s exciting. It’s exciting.

DEBRA: Yeah, I’m very excited about it. Tell us what it was like to go on this—was it a two year journey? You traveled around and you interviewed people. What was that experience like?

ED BROWN: That was a challenge to put it lightly. I didn’t have a clue. It was just me and my camera and my tripod. And I’m staying in a lot of different places all over the world by myself. For the most part, it was difficult.

I was working at a restaurant waiting tables, which you’ll see in the film. That’s where it all started for me. I was waiting tables and I only had one day a week to film because the restaurant was closed on Monday. So I really had to scramble during the week making phone calls and trying to set up as many interviews as I could if I needed to go to a particular area because I didn’t really have a lot of money to use either.

So yeah, I had inherently some troubles. We decided to embark on a film and you’re doing it all by yourself. Obviously, there’s going to be a lot of pitfalls headed your way and a lot of road blocks. But totally, I was able to navigate my way through that.

So first of all, the photography about two years and then it took another two years to finish editing it and honing it and really working with the story into what you’re about to see. Yeah, it’s about a four-year process.

I think I’ve earned some kind of honorary degree somehow, I hope. I don’t know what it would be in chemistry or filmmaking, but I hope somebody can give me something for this. I’m joking.

DEBRA: Well, I would at least acknowledge you because I know what it’s like to be one person wanting to make a difference because I have been doing everything that I do without any funding, without any organizations, just being one person.

So I really honor you for doing that and I understand the feeling that you must have had of seeing what was wrong and then saying, “Wait, I need to tell other people.” That’s what happened to me too.

Once I got sick and I discovered what was making me sick, I said, “Wait, this whole thing could have been avoided if somebody had just told me there were toxic chemicals out there and they were in my products and they were in the food and they were in my perfume and in my water and in my bed and in my body.” If somebody had just told me that, I could have done something to prevent being sick.

And nobody was talking about it and so I had to do that. And I did it all alone just like you did it all alone and I think that a lot of people who are very effective in this world have done things all alone. I totally commend you for deciding to do it and continuing to do it and bringing this information to people who need to have it.

ED BROWN: I certainly appreciate that. And Debra, your story is much more heroic than my own. I’ll always say that. Your perseverance is shining though every single day.

For all of us, if I would have failed—there were a lot of desperate times financially for myself, I have two kids and my wife who tries to take care of them as best as she could. There were a lot of very, very challenging instances where I felt like we weren’t going to make it to the finish line, but I knew that I had to.

I knew I had to see it for myself to the end. A lot of wherewithal and a lot of dedication to this, I saw a lot of people that kept encouraging me to keep going. And their strong will really helped me to make it to the end as well.

And if I didn’t make it, if I failed to do that, this information wouldn’t be available tomorrow to everybody across the globe. And we all need it and that’s the point.

DEBRA: We do all need it, but everyone needs to understand. You did such a great job of starting at the beginning and showing how we got to where we are today and showing that after World War II in the mid 1940s that there had been all these chemists available working on the chemical warfare of World War II that they had developed new things.

And now what are you going to do with all the chemists? And there were cheap raw materials in the form of oil and they just started making things and all these new substances and all these new products and there was money available and people were buying them. It seemed like this wonderful new world and yet, there was this dark side that didn’t start being apparent until some years later.

And now, it’s very, very clear from the evidence, the scientific evidence that these chemicals are toxic and all of us are being affected, all of us need to do something about it and you really showed that. I don’t want to say in an entertaining way because it’s not an entertaining subject.

ED BROWN: Yeah. I see how delicate you’re trying to put it and I can appreciate that because you wouldn’t want to make it seem like this is entertaining, but you have to have that value and appeal to get people to reciprocate.

If you make it just factually based, it could be completely boring and people would get turned off and then you’re not able to make any difference with the subject material that you’re using.

DEBRA: I would say certainly you have presented it in an accessible way and in a way that is not dry and boring at all.

ED BROWN: Yes.

DEBRA: And you interspersed with humor. My publicist once said, “David Letterman wanted to have you on his show, but he couldn’t think of anything funny to say about toxics.” So I wasn’t on David Letterman.

But you actually came up with some clips of people making jokes about toxic substances. And so the way you put it together, you took a subject that can be difficult to understand, difficult to listen to and at times horrifying, and you made it very human.

I just want people to understand that if you hear this word, “documentary about toxic chemicals,” that you don’t think that this is going to be something boring that you don’t want to watch. It is something that you want to watch and it’s something that you want to share with your family and friends and co-workers because everybody needs to have this information, everybody needs to have the truth about the world that we live in so that we can do something about it.

We’re going to take another break and we’ll be right back. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is filmmaker, Ed Brown who made Unacceptable Levels.

It’s opening tomorrow in Hollywood. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com right now, during the break and click on the banner ad to pre-order your copy. You can buy it or you can rent it and it will be available tomorrow. We’ll be right back.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and my guest today is filmmaker, Ed Brown who made the new film, Unacceptable Levels, which opens tomorrow.

I wanted to ask you a two-part question. Here’s the first question. What did you find most horrifying in your research? What was the thing that you said, “This is just unacceptable.”

ED BROWN: That’s a way to start, right?

DEBRA: Yeah, a way to start. But what was the thing that got you emotionally?

ED BROWN: I always go back to the more disgusting ones, the toxic ones. That’s the one thing that blew me away. I just couldn’t understand. I don’t know. The toxic sludge…

DEBRA: Tell us what toxic sludge is.

ED BROWN: It’s huge recently.

DEBRA: Just give us the details about toxic sludge.

ED BROWN: Yes. The toxic sludge are sewage systems or humans’ sewage systems. It was designed in a particular way to collect everything that you flush down the toilet. Everything that goes down, we collect it. It’s tried and then what do you do with it?

It doesn’t magically disappear. It doesn’t magically just go away. This is something that again blew me away because this is something I never really thought about. It’s out of sight, out of mind […]

And what I found out was that our sewage systems collect these stuff. It’s dried and then transported. They don’t take it to the moon. They don’t take it and dump it in the ocean. And it’s extremely toxic. It’s called toxic sludge because all of the contaminants that go down into the sewage systems—pharmaceuticals drugs, heavy metals, pesticides and other contaminants and stuff like that.

All this stuff that’s collected is not magically disinfected. They don’t do anything to change the matter itself. And again, they take it and transport it onto our farmland and it’s called bio solids. So it goes from being called toxic sludge and with some regulatory magic and then they renamed it “bio solid,” which sounded much nicer than toxic sludge.

But anyway, we have 60% of our farmland being fertilized by this stuff. The things, the plants that are being grown out of this stuff and farm animals, we’re going to be eating it. It’s a bizarre scenario, but that’s the situation we find ourselves.

DEBRA: It actually is traditional. We put manure of animals on farmland and that’s considered to be a good organic practice. And way before, all throughout history, both animal and human manure have been used to fertilize the land.

But the part that is different nowadays is that all the toxic chemicals that we’re exposed to that we eat, that we breed, that we drink, that we put on our skin get eliminated through our intestines. And so then when you take that material that is the toxic waste of our bodies being eliminated and then you put that on the farmland, that’s not the same thing.

ED BROWN: Yeah, it’s true. I still find the marketing of this to be fascinating because if they just called it tacky human waste or something like that, it doesn’t change the product. It changes your mindset as to how you view it. And that’s what they did, which is crazy.

DEBRA: Yeah. The second half of the question is I want to ask you, what did you learn that gave you the greatest hope?

ED BROWN: That there are so many amazing people just like yourself, Debra, out there working every single day not just to educate, but to make the world a better place.

That might sound a cliché and that might sound hoaky, but I’ve met so many amazing people and I’ve worked with so many amazing organizations, so many amazing companies that are at the forefront of this problem that have been taking it on for decades. That should give everybody a high degree of hope that we have so many great people out there struggling every single day to take on the biggest challenge we’ve ever faced as a human civilization. And we should have more every single day, joining in this along with each other and holding hands and working together to do this.

DEBRA: Yes.

ED BROWN: Again, it might sound cliché, but it’s not. These are people that take these issues seriously and we all have a very, very deep responsibility for the next generation to do everything we can to make their lives better than we had it. And I have three children now. I had two at the time when I finished the movie. That’s what they deserve from us.

And looking in their faces, looking into their smiles and making them understand that I’m here in every single way, it’s all […], they give me hope and all the people working out there in this facility are really given hope as well.

DEBRA: I find out every day on this radio show. I am interviewing people around the world who are doing things to make the world safer and they’re working at every level from retailers and manufacturers through regulations and everything.

I don’t feel, like we talked earlier about each of us being one person doing something by ourselves, but we’re not. We’re one person, but we’re a part of a much bigger picture of all these other individuals on the planet that are working towards having a less toxic world or a non-toxic world, a toxic-free world.

Sometimes, I stop and think we have so much information about this, so much knowledge about how to live toxic-free and we can see it if we know where to look. You can see it all around and that’s what I keep trying to show people, “Look here, look there,” because you can make these toxic-free choices that exist for you. It’s right here today. And yet, there are still so many people who don’t even know that there’s a problem.

ED BROWN: Yeah!

DEBRA: Go ahead.

ED BROWN: Yeah. I live in Central Pennsylvania. I wouldn’t exactly call it the Mecca for green living and toxic-free lifestyle or anything like that.

And I think that they give me a viewpoint that was completely necessary for the story to be told.

If I grew up and lived in San Francisco, I think it would be much different. I mean it’s an accepted way of life and people are quite educated on what it is out there.

But this is a film that needs to and has to ultimately reach the individuals who have no idea that this is happening. It’s not to say that everybody that’s been working in this field can’t use reinforcement. I mean I am going to suggest that as well.

But I would say that the people like my parents, people like my friends who don’t have any idea that this is a problem and may not over the course of a lifetime, unless something really bad happens to them and they look into it, themselves, that’s where this comes down to.

And nobody is average. I know we never say that average people need this information, but everybody does.

DEBRA: Everybody needs it. Absolutely. We need to go to another break, but we’ll be right back. My guest today is filmmaker, Ed Brown, who created the new film Unacceptable Levels.

It opens tomorrow in Hollywood and you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. Click on the banner ad for Unacceptable Levels and you can pre-order it and you’ll get it tomorrow. We’ll be right back.

And I’ll just say once more because this is the last segment of the show and I know we’re going to just keep talking right to the end. If you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, scroll down the page and you’ll see the banner ad for Unacceptable Levels. Just click on it. You can order a rental, you can order the film itself and it will be available tomorrow.

I think it would be a great idea to invite your friends over to watch it together, talk about what all you can do, what each of you are doing already to be less toxic. Just really help each other and your friends and neighbors to be able to live in a less toxic way.

And if you need some information about that, you can listen to Toxic Free Talk Radio. You can go to my website. Go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. Go to the top. There’s a whole menu of things that you can find on my site, including if you click on Shop, there are more than 500 websites selling toxic-free products of all kinds. You can go to the Q&A.

You can go to the search box, which is a little thing that looks like a magnifying glass and type in any product that you’re looking for and you’ll probably get something. There are books that you can read. There’s a blog about how you can detox toxic chemicals out of your body. There’s just so much information.

Watch the film and Ed will inspire you to do something and then you can go to my website and find out how to do something. That’s how these two things fit together.

ED BROWN: I think it’s great. I mean that’s exactly the progression people should go through. You need to educate yourself about it and then have a solution lined up for it as well and a plan.

DEBRA: Yeah. Ed, I just want to tell you that you’re breaking up a little. I’m wondering if the producer can call you back, but let’s just continue.

ED BROWN: Am I still here?

DEBRA: Yeah. You’re still breaking up, but I want to know if people hear what you’re saying. My producer—oh, he says that you sound fine in the studio, so let’s just keep going on. Maybe it’s just my receiving end that’s breaking up.

So tell us some things that you did in your life to be less toxic as a result of you doing this research.

ED BROWN: One of the first things I started doing was I have changed the crib mattress that the kids were sleeping on. That was really, really important.

Why? That’s because the child sleeps on a crib mattress eight to 15 hours every single day. Flame retardants and other chemicals would be going straight to their bodies as they’re breathing. And that’s one of the first things that I always try to say to my other parents as well. Try changing that.

And I also changed my cleaning products. Every time you spray a particular surfactant, it might have an antimicrobial agent into it and stuff like that, you’re inhaling it. You’re putting them onto your skin. I don’t know how you’re cleaning. Ultimately, I needed to do that too, so I’ve changed that.

And now I just use white vinegar and rubbing alcohol to clean everything with. It’s cheaper and it’s effective.

And also when it comes to food, we don’t eat anything, but organic. And that to me is a really smart way of eliminating a lot of toxins that get into us every single day.

So you got to think about what you’re breathing, what you’re drinking, what you’re eating and how you’re sleeping. Those are really the four areas. If you can, make changes there quickly.

Our water filtration system is of the utmost importance. There’s over 250 contaminants in every single drop of water that’s coming from the tap.

It’s not to say that it’s horrifically bad and it’s not to say that bottled water is any better. They’re just sitting back and saying they have to disinfect it and stuff like that. I understand it. But you need to get a water filtration system that’s going to take out the disinfectants and what-not and other trace contaminants that pass through on municipal water facility.

You should think about what you’re doing, what you’re breathing, what you’re eating, what you’re drinking, how you’re sleeping. So those four areas, you make those consorted efforts. Take small steps if you need to. Take big leaps if you’d like to.

And then you‘ll find, over the course of five to 10 years, you may have avoided a lot of struggle in your body. And it’s just ultimately better for everybody like this and especially young kids, starting out at a very young age.

DEBRA: It is ultimately better and I know a lot of times, people think, especially if they watch your film and they may say, “Oh, everything is toxic.” Well, it is.

ED BROWN: Yeah, I just did that.

DEBRA: It is and it isn’t. There are things that are more toxic. For example, cleaning products are a big toxic category of products. And pesticides are a big category and your bed is a big toxic category.

If you change any of those things and use the less toxic ones, the ones like instead of a polyurethane foam mattress, you sleep on an organic cotton mattress. I have an organic wool mattress. If you make that kind of change, it may be that your life is now not 100% toxic-free, but it’s less toxic and you just keep making it less and less and less.

And what I found in myself and others over the years, especially if you have some illness or chronic condition is that there’s such a chance that it’s related to toxic chemicals. As you reduce your toxic chemical exposure, you should be feeling better and better and better.

And even if we don’t get to 100% zero toxics, everybody can reduce the amount of toxics that they’re exposed to enough to make a significant difference in your health. That has been shown over and over and over again. If you just start with the things that you’re exposed to at home, then it can make a huge difference, just a huge difference.

ED BROWN: You’re actually right. I always go with that sentiment, taking steps, again small steps, budgetary mind steps and always moving in that direction. Find small incremental changes and it will have a huge impact.

DEBRA: It will. It will. We only have about four minutes left. Is there anything that you want to say that we haven’t talked about?

ED BROWN: Of course, there are a lot of things that I’d love to talk about. I’m fascinated by one of your ads by the way, thinking about what it would take […] and if I could do that every single day. I think that would be a tough one. I don’t know why I was fixated on that, listening to it, thinking, “That’s heavy stuff.”

I think what we’re doing when it comes to these toxic chemicals, the one thing that—and I’m not chastising the industry and I’m not chastising scientists that do not believe that this is such a big deal. But starting with something, let’s just say a blueberry, one blueberry has 42 trace contaminants and pesticides on it. Some of those are neurotoxins, some of those are carcinogens and some of those have reproductive problems.

That’s one blueberry.

Let’s say you really like blueberries and you eat a handful of them and let’s just say you really like tomatoes and strawberries as well and you like to eat a lot of those every single day. And if you just make a change in those and go organic with some of the really soft skinned fruits and vegetables, you’ll find that your body will reciprocate.

That’s where we get a lot of the pay loads from pesticides and phosphates and stuff like that and other issues that are related to the food that we’re eating like insecticides and fungicides and avicides and stuff like that.

Think about it for a second. This is a great analogy that I give to everybody. If you had two tomatoes, both of those are organic. You watched somebody take one of those tomatoes and they sprayed […] all over it, even if they washed it off really, really well, would you want to eat it? Most people say no.

And I always say what’s the difference between a farmer doing that in a field multiple times over the course of its growth to seeing that in front of your face.

So, really still, the out of sight, out of mind mentality needs to be changed. And that’s why I want to try to encourage people to […] even if it’s made and manufactured and all that stuff and you don’t see any of that happening.

That’s the whole point of this film. It’s just like the Wizard of Oz , we’re pulling the curtain back. You don’t see any of this kind of stuff happening over here. And that’s what this film is trying to expose. It’s exposing our exposures.

I really hope everybody enjoys it. I hope everybody goes to your website, clicks on the banner link and watches it tomorrow when it goes live. And again Debra, you made a great point, sharing it with your friends and family and getting the conversation move in the right direction. It’s ultimately going to be our salvation across the board. It will do everybody a great deal of good to change the way we’ve been doing things, absolutely.

DEBRA: Yes, I completely agree. You were talking about the out of sight, out of mind and I have a friend who gives talks about things toxic. And one of the things that he does is he brings a can of pesticide with him and he holds up an apple and he said, “Now, I’m going to spray this with pesticides,” and people go, “No!”

ED BROWN: It’s real, right?

DEBRA: If you spray a pesticide on an apple right in front of somebody, they will not eat it. And yet, they are spraying the same pesticides on the apples in the orchard and then it’s coming to you.

Anyway, I need to say thank you so much because we’re about to be done with the show. I just need to say thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for doing what you’ve done and I hope that a lot of people watch the film and talk about it and that it just opens the door for so many more people to know about this.

ED BROWN: Absolutely. Pleasure is all mine.

DEBRA: Thank you. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. Remember to go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and click on the banner ad and get your copy of the film, Unacceptable Levels.

My guest today is Joy Onasch, who oversees the community and small business program at the Toxics Use Reduction Institute at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She manages the community grants which are awarded each year to community-based or municipal organizations striving to reduce or eliminate toxics. Focus areas of the community and small business program currently include reducing or eliminating toxics in the home (including cleaning and building materials), pesticides, the cosmetology industry, auto shops, and perchloroethylene in dry cleaning. Today we will be talking specifically about dry cleaning, how dry cleaning establishments can become less toxic and how you can choose a less toxic dry cleaner. Joy is an engineer with over fifteen years of experience with industry, government, and institutions, assisting them with environmental compliance issues and pollution prevention projects. Her technical focus areas include hazardous waste, stormwater, wastewater, oil storage, and toxics use reduction. Joy earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Union College and a Master’s in Engineering and Policy from Washington University in St. Louis. She is a registered Professional Engineer in three states and a registered Toxics Use Reduction Planner in Massachusetts. www.turi.org

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Can Dry Cleaning Be Less Toxic

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: : Joy Onasch

Date of Broadcast: May 06, 2014

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic free.
There are so many toxic chemicals around, but not everything is toxic and there are so many people who are doing things, many wonderful things to make the world less toxic and those are the people that I talk to in this show and that you get to hear. And we get to discuss how we can make this world a better place and less toxic.

Yesterday, I started reading from a book that I got recently called It Always Seem Impossible until It’s Done. It’s just a book full of quotations, inspiring quotations about getting through the difficult times to reach your goals and to do the thing that you want. And I know that sometimes it can seem difficult to make the switch to live toxic-free. So I want to be giving you some of these quotes as inspiration.

Today’s quote is from Walt Disney. We all know Walt Disney. And he says, “You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.”

Certainly, getting really sick from toxic chemicals like I did was a kick in the teeth. But what it did for me is that it made me wake up and say, “Wait a minute. There are toxic chemicals all around me and they are making me sick and they’re probably making other people sick and there are ways that I can live.” I had to find those ways way back in 1982 when nobody was writing about this.

But I found ways and things that were less toxic and I started doing them and my health started improving. And what that did is it woke me up. It made me say, “Wait a minute. There’s a danger here. There’s something I can do about it.” And I started doing something about it.

And so today, my health just gets better and better the older I get. That’s not usually the way it is, but the older I get, my health gets better and better because I am being exposed to fewer and fewer toxic things and I’m getting more nutrition to support my body’s health and my health just gets better and better.

Everybody can have the same experience. If you have any kind of health problem, toxic chemicals are probably contributing to it. And if you start removing toxic chemicals from your home, from where you work, from your body, you will likely get better. That’s been my experience.

Anyway, I’m not worried about having a difficult situation because sometimes it wakes you up to see what needs to be done so that you can have a better life.

My guest today is Joy Onasch. She oversees the community and small business programs at the Toxics Use Reduction Institute at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. We had one of her colleagues on before, Liz Harriman and we talked about some things that they’re doing there at the Toxics Use Reduction Institute.

But today, we’re going to talk specifically about what she’s doing in the area of cleaning and especially dry cleaning, what she’s doing with small businesses, what the Toxics Use Reduction Institute does to help small businesses swipe out toxic chemicals and use things that are more toxic-free.

Hi, Joy.

JOY ONASCH: Hi, Debra.

DEBRA:
Thank you so much for being here with me.

JOY ONASCH: Thanks for having me.

DEBRA: Okay, so why don’t we start out by—Liz went into some of this before, but today is a new day with a new audience. So tell us what the Toxics Use Reduction Institute does.

JOY ONASCH: Sure. We are an organization at UMass Lowell as you mentioned that works with industries, small businesses, municipalities, communities, organizations to reduce the use of toxic chemicals across the state. And our information is available online to anybody anywhere who’s interested in obtaining it.

We focus on certain chemicals at certain times and also additional inquiries that come into the public or there are certain special areas that require attention, different chemicals at different times. But we provide training, we provide grants, we provide peer mentoring type working group. We have a laboratory service. We have a focus on policy research and analysis. We have a library that’s available online and for visiting if people wanted to come to UMass Lowell.

And so our main aim is to provide unbiased information about issues around toxics and alternatives that are available and work with the organizations, whether it’s a large industry or small community organization or any one in between in trying to find a feasible alternative for them to switch from the toxic chemicals. And by feasible, I mean something that’s going to work for them and something that makes economic sense for them.

DEBRA: Yeah. So it works around and win, win, win.

JOY ONASCH: Right.

DEBRA: I was really interested to see in your bio that you are a registered Toxics Use Reduction Planner. What is that?

JOY ONASCH: There are many of us across the State of Massachusetts.

DEBRA: I think that’s so wonderful. I think that that’s what I am too. I’m a Toxics Use Reduction Planner. I’m not certified, but that’s what I do.

JOY ONASCH: Right. That would certainly fit in the category. Yeah. TURI actually oversees a very formal program to certify planners. It requires that industries do this thing called the Toxics Use Reduction Plan every other year.
They [inaudible 00:05:30] and report their chemical use each year and then every other year, they have to go through this planning process. And part of the planning process requires that they have a certified Toxics Use Reduction Planner stamp off on their plans essentially. They can do the plan themselves and have a Toxics Use Reduction Planner.

We view it or they can hire or train an in-house person to become that Toxics Use Reduction Planner. And it means that they have been trained by us who are with intimate with what the process should be on finding alternatives and evaluating them and then they can [inaudible 00:06:03] off on these different plans.

The really unique thing about the program is that the companies are required to do this every other year, but they’re not actually required to implement anything. It’s up to them to learn from the process and find out that there are alternatives available and hey, maybe it’s even going to save me money if I go ahead and implement them, which is often the case.

DEBRA: I want to make sure that everybody listening understands that this is required by law in the State of Massachusetts, yes?

JOY ONASCH: Right. Back in 1989, the Toxics Use Reduction Act was implemented and since then, businesses who use chemicals over certain thresholds have to report on their use and go to the [inaudible 00:06:48] process.

DEBRA: It would be wonderful if every state in the union had that law so that all manufacturers will be having to take a look at what is their toxic use. And then everybody needs to start scaling back on the toxics.

California is coming up with something similar to that, I think. But that’s another show. We’ll talk about California another day.

JOY ONASCH: Right. A couple of states have tried to emulate our program or at least parts of it. I know I’ve talked to New Jersey and New York about the community programs that I work on and I know that Canada is starting to implement the Toxics Use Reduction Planners Program that I just described. So it’s definitely emulated both within the United States and obviously internationally.

Something again that’s unique is that it’s talking about the use of toxic, whereas other federal programs deal with the release of toxics, which is too late.

DEBRA: Ah! I am so glad you brought that up because I have never even thought of that. Yes.

JOY ONASCH: Yeah, the Toxics Release Inventory asks companies to report on the releases that [inaudible 00:08:03] the environment. So our program tries to get to the reduction of toxics before they’re even used, before they even enter the workplace or the manufacturing process so that they’re not able to be released in any [inaudible 00:08:15].

DEBRA: Right. That’s even better. Joy, tell us how did you get interested in the subject of toxics. How did you get trained to be this person who can do this?

JOY ONASCH: Let’s see. I am an engineer. I’m a mechanical engineer. It’s my undergraduate degree. And I went on to get a Master’s in Engineering and Policy, which I had been focused on environmental issues.

And then I worked in private consulting for about 15 years and somehow by chance, I ended up working on a lot of regulatory and compliance issues. So I did a lot of site visits to military facilities, hospitals, universities, looking at how they were managing their hazardous waste or waste water, the oil storage and helping them write a plan required by law.

And I ended up starting to get a little frustrated with the private consulting world and looking for something else. I came across the Toxics Use Reduction Institute and that’s what helped. It’s a job opening actually. It’s what helped me realize that I had been working with organizations to manage the waste and the toxics that they were using. But this was an opportunity to work with them, to reduce the use of it in the first place.

It gave a very different perspective, a very different way of working with people instead of pushing them into compliance and helping them with their compliance needs. I’m able to help them be more proactive in getting rid of the use of the toxic chemicals in the first place.

DEBRA: Yes. And when you do that, get rid of the toxic chemicals in the first place, then there’s no need for compliance because there’s nothing there that needs to be complied with.

We need to take a break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Joy Onasch from the Toxics Use Reduction Institute of the University of Massachusetts Lowell. We’ll be right back.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. My guest today is Joy Onasch from the Toxics Use Reduction Institute of the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Before the break, we were talking about you being a Toxics Use Reduction Planner. Could you just say a few words about how you might apply what you do with businesses to consumers, how we can use that same structure to think about reducing our toxics use?

JOY ONASCH: Sure. I guess for either small businesses or organizations or institutions or the personal consumers, it’s about understanding what you’re using and what you’re exposed to each day and thinking about making changes and investigating what other alternatives are out there that are feasible for you that perform in the same way that you are used to having something perform for you or being economically feasible for you to use.

We take the same approach, whether it’s a large corporation or a small entity that’s interested in finding alternatives and used to use the toxics. But I guess the first step really is doing an inventory about what you use or what you’re maybe exposed to, what services you use and toxic chemicals you may be exposed there and evaluating what alternatives may fit.

DEBRA: I think that that is so intelligent because I think that a lot of times for people, it seems overwhelming.

I wrote a book in 1984. My first published book in 1984 was just a directory of the non-toxic products that I could find at the time. I’d just like to say that the number of nontoxic options that are available now is so huge, it wouldn’t fit in a book. That’s why I have a website. And that’s how much we’ve improved in the last 30 years.

But I remember at the time, people would say, “Oh, I feel overwhelmed. Where do I start?” And so I wrote another book called The Nontoxic Home, which didn’t have any resources in it at all. It just said, “All right, let’s take a look at where the toxic chemicals are and what you’re being exposed to and what type of things are the alternatives.

I suppose that book was the book that was comparable to your inventory. But I think that right now today, that book isn’t available. I don’t have an equivalent book like that. But I’m looking at how I can provide that information in an organized way on my website so that somebody could look up shampoo and find out what toxic chemicals they might be exposed to. But I think that it is a good idea.

In that book, what I tried to do was organize the products from most toxic first to least toxic. And so some things at the beginning of the book were things like cleaning products and pesticides that are really toxic. And I was encouraging people to take the most toxic things that they could identify and replace those first. And I think that that’s probably the strategy across the boards.

JOY ONASCH: Absolutely. And also factoring in there, maybe what’s most approachable, especially for a consumer that it might be overwhelming for them to think about how to make one change with something else that seems real simple to them and I can go ahead and implement it. If making those small, low-hanging fruit changes gives them some confidence and some knowledge in where the resources are to make additional changes, that can assist as well.

DEBRA: Yeah. I always say start with whatever appeals to you, even if it’s buying organic pickles. Every time we go to the store, we’re making a choice. And I’m not expecting people to suddenly buy everything toxic-free particularly because there’s a certain amount of education that goes with it.

But if you can identify something like if you really like to eat, that’s probably a good place to start. It’s to just start buying organic food and then you’ve done something. Or it’s actually pretty easy to change cleaning products because you can just start using baking soda and vinegar and that will clean almost everything.

Even if you just go down to the natural food store and just pick any cleaning product off the shelf, it’s better than buying it at the supermarket. And anybody can do that.

JOY ONASCH: Right.

DEBRA: Okay, so the show is being about dry cleaning and I know that you’re working with dry cleaners. So let’s talk about that.

JOY ONASCH: Sure, sure. Yeah, so talking about making choices. If someone is in a profession or just in their lives, they don’t have time to do all their cleaning or they have special cleaning needs, they need to take stuff to the dry cleaners. The choice they can make is to search out a dry cleaner who is using alternative methods, not using the standard perchloroethylene solvent to clean their clothes.

DEBRA: So tell us, what are the health effects of using perchloroethylene? And are there other toxic chemicals? Why should people not be using this?

JOY ONASCH: Yeah. There are a couple of different levels of issues. But people who are exposed can have acute exposure issues or chronic exposure issues.

It is classified, under the US National Toxicology Program, as a reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen. The International Agency for Research on Cancer lists it as probably carcinogenic to humans.

And the other shorter term issues could be skin irritation, nausea, headaches, exacerbation of asthma, that type of an issue.

So those who are going to be most exposed are the people who are going to work with it most directly and that’s likely the people in the dry cleaning shop who are putting it into their machine and taking it out, cleaning the filters on the machines, opening the doors five or six times a day, depending on how many loads they do.

And then the consumer will have less exposure certainly, but it has been studied that PERC or perchloroethylene does come home on clothes that have been put through the solvent in the dry cleaning process. As the clothes come out of the machine, they get pressed and they get bagged in plastic bags and it comes home once you take the bag off in your closet or in your house. So the PERC is coming out of those clothes.

And they have put in place a law at the federal level, coming into play in 2020 where dry cleaning shops that use PERC are not going to be allowed in residential facilities anymore. And that’s because it has been studied that PERC is actually getting out from the shop and getting up into the residences that are above them.

DEBRA: Also you mean where there’s a dry cleaning shop on the ground floor of an apartment building or something like that?

JOY ONASCH: Right, which is mostly in the big cities. Even less so, not even in [inaudible 00:17:24] like that, but it did push the federal, EPA, to look at it and to put [inaudible 00:17:33]. So there are a couple of different ways of exposure for the public as well.

DEBRA: Good. We need to take another break and when we come back, we’ll talk more about dry cleaning with Joy Onasch from the Toxics Use Reduction Institute at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. We’ll be right back.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Joy Onasch from the Toxics Use Reduction Institute of the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

During the breaks, what I do is I check my emails just because people sometimes email me with questions. Somebody emailed. In fact, if you have a question and you want to email me during this show, you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com and use the contact form there and it will come straight to me and I’ll check it during the break.

But I got an email from one of my readers. One of the things that I do is I send out an inspiring quote every morning and a reader had written back to me thanking me for this particular quote. And it was, “The biggest problem in the world could have been solved when it was small.” And that’s from Lao Tzu from Ancient China.

That’s so, so, so true with toxics. It’s so true because if we look and recognize that there’s a problem and do something about it before it turns into a really big problem, it’s so much easier to take care of and it really makes a huge difference. That’s not to say that it’s just a little problem because little problems turn into big problems.

Okay, Joy. So tell us about the different kinds of alternatives we have to using toxic dry cleaning. Within a dry cleaning industry, what you do is you help different businesses replace their toxic chemicals with not toxic chemicals. So what kinds of things are dry cleaning places using now that are less toxic?

JOY ONASCH: There are several different alternatives out there on the market. Probably the most popular is hydrocarbon based alternative that people have been switching to. It seems to do the job fairly well for them. The cost is fairly comparable for them compared to the regularly used solvent perchloroethylene.

The health issues and the environmental issues may not be as bad as the other alternatives out there. There is an issue with sustainability of it. But nonetheless, it’s been a very popular, easy to use, easy to learn replacement for PERC.

There are a few other alternatives out there in the market. One is acetals based. One is propylene-glycol ethers based. One is siloxane based. I’m a mechanical engineer, not a chemist, so I’m not going to go into exactly what the chemistries of these different alternatives are.

But I guess it suffices to say that TURI has done an analysis of these different alternatives and compared them all literally side by side, looking at their technical performance, their financial aspects, environmental and human health safety, regulatory issues.

And what has come out on top are two other ones that I haven’t mentioned. Carbon dioxide, which actually hasn’t gotten a lot of traction because the equipment is very expensive even though it’s a very clean way of cleaning clothes. But the other one is called professional wet cleaning and that’s the one that’s at the top of our evaluation as well as other organizations that have done similar evaluations.

So that’s the technology and the process that we work with cleaners in Massachusetts to help switch. We like to make the information available to them about these other alternatives.

But we have a bit of a budget that we’re able to financially assist with grant facilitates. And since that budget is limited, we choose to put our money towards the professional wet cleaning technology and assisting the facilities to switch over to that.

And not only does it rise to the top of the pile in those criteria elements that I mentioned, but if a shop switches from a solvent-based system to a professional wet cleaning system entirely, not using any other methods, they will save a lot of money on their energy bills, potentially their water bills, their health insurance, their medical bills.

We’ve had a lot of information about people just feeling so much better. Their employees are out sick much less, but again the electricity bills can be cut in half. We’ve seen it in some facilitates. And the water bills can be cut in half. We’ve seen it in some facilities.

It depends on what equipment they were using and what they’re switching to, how much of an impact they see. But it’s really made a big difference in their operating cost.

We’ve seen paybacks between two and four years generally, which is pretty significant and pretty fast for a small busies like a dry cleaner that depends on public coming and going and bringing their clothes to them. It’s not always that a small business like that in the service industry would get such a quick payback.

DEBRA: I’d like you to explain what professional wet cleaning is. I think that most people don’t understand that what’s called dry cleaning is actually wet because it uses solvents.

And so if they’re taking in for professional wet cleaning now, they’ve got clothing with tags in it that says, “Dry clean only.” So explain what cleaning is. And is it okay to take in your dry clean only clothes?

JOY ONASCH: Right. Just a side note there, we’re actually working with the Federal Trade Commission. Right now, they have a proposed amendment to their Care Labeling Rule out right now that we’ve given comments to, to hopefully change that care label in garments to make it easier for the dry cleaners and for the consumers to understand what can and can’t be done with that cleaning, with that garment.

In the meantime though, yes, if a cleaner feels comfortable with using the professional wet cleaning system on something that says dry clean only, we have cleaners across Massachusetts now doing that. So if they’re trained and they’re knowledgeable in what they’re doing, there won’t be a problem.

DEBRA: Okay. So what is the process of wet cleaning?

JOY ONASCH: Right. It’s not your home laundry machine. We need to make that clear from the beginning.

DEBRA: Okay, good. It’s not just the cleaner throwing it in their laundry.

JOY ONASCH: Exactly. And if someone has a really nice wool suit, just don’t go throw it in your laundry machine instead.

So it is a several steps process that begins with a computer controlled washing machine, which has a detergent pumping system hooked to the back of it. So the cleaner will purchase certain different types of detergents, conditioners, softeners and other additives that get added to the pumping system.

The machine is computer-controlled and it’s programmed to have different programs run on it. So they might press one and it’s a wool jacket program. They might press two and it’s a silk cloth program. They can program, I don’t know, at least 50 programs. It’s in different machines for how different they want it to be. I’ve seen typically they only use 7 to 10 maybe different programs.

Anyway, so then the detergent, the other additives come into the pumping system and mixed with the water and the machine before either the water or the detergent touch the clothing, which is different than your home machine. Either your water comes in first or the detergent dumped on it first. So this mixture of the detergent, additives and your water creates its own solvent essentially to act on the clothes once the clothes are immersed in it.

So that’s the high tech end of the washer. Then at the end of the program, which only lasts 12 to 15 minutes maybe in the washer, it then goes to a dryer.

And the key on the dryer is that it needs to have what’s called a residual moisture control on it. That means that you can either time the dryer to end at the right time or you can program it to end with a certain amount of moisture left in your clothes.

And following the drying process, it goes on to what’s called [inaudible 00:26:07] equipment where the pieces go back on a form finisher and the clothes are pulled and steam blown through them to help them regain their shape and to get out the initial wrinkles in it. And then they’re touched up using pressing equipment.

DEBRA: Very interesting process. We need to take another break, but we’ll be back. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Joy Onasch from the Toxics Use Reduction Institute of the University of Massachusetts Lowell. We’ll be right back.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. My guest today is Joy Onasch from the Toxics Use Reduction Institute of the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

I’m so used to saying the University of California. I had to stop for a second and say University of Massachusetts.So anything else you want to tell us about dry cleaning?

JOY ONASCH: Let’s see. I just think that maybe your audience is probably going to be consumers of the service, of dry cleaning.

DEBRA: Yes.

JOY ONASCH: So something that we have tried to work towards is educating the consumers that there are alternatives out there and suggesting that the more they inquire with their dry cleaner as to what they use, the more awareness the dry cleaners will have that there’s an interest and a need from the consumers for them to seek out alternatives.

There are only so many ways we can reach out to the public. We can’t go knock on every single person’s door. So the more ways we can educate the public about that.

Oftentimes when I talk to groups about different ways of reducing toxic chemicals, I suggest that they take home one little piece of homework or one little change to make. And I often suggest that the next time they go to the dry cleaner, simply ask that they can be told what is being used at the facility and even make the suggestion that, “Hey, have you looked into this professional wet cleaning? I’ve heard about it. I’m sure you’ll really get some terrific benefits out of it.”

DEBRA: If somebody wanted to find a professional wet cleaner in their community because people listen to this show actually all over the world, how would they find one? Is there a website that lists them?

JOY ONASCH: Unfortunately, there’s not a really reliable consolidated spot to go to. The EPA does list some on their website, but I found it to be very out of date.

DEBRA: Yeah.

JOY ONASCH: There are different makers of other alternatives that will list users of their alternative. For example, a siloxane material called Green Earth, if you go to their website, they list all the dry cleaners that use their particular alternatives.

And our website lists the wet cleaners that we worked with in Massachusetts to convert to dedicated wet cleaning. But if someone in Montana is interested in finding someone in their town, I’m afraid I don’t have a resource for them, except to go and explore and talk to the different dry cleaners in their area.

And one note of question I would give them is that if a dry cleaner has a sign outside that says, “Organic, environmentally friendly, earth friendly, back to nature,” or something like that, it’s actually often a red flag that they’re using one of the alternatives, but not professional wet cleaning.

DEBRA: Oh, that’s very good because I actually have a cleaner down the street from me that has one of those signs. I thought, “Oh, good,” but I didn’t go in and ask them.

Here’s my solution to dry cleaning. I haven’t dry-cleaned anything in 30 years.

JOY ONASCH: Yes. That’s the other alternative.

DEBRA: Yeah. When I found that you bring your clothes in front of a dry cleaner and they give out perchloroethylene, I decided I didn’t want to breed that in my house.

Here’s one thing you can do. If you can’t get to a dry cleaner that is less toxic and you absolutely have to dry clean your clothes, when you bring them home, hang them up outside on the patio or in your garage or someplace not in the living space, take the plastic bag off and let it air out not in your living space. So that’s the first thing.

JOY ONASCH: Exactly. And also to follow up on the issue with the green friendly signs that people will put out, if that is the alternative available to you in your community, it certainly may very well be better than another cleaner may be using. If you can’t find a professional wet cleaner to clean your clothes using one of these other alternatives, [inaudible 00:30:39] certainly be a very valuable alternative.

DEBRA: Yes. Yes. So then the other thing is that what I did was I just decided that I would make choices about the clothes that I wear that don’t require dry cleaning. And I wear mostly just cotton and linen. And in the wintertime—I live in Florida and I’m not working in an office, so I don’t have to wear wool suits or something like that. But I have a few sweaters and things that I just wash by hand.

I don’t know what I’d do if I had an expensive wool suit. But there are a lot of clothes that you can buy. You can buy linen jackets. I look for cotton jackets. I look professional enough for what I do with my life. And I can look pretty professional wearing cotton and linen clothes that don’t have to go to the dry cleaners.

And I just make those choices really, really carefully and then I wash everything in the washing machine. And if I really have to look crisp, you can just take your clothes down to a dry cleaning place and they can just iron it for you with a professional iron and it looks like you had it dry-cleaned.

JOY ONASCH: Right, exactly.

DEBRA: If that’s what you mean.

JOY ONASCH: It’s amazing what they can do with a presser.

DEBRA: Yeah, they can do things there with a presser that you can’t do at home.

JOY ONASCH: Exactly.

DEBRA: Yeah.

JOY ONASCH: There are definitely other ways to seek out alternative methods and processes. Yes.

DEBRA: Yeah. And you could also look for—Google is really good at finding local things now. And so you could just type in the name of your city and what cleaning and if there’s a wet cleaner, it should probably come up.

JOY ONASCH: Yeah, the trick is that a lot of the wet cleaners don’t yet advertise themselves as wet cleaners. They’re a little bit worried that the public will think that that means they’re just putting it in the laundry machine or think that they can do it at home.

Each cleaner that I’ve worked with in Massachusetts has taken a slightly different approach. Several of them have promoted the fact that they’re doing professional wet cleaning. Some of them wait until at least a year has gone by, that the consumers are still very happy with how their clothes are being cleaned and the cleaner feels very comfortable with the process and then they finally say, “Hey. Guess what. I’ve been cleaning your clothes in water for the last year. Don’t they smell great and look great?”

So sometimes, they don’t put themselves out there as doing wet cleaning because they’re afraid of how the consumers are going to interpret that language.

DEBRA: That’s a good point. There’s so much education that goes on with this because we have ideas about what words mean and then new technologies come up and we do need to learn the new technologies and consumers do need to be educated.

There need to be a shift. This is one of the things that I’ve talked to a lot of people about. I’ll say to a manufacturer, “Why don’t you make whatever it is less toxic?” And they’ll say, “Because I have to be able to make it in a way that my consumer wants it.”

And it’s not that consumers want toxic products, except that we’re so accustomed to how things are that are toxic.

JOY ONASCH: The performance.

DEBRA: The performance. I’ll just use as an example when I first started removing toxic chemicals from my life, I had found the perfect shade of red lipstick. It took me years to find this perfect shade and I finally got it and then I decided to remove toxic chemicals from my life and I went, “Wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no, we’re not giving up the red lipstick.”

And it really took me a while to really get how toxic that red dye was and everything else, the [inaudible 00:34:36] and everything that was in that red lipstick and then I was eating it and licking my lips and everything and then I was getting so much toxic exposure. And finally, I could get the picture that there was a skull and cross bones on my lips about that lipstick and I stopped using it.

But I found over the years that the easiest thing to do is to go find the nontoxic alternative and find something you like and get the replacement first and see that there’s a replacement and then you can let go of the old toxic thing.

JOY ONASCH: Right. That makes for a very simple approach.

DEBRA: Sometimes it is hard to let go of what is something that you’ve been comfortable with even if it is toxic.

JOY ONASCH: Right.

DEBRA: This has been an excellent show, Joy. Thank you so much for being on. We just have two and a fifth. Is there anything else you want to tell us about dry cleaning or TURI or living toxic-free?

JOY ONASCH: Let’s see. I guess to give a quick summary of the full program that I run here is the Community and Small Business Program. So I run a grant program. If there are any Massachusetts listeners, we welcome applications from community organizations and municipalities and small businesses who are interested in getting some grant money to help them implement a project to reduce the toxic chemicals, whether it’s in dry cleaning or pesticides and lawn care or house cleaners.

We have a whole list of projects on our website that have been done in the past to give you ideas. We have up to $20,000 available for large projects and $10,000 for smaller local projects.

And then my program also covers other small business sectors. I’ve been working with auto shops to reduce the use of solvent cleaners and nail salons to find alternatives to the toxic chemicals that they may use and limit their exposure.

There’s obviously much more on our website at TURI.org. And a lot of our program information can be found under the Home and Community tab. And the information about the dry cleaner is actually under our small business section.

DEBRA: Oh yeah, tell me where to look—I have the site right in front of me. Tell me where to look exactly and I’ll go there. Can you tell me exactly how to get there?

JOY ONASCH: Yeah. About the dry cleaning?

DEBRA: Yeah.

JOY ONASCH: If you go to the homepage and then go under Our Work and go to Business.

DEBRA: Our Work. Business. Okay.

JOY ONASCH: And then Small Businesses and Dry Cleaning. It’s varied. You can also just type in TURI.org/DryCleaning and it will get you there.

DEBRA: Oh, okay, good.

JOY ONASCH: It’s a shorter way to do it. But there’s information there about Massachusetts cleaners’ switch. And we have written up several case studies. We collect data from the dry cleaners and their performance and their cost from using solvent to using the wet cleaning. A bunch of our case studies that we’ve written up from that data are on our website if people are interested.

And there’s lots of information there that people can print out and take to their dry cleaners the next time they go by and ask what they use. They can take the information to help…

DEBRA: Joy, you’re breaking up. It’s also the end of the show. So I’m going to say thank you and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio. You can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com to find out more. Be well.

Silent Spring is a classsic environmental book, but it was also the first popular book to write about the toxic effects of pesticides to human health. Today I have two guests who have studied Carson’s life, to tell us more about her life and works, and how she contributed to our modern awareness of toxics.

Rachel Carson is one of my inspirations and heros, because she stood up for our rights to live in a toxic-free world when nobody else was talking about it. So today I want to honor her.

Linda Lear PhD is the author of the acclaimed biography of Rachel Carson, Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature, and numerous articles on Carson. Lear’s biography of Carson was awarded the prize for the best book on women in science by the History of Science Society and has been translated into eight languages. www.rachelcarson.org

Patricia DeMarco PhD has been a Rachel Carson scholar since 2005, with service as the Executive Director of the Rachel Carson Homestead Association and as the Director of the Rachel Carson Institute at Chatham University. She writes and speaks extensively on the environmental ethic of Rachel Carson and her relevance to modern times. She is currently writing a book titled “Pathways to Our Sustainable Future.”

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
Honoring Rachel Carson—the First Author to Write About Toxics—for Earth Day

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest:Linda Lear PhD & Patricia DeMarco PhD

Date of Broadcast: April 22, 2014

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world and live toxic-free.

Today is Earth Day, April 22, 2014. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida. And we’re going to celebrate Earth Day today by celebrating Rachel Carson.

Now, some of you may know her as the author of Silent Spring. You may recognize the name of that book and not know who wrote it. But Silent Spring is one of the most important environmental books ever written, and it also was the first book to talk about toxics, and how they affected the environment, and how they affect human health.

I want to just read you a little paragraph. This is from the Earth Day website at EarthDay.org. This is about the history of Earth Day.

It says, “At that time, Americans were slurping leaded gas through massive V8 sedans.”

This is April 22, 1970.

“Industry belched out smoke and sludge with little fear of legal consequences or bad press. Air pollution was commonly accepted as the smell of prosperity. Environment was a word that appeared more often in spelling bees than on the evening news.”

“Although mainstream America remained oblivious to environmental concerns, the stage had been set for change by the publication of Rachel Carson’s New York Times bestseller, Silent Spring, in 1962.”

So the first Earth Day was eight years after Silent Spring was published in 1962.

“The book represented a watershed moment for the modern environmental movement, selling more than 500,000 copies in 24 countries. And up until that moment, more than any other person, Ms. Carson raised public awareness of concern for living organism, the environment and public health.”

Now, we’re going to celebrate her today and learn about her. I have two guests. The first is her biographer, Linda Lear, who wrote Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature. And my second guest, which will be on the second half of the show is Patricia DeMarco who is the former head of the Rachel Carson Institute. And she, herself, is writing a book about toxic chemicals and the environment.

So let’s first talk to Rachel Carson’s biographer, Linda Lear.

Hi, Linda.

LINDA LEAR: Hi. Nice to be on your show. Thank you.

DEBRA: Thank you for being here.

Before we talk, I just would like to read the opening paragraph from Silent Spring.

“For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals.”

Remember, this is 1962.

“…from the moment of conception until death. In the less than two decades of their youth, the synthetic pesticides have been so thoroughly distributed throughout the animate and inanimate world that they occur virtually everywhere.”

They already knew that. She knew this in 1962. And everyone in the world who read this book knew this.

“They have been recovered from most of the major river systems and even from streams of groundwater flowing unseen through the earth.”

“Residues of these chemicals linger in soil to which they may have been applied a dozen years before. They have entered and lodged in the bodies of fish, birds, reptiles and domestic and wild animals, so universally that scientists carrying on animal experiments find it almost impossible to locate subjects free from such contamination.”

“They have been found in fish in remote mountain lakes, in earthworms burrowing in soil, in the eggs of birds and in man himself for these chemicals are now stored in the bodies of the vast majority of human beings regardless of age.”

“They occur in mother’s milk and probably in the tissues of the unborn child.”

And we now have had studies done which show that that actually is true. They are in the tissues of the unborn child.

So Linda, tell us about this woman who wrote this book.

LINDA LEAR: Well, Rachel Carson, I always want to say, knew that she had some special mission in her life. She was a quiet, retiring person. She never intended to be an alarmist or a revolutionary (although I think she became something of a revolutionary in her lifetime).

But Silent Spring was not a book she started out wanting to write. She was almost dragged into writing it because she was so alarmed by what she was discovering, and nobody else would take up battle.

We have to remember that in 1962, chemistry was god, and chemists in their white coats in laboratories were god-like. We just come from a time of war. Science was king. And science was mostly male.

Rachel Carson did not have a Ph.D. She was a writer. She had made herself famous through writing The Biography of the Sea, three books on the ocean.

And so she came to Silent Spring not as a scientific expert, but as someone who had observed, and read, and studied, and was alarmed by what she found out.

DEBRA: And also what was going on at that time was that, every night, people were watching television and seeing commercials about better living through chemistry. I remember that. I was seven years old when this book was published.

And that’s what we were watching on TV—that and the Jetsons. I remember the Jetsons cartoons about what it would be like in the future to have video phones like we have nowadays. I never thought that would ever happen, but here we are.

LINDA LEAR: Here we are.

DEBRA: Yes. Tell us something about her background.

LINDA LEAR: She came from Springdale, Pennsylvania, which is a little town on the Allegheny River.

When she was a young girl, it was a pristine town.

She and her family were not very well-to-do. They scrabbled. Her mother taught piano lessons. Her father worked in several jobs, mostly unrewarded. And thus, Rachel was always interested in writing and in nature. Her mother was her best teacher. She loved her birds and identified animals.

She graduated from high school in Parnassus. And at just about that point, in 1924/25, Springdale was beginning to be as polluted upstream as Pittsburgh was downstream. Springdale is about 10-miles from downtown Pittsburgh. And so Rachel witnessed the sullying, if you will, of her beautiful, little pristine village on the Allegheny River.

The water turned musty and began to smell. There were big chemical companies […] right in her neighborhood. There was foot and cement dust all over the little homes. And she witnessed this. She witnessed this deterioration of the environment.

So when she went to, what is now Chatham University, she went there with an already built-in sensitivity to the environment and to what was happening to the natural world around her. And she had already published stories in various children’s magazines. She wanted to be a writer.

She started out majoring in English. And at that time, there weren’t very many women scientists, and it was the beginning of the Great Depression. She graduated in 1929, and there were no jobs for women in science.

But Rachel discovered that what she saw through the microscope in her biology class meant more to her than what she was trying to do by writing fiction or even non-fiction.

So, she changed her major in college to Biology thanks to a wonderful mentor. And then she went onto Woods Hole and did graduate work at Johns Hopkins in Biology, and got an M.A. in Zoology, all the while interested in the natural
world.

DEBRA: Tell us about that moment. What led to the story behind why it was called Silent Spring?

LINDA LEAR: That’s a good question. The title of the book was under a lot of debate between her editor, her agent and herself. At one point, the title was Man Against Nature. But what Carson was finding out was that humans were actually the biggest culprit of environmental toxicity and environmental damage. It’s not a popular idea then, and it’s not a popular idea in some corners now.

DEBRA: I need to interrupt you because we need to go to break, but we’ll continue just as soon as we come back.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And today, we’re celebrating Rachel Carson with her biographer, Linda Lear. And then we’ll have another guest talking about Rachel when we come back.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. It’s Earth Day, and we’re celebrating Rachel Carson. And we’re talking with her biographer, Linda Lear, who wrote Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature.

So you were telling us how the title came to be.

LINDA LEAR: Well, the title came about because, finally, in her research, she had heard about so many towns and villages across the country where pesticides were being used, and suddenly, birds were dying, bees were dying, cattle were dying, domestic pets were sick and even children were sick.

And so they were talking about the fact that there was a possibility that spring might become silent. And that’s really the metaphor for how she got Silent Spring. But it’s not the fact that there was a specific town where all those things that happened. But in her research, all those towns had something that happened.

And can I just say that in 1962, the American public really did not understand that pesticides were poison. They really thought that pesticides and toxic chemicals couldn’t get through the barrier of the skin.

In the Uses of Pesticide report that the Congress, the President’s Special Committee on Pesticides, wrote just before Rachel’s book came out, the last line of that report says, “The American public does not understand that pesticides are poison.” That just really threw me when I first read that.

DEBRA: I think still people don’t understand that pesticides are poison or that toxic chemicals can get to your skin.

LINDA LEAR: I think that’s right. So Rachel went about trying to make people understand that the skin was not a barrier, that breathing was not a barrier, that putting your mask over your face is not sufficient, that chemicals are in your food, in your drinking water—what scientists and Rachel would call “persistent” in the water, in the soil.

Once DDT is in the soil, in the water, in your tissues, it doesn’t go away.

DEBRA: That’s right. It stays.

I know that you’re only available for the first half of the show. And I just want to mention before we get there in a couple of minutes—it goes by so fast, I know—how wonderful you are as a biographer. I actually haven’t read Rachel Carson, but the way that I found Linda Lear was by reading her book about Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature.

This is a very thick book. It’s about two-inches thick. I started reading it, and I couldn’t put it down. And you sometimes think that biographies are going to be dry and difficult to get through, but this was not at all. I was fascinated. I couldn’t stop reading this book.

I do want to mention, Beatrix Potter, she has nothing to do with toxics. It wasn’t a problem at that time. Do you mind if I tell the story, Linda?

LINDA LEAR: No. Please, go ahead.

DEBRA: You told it so well. You inspired this.

LINDA LEAR: I appreciate the enthusiasm.

DEBRA: If I were doing a show in Beatrix Potter, I would call it, How Peter Rabbit Saved the Lake Country, because she so loved nature. She so loved nature. Linda and I talked earlier before the show about what a scientist she was.

And not only did she write Peter Rabbit and draw all those beautify pictures, but she also used her artistic talents to preserve information about local flora there in the English countryside.

But what a lot of people don’t know (and it’s in Linda’s book) is that in her later years, she took all this money that she made from writing Peter Rabbit books, and how they were so loved by so many children. And the money that she made writing those books, she used to buy the Lake Country of the English countryside, the whole thing.

She just bought farm after farm after farm because at that time, it was all being threatened. She said, “No.” And she bought it. And that’s why we have the Lake Country.

And every time I think about that, I want to cry because I’m so moved that one person like Rachel Carson, one woman, wrote a book and alerted the world about toxic chemicals. One woman just bought up the whole countryside because she had the money to do it, and she knew it needed to be preserved.

LINDA LEAR: And she cared.

DEBRA: And she cared. You’ve picked two incredible women to write about.

LINDA LEAR: Well, I think there are a lot of Beatrix and Rachel that are actually quite similar even though they lived almost half-a-century apart. Carson was born in 1907, and Beatrix Potter was born in 1866 and very Victorian.

But in their attitude towards nature, they were very, very similar. They both approached nature scientifically. Potter had animal pets as a child. And when they died, she and her little brother would boil their bones, and articulate their skeletons, so to be able to better draw them even more lifelike and to understand how the bodies work.

Carson went out and wrote about birds’ nests as a child and won prizes in literary magazines.

So they were both women whose great talent was in observation and imagination. Potter’s imagination is clearly more visible in her little book stories, but Carson’s imagination enabled her to write her first book about what it must be like to live under the sea. The book was called Under the Sea Wind. It’s a very special book. And it follows three animals who dwell over and under the sea, what their lives, she imagined, are like. And it’s not as she imagined it, but as she studied and observed.

So both of them have imagination. Both of them have this incredible ability to observe, and then to write about it.

DEBRA: Yes, I’ve noticed that with both of them as well. They’re exceptional women, both of them.

Well, we just have less than a minute. That’s all the time we have. So I’ll just let you take that time, and make any final statement you’d like.

LINDA LEAR: I do want to tell your wonderful listeners that Rachel Carson should be a household name. I always have a problem because people want to call her Carlson or something, but it’s Carson. And she did not start the environmental movement, but she did indeed trigger it.

Her writing in Silent Spring woke people up. It made the American public understand that they had to ask questions to their government. They had to ask, “What are you putting in my food? What are you putting in my water? What is industry doing in the name of science that we don’t know about?” We have a right to know.

So all our right to know laws, our environmental protection, really comes from the broad consciousness that Rachel Carson started.

DEBRA: Thank you so much. We have so much to be grateful to her for. I’m sorry I started coughing right there while you were talking.

But thank you so much for being with us today. And thank you so much for everything that you’ve done to make the world know more about Rachel Carson.

LINDA LEAR: Thank you for having me. And Happy Earth Day, everybody.

DEBRA: Happy Earth Day. That’s Linda Lear, and you can learn more about her and her work at RachelCarson.org.

You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. We’ll be right back.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. It’s Earth Day today, and we’re celebrating the life and work of Rachel Carson who, as I mentioned at the beginning of the show, laid the groundwork for environmental awareness that led to the first Earth Day. Her book, Silent Spring, came out in 1962, and then there was so much more awareness of the environment that we had Earth Day in 1970. And after that, then the Environmental Protection Agency was created.

All of this, even everything that happened today, started—I mean, she wasn’t the founder of Earth Day or the Environmental Movement. But she did what was in her observation and her heart, which was to speak out about something that she knew was wrong and that people needed to know about. And I admire her so much for that.

So our next guest is Patricia DeMarco, and she’s been a Rachel Carson scholar since 2005. She’s the former director of the Rachel Carson Institute at the Chatham University. And she writes and speaks extensively on the environmental ethic of Rachel Carson and her relevance to modern times.

Hi, Patricia.

PATRICIA DEMARCO: Hello. How are you?

DEBRA: I’m very good. How are you?

PATRICIA DEMARCO: Thank you for having me with you today on this Earth Day.

DEBRA: It’s my pleasure.

So, tell us about what is Rachel Carson’s environmental ethic.

PATRICIA DEMARCO: Well, she really is credited with a constellation of concepts collected as the “precautionary principle.” If you look at her work in detail, it really has four parts. One is that to live in harmony with nature rather than trying to subjugate nature to man’s will, we find ways to live in harmony with the natural world.

And second, that you preserve and learn from the natural systems of the world. She was a systems thinker, and her studies allowed her to really understand that interconnectedness and the real importance of the ecosystem services to our own survival. that we should minimize the effects of man-made chemicals on the natural systems of the world.

She really was concerned about not only the burden of all the synthetic materials that were in the biosphere, but she recognized the value of concentration of materials as they go up the food chain. Again, not well-recognized at the time that she began writing, but now, evident everywhere around us, the concentration of chemicals means you have to prevent, rather than try to remove.

And finally, she considered the implications of human actions on the global web of life. She understood that we are interconnected to all of the other living creatures, and dependent upon them, and all of us dependent upon the living earth as the provider of our life support—fresh air, clean water, fertile ground, and the biodiversity of species.

So her environmental ethic was one of precaution and one of living in harmony with nature.

DEBRA: It’s so interesting to me. I agree with everything that you just said. I hadn’t read Silent Spring when I came to those same conclusions myself.

It wasn’t anything I was ever taught in school. Nobody ever said it to me. It was just that I got to a point in the late 1970s, so I guess it was maybe 15 years after Silent Spring. I became very sick from exposure to toxic chemicals, and I said, “Wait a minute.”

No, very, very sick, like disabled sick.

And I said, “Wait a minute. There’s something wrong here.”

And I was just living my standard American lifestyle that everybody lives, but I got sick. And as I started investigating where were the toxic chemicals, and how could I live without them, if you keep asking that question deeper and deeper and deeper, you fall out the bottom of the industrial world and say, “Wait a minute. There’s nature here.”

You’re not looking at the industrial consumer system anymore. You see that there are ecosystems, and that if you just step outside of the industrial toxic world, that there there’s actually life living in harmony with itself, and we actually belong to it. And that we’re as part of nature as a tree is.

And yet, because we live in this industrial world, and we’ve been defined by our culture to be separate from that, we have lost our connection.

PATRICIA DEMARCO: That’s very true. Our connectivity to the natural world is the key feature of our modern technological time. And in fact, we’re more and more separate from the natural world as we develop allergies, and aversions to being outside as a hostile place.

And people think of the built environment as their natural habitat when, in fact, we are really creatures of the earth ourselves.

DEBRA: Yes, we are.

PATRICIA DEMARCO: And are subject to the same laws of nature as all other living creatures.

And I think that has been one of the biggest challenges. Since Earth Day in 1970, we have become increasingly dependent on technology to fix things. And we’ve got to the point now where we’ve gone far beyond the capability to actually stick anything, most of the environmental laws that were passed in the early part of the Environment Movement in the 1976 period, 1972 to 1976, we’re attempting to control the most egregious symptom of environmental contamination.

We’ve put corks in the smoke stacks. We’ve put stoppers in the emission pipes. We’ve put liners in the landfill and thought that we are doing environmental improvement.

But with all of those laws, we have, by law, legally, under permit, 3.6-billion pounds per year of toxic materials released into the environment, and 2.1-billion pounds of fertilizer, herbicide and pesticides drenching our farm wind each year.

Rachel Carson described it as a barrage of poison, and we could not withstand this as living creatures.

You alluded earlier to the quote about our exposure to toxic chemicals from the moment of birth until death, and if you look at the Center for Disease Control’s national report on human exposures to environmental chemicals that’s done every two years, they found that there are 441 synthetic chemicals in the average U.S. adult, and 337 in newborn babies, and 79 of those are known to cause cancer and mutations in humans.

And yet, the burden is on the consumer to try to avoid these materials. We have had so many attempts to try to reform the laws that allow all of these emissions and we can’t even get them out of committee for action in the public interest.

DEBRA: I’m going to interrupt you because we need to go to break. And when we come back, we’ll continue to talk.

I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. And my guest on this half of the show is Patricia DeMarco, who is the former head of the Rachel Carson Institute, and she’s writing a book on how toxic chemicals affect the environment.

We’ll be right back.

DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and one of my guests today is Patricia DeMarco, who has been a Rachel scholar since 2005, and she’s the former director of the Rachel Carson Institute of Chatham University.

We’re celebrating Rachel Carson for Earth Day. She was so instrumental in changing the awareness of the public prior to the founding of Earth Day, and we’re learning more about her today.

Patricia, so how are some ways that we can be applying, those of us who are listening, individuals, how can we apply Rachel Carson’s environmental ethic in our own lives?

PATRICIA DEMARCO: Well, the first thing is to be aware of all the things that you can control yourself that have toxic chemicals associated. The most obvious one being, if you have a garden or property of your own, absolutely stop putting herbicides, pesticides and toxic materials on the ground. It gets in the sewers, it gets into the water table, it is impossible to keep it isolated from our biosphere, and it’s totally unnecessary for domestic uses.

You will have an absolutely beautiful garden without any toxic materials. And if you want directions about how to do that, the National Wildlife Federation has a Gardener’s Guide for Global Warming, which is available very easily, that gives a lot of explicit details.

A second thing you can do is read the label on everything. And if you find toxic materials, and you can identify which they are by going to the Environmental Working Group, EWG.org, and identify the 12 that you absolutely must avoid in order to be healthy and safe.

You can do an inventory of your personal care products to identify non-toxic and non-endocrine-disrupting alternatives to things that are commercially made.

And one of my most important things that Rachel Carson did was she asked a lot of uncomfortable questions—things like, who has the right side for the countless legions of people who were not consulted that the supreme value is a world without insects, even though it will also be a sterile world ungrazed by the curving wind of the […] She questioned the benefits of technology applied without wisdom.

DEBRA: We absolutely should be questioning that. I don’t understand why the guiding purpose of the powers that be in the world today aren’t saying the number one most important thing we need to do is preserve life.

PATRICIA DEMARCO: We have had nine attempts to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act, most notably under the leadership of Senator Lautenberg, and it can’t even get out of Committee because the money, the interests, have a different perspective on their freedom to do whatever they want commercially.

Limitation of the freedom of commerce has prevailed. But freedom without responsibility, without accountability to the public interest will just yield chaos. And we’re very far down the road of having chaos prevail in this area because the public interest in being protected has not been honored in our laws.

Rachel Carson’s testimony to Congress in June of 1963 laid out some very reasonable and relevant concerns, even in 1963. She was concerned about exposure of workers to toxic materials in their workplace.

This is still a large concern, especially for migrant workers. She was concerned that we have biologically-based alternatives, and this has been a very controversial area because people are claiming that genetically-modified organisms are biological control systems.

But no one asked us if we wanted pesticides to be incorporated into our food products.

DEBRA: They didn’t ask me.

PATRICIA DEMARCO: They didn’t ask me either, so you can’t even always tell what has been modified to include pesticide in the product. Labeling has become a controversial subject, even labeling, to know whether something is organic or not took a large bite.

I think we have to have a broader public debate about the ethical determinations that are being made on our behalf without public discussion. And this applies not only to toxic materials in our environment, but also to our energy choices, many of which have toxic byproducts.

I think we have to be more engaged in the public debate about the laws and the policies that are being adopted or not adopted on behalf of public interest.

DEBRA: Wow. That’s a lot to say. I totally agree with all of it. I’m sitting here thinking how much—a lot of what you’re saying are things, I wouldn’t say they’re commonly known even now, but they’re known to me, and they’re ideas that I’ve come across in other places, or figured out for myself.

But they aren’t widely known, and yet, she was writing about them when nobody else was writing about them, or talking about them, or even thinking about these things.

PATRICIA DEMARCO: Right! I think she understood systems. She was thinking in systems. And much of what she predicted we have now seen in evidence as a result of things that she studied and knew about.

And I think one of the things that we have to really focus on here is going forward, not to continue trying to put Band-Aids on the symptoms, but to actually look at the root causes of our most egregious problems, and try to develop solutions which are based on curing the source of the problem instead of just continuing to patch up the air and the water emissions from things that really need to be replaced.

This is what I’m writing about in my own book. It’s Pathways to Our Sustainable Future, and to look at how do we address the root causes, not because we don’t have the technology to fix things, but because we need to apply the wisdom of natural systems in the choices that we’re making. And we need to choose things that solve the root problems.

So moving to renewable energy system instead of combustion of fossil fuels that were laid down in the last great extinction, doing things like making organic and sustainable agricultural practices, the mainstream component of our commercial agriculture, and looking at designing chemicals to be non-toxic on purpose rather than trying to clean up the risk from how much exposure you have.

Because many of them accumulate, and having the exposure controlled isn’t possible because they accumulate in the biosphere, so to design non-toxic products and byproducts.

And then to actually move to an economy that operates more like an ecosystem in circles, instead of going from raw material to trash, to find ways, to research a way, by design, design things for re-use, design things for being re-purposed, so you’d have an economy that goes in a cycle the way an ecosystem does.

DEBRA: Yes, I agree with all of those things. We’re absolutely on the same page.

PATRICIA DEMARCO: Thank you.

DEBRA: I’m writing about things all the time. I know if you’ve been to my website. I didn’t quite introduce myself thoroughly. You just go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, and at the top in the menu, there’s a button called “shop” and you just click on shop, and there are about 700 websites where you can buy all kinds of non-toxic things for your home.

And if you click on “Q&A,” I’ve been talking with people for years. There are actually years of worth of dialogue about what people are looking for, and what kind of non-toxic solutions exist. So there’s a lot, lot, lot of answers here on my website that are just for free. People can just come and read them.

And you were talking about different examples of how we could move to something that is more sustainable and more oriented with nature, and I just want to emphasize just one because just out of all of those, I think the simplest one that we can do is if everybody would just switch to organic food, that is an example.

PATRICIA DEMARCO: […]

DEBRA: But that’s an example of how our food is produced by industrialization. It’s industrial food. When we eat refined sugar or refined salt or processed foods, all those things happened in factories. And even, there are factory farms. It’s agribusiness. It’s not agriculture.

And if everybody would just recognize this, we already have this technology of organic, and it’s being done, and it’s growing, and if everybody would just say, “We’re going to eat organic food now,” that would make such a difference in the world.

PATRICIA DEMARCO: It would be ideal, but one of the problems we have is that there are lots of places in this country that people don’t have access to any kinds of fresh produce. And there are places where people in those kinds of areas are taking land of their own volition, and growing their own food.

And I think the return to things like the victory gardens of the olden days makes so much sense because people can establish community composting, community gardens. And this is happening all of the country in many, many places that people begin to look at taking control of their own food chain, and being more familiar with it.

I think the more we know about how we develop our own food supply and our own energy supply, and taking responsibility for the quality of the food that we have—

DEBRA: I’m sorry to interrupt you in the middle of the sentence, but the music is going to come on in about four seconds. So I just need to say thank you so much. Happy Earth Day to everyone. Everybody, go out and find out something about Rachel Carson.

This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. Thank you.