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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (3432)	5/9/2004 2:54:29 PM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 36917

I find that for sale at small amounts works better.... they steal stuff that has a price....and leave the FREE stuff! ain't that America? CC

To: epicure who wrote (3432)	5/9/2004 3:14:55 PM
From: JBTFD	Respond to of 36917

I do that all the time. It works great. Even for stuff you wouldn't think people would take.

To: epicure who wrote (3432)	5/10/2004 9:32:30 AM
From: Crocodile	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 36917

I think some of the Freecycle groups are probably much more active than others. The group in this area is off to a great start and I'm seeing all kinds of things being exchanged. However, I don't imagine that would be the case everywhere. As for putting things out at the road with "Free" signs, that's a great idea and people out around where I live do that quite often -- especially big stuff like stoves, washing machines, etc.. In fact, along with the Free sign, there is often a note telling what is wrong with the stove, etc.. such as "Oven works, but 2 burners not working". I was just thinking that "FreeCycle" is just an internet variation on what our local dump used to be. Until just a few years ago, the dump was managed by our township and everyone had to bring their own garbage to the dump on Saturdays when it was open. It was always busy there, with people coming and going. Some people would stand around chatting after moving their vehicles off to one side after unloading. When you went to the dump, you often came home with just as much stuff as you took. It was a lot of fun. Sometimes you would see someone in the process of tossing something off and you'd call out "Hey! I'll take that!!". Also was a great place to go to get spare parts for lawnmowers and appliances. Often, you'd be able to go down and get exactly what you needed by perusing through the appliance heap. It was really neat. However, we've gone to a whole different system now that our township is part of a larger city. Now we have curbside trash pick-up and the dump isn't open to the public. It's really a shame as the old system seemed to work -- AND, maybe more importantly -- seeing the garbage piling up in the dump really made an impression on all of us as our township had to manage the dumpsite and couldn't expand any further. I think it helped for us to see just how much waste a township produces from week to week. croc

To: epicure who wrote (3432)	5/11/2004 6:46:12 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 36917

Have to find ANOTHER thing to eat Study Shows Drugs Given to Chickens Expose Consumers to Arsenic & Cancer From: THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER May 7, 2004, Issue #344 Monitoring Corporate Agribusiness >From a Public Interest Perspective EDITOR\PUBLISHER; A.V. Krebs E-MAIL: avkrebs@earthlink.net WEB SITE: ea1.com TO RECEIVE: Send name and address STUDY CHARGES DRUGS USED IN RAISING POULTY EXPOSES CONSUMERS TO MORE ARSENIC, CANCER ASSOCIATED PRESS: The poultry industry's widespread use of drugs to raise chickens is exposing people who eat them to more arsenic than previously estimated, according to a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In a paper published [May 3] in the journal Environmental HealthPerspectives, Ellen K. Silbergeld said arsenic-laced drugs intended to keep the birds healthy might pose an increased risk of cancer for consumers. She also said the drugs could create manure that is contaminating Eastern Shore ground water. Silbergeld's research essentially disputed the conclusions of a U.S. Department of Agriculture study, released in the journal in January, which concluded that the drugs did not pose a serious health problem. She said the Agriculture Department underestimated the amount of arsenic found in chickens and used outdated data to estimate the health risks of ingesting arsenic. "This paper had serious problems," Silbergeld said of the USDA report. Her findings, based on data published by the USDA and other health experts, could have major implications for the Eastern Shore, where ten percent of the nation's poultry is raised. A spokesman for the poultry industry said concerns about arsenic in chicken feed are unfounded and that tests consistently show arsenic levels in chickens are well below standards set by the Food and Drug Administration. "This study appears to be much ado about nothing," Richard Lobb, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council, told The (Baltimore) Sun. But Silbergeld, a toxicologist who won a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant in 1993 for her work linking mercury poisoning with infectious diseases, disagreed. She said arsenic in chicken feed creates potential problems in the meat produced and the ground water affected by the waste. When chickens excrete arsenic in manure, sunlight breaks it down and it migrates to the soil, where it can contaminate ground water supplies, she said. She noted that Europe bans arsenic in chicken feed because of these health concerns. "This is arsenic. We shouldn't lose sight of the sheer outrageousness of this," Silbergeld said. Geologists have been closely monitoring arsenic levels in the Eastern Shore's water supply for years without finding serious hazards. Health officials in Queen Anne's, Talbot and Dorchester counties require new wells to be tested for arsenic because of concerns about contamination of the local aquifers, said David Bolton, program director of the hydrogeology section of the Maryland Geological Survey. A recent U.S. Geological Survey study of the Pocomoke River Basin found slightly elevated levels of arsenic in shallow layers of ground water that could be the result of tainted manure, said Tracy Connell Hancock, a USGS hydrologist. But she and Bolton said further studies are needed to prove any connection between the manure and arsenic in the water. "Whether arsenic gets into the ground water from chicken waste is an open question that people are just beginning to investigate," Hancock said. CC