#Eco-Business

[byler-alarmist]

Do people know most paper receipts are harmful to their health?

I'm going to get up on my soapbox for a minute, but do people realize how pretty much everyone is being overloaded with endocrine disruptors like BPA/BPS on a near-daily basis??

I don't think many people understand that ever since most of the world transitioned to thermal paper receipts (cheaper than ink), almost every receipt you handle from the gas station to the grocery store to the Square terminal printer at the local co-op is coated with Bisphenol-A (BPA) or its chemical cousin Bisphenol-S (BPS).

These chemicals have not only been proven to cause reproductive harm to human and animals, they've also been linked to obesity and attention disorders.

Not sure if your receipt is a thermal receipt? If you scratch it with a coin and it turns dark, it's thermal.

BPA/BPS can enter the skin to a depth such that it is no longer removable by washing hands. When taking hold of a receipt consisting of thermal printing paper for five seconds, roughly 1 μg BPA is transferred to the forefinger and the middle finger. If the skin is dry or greasy, it is about ten times more. 

Think of how many receipts you handle every day. It's even worse for cashiers and tellers, who may handle hundreds in a single shift. It is also a class issue, since many people who work retail and food service are lower-income and will suffer worse health consequences over time from the near-constant exposure.

Not only that, receipts printed with thermal ink are NOT recyclable, as they pollute the rest of the paper products with the chemicals.

People don't know this and recycle them anyway, so when you buy that "green" toilet paper that says "100% recycled"? Yup, you are probably wiping your most sensitive areas with those same chemicals (for this reason, I buy bamboo or sugarcane toilet paper as a sustainable alternative to recycled paper).

This page from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has some good links if you want to learn more.

As consumers, we need to demand better from our businesses and from our governments. We need regulation of these chemicals yesterday.

If you are a buyer or decision-maker for a business, the link above also contains a shortlist of receipt paper manufacturers that are phenol-free.

If you work at a register, ask customers if they want a receipt. If they don't and you can end the transaction without printing one, don't print one!

As a consumer, fold receipts with the ink on the inside, since that's where the coating is. Some more good tips here.

And whatever you do, DO NOT RECYCLE THERMAL RECEIPTS

[cozypunkprints]

Mackerel patches are heeeere! I'm so so pleased with how these came out.

shop

[rosanna-writer]

Consider: Lucien as the hottie who's installing solar panels on Elain's roof

[envirogoth]

"there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" "you can criticize capitalism while participating in it" are both true and valid statements. but if you care about anti capitalism, your hands aren't wiped clean. acknowledging the problem is only the first step

yes, you can make money to survive & buy things to have fun. you can get things that aren't necessary to treat yourself. you can work your way up the corporate ladder.

some people resign themselves to their fate, as though capitalism is the way that things must be forever. but there's still questions you should ask yourself before deciding to drop all attempts at working against the system:

do you support/promote the culture of excessive buying?

how do you treat poor or otherwise disadvantaged people?

do you support local libraries, local businesses (if you can afford to), or other local organizations?

do you vote in favor of social services and education?

do you vote at all?

do you buy things in quantity over quality(lifespan) when you have the money to do either?

not everyone is an activist, but everyone has the power to vote with their money and with their ballot. telling yourself that there's no ethical consumption isn't a get out of jail free card. you don't have to be perfect or have to shop outside of your means or really go out of your way at all to take actions against capitalism. the main thing is that you care about people, your community, the environment, etc enough to care about your behaviors. that's all we can ask of anyone. to care

(this post is written about the US, I'm unclear on the situations in other countries)

[frutiger-fella]

Got a new phone and used my frutiger aero/aqua inspired stickers that I got from liddobeanstudio (on etsy) accordingly

[crittirclothing]

Baseball caps have been a fun addition to my collection lately! These are up on the site as we speak

[thegoodmorningman]

You're always going to find something more important if you don't prioritize wellness. Good Morning!!!

[bardicspirit]

Gothic upcycling 🖤🌿

Found frame and doll parts in a charity store. Lace sleeve, painting, dried flowers and assembly by me!

[solarpunkbusiness]

Amid the mounting waste crisis, startup Mycocycle has pioneered a patent-pending process that unlocks the incredible metabolic potential of fungi to recycle industrial byproducts into low-carbon raw materials. By cultivating specialized strains of mushroom mycelium, the startup’s system can efficiently metabolize construction and demolition debris into a variety of eco-friendly building components.

Joanne Rodriguez, founder and CEO of Mycocycle, was featured in Forbes’ Next 1000 (2021), a list of up-and-coming ambitious entrepreneurs “redefining the American dream.” The startup is based in Illinois and has recently raised $2.2M in Seed Funding, bringing the total amount of funds raised thus far to $3.7M.

“We can learn from nature to solve some of the world’s biggest problems,”

[wild-at-mind]

You cannot absolve yourself from the fact of your existence in a country that has done horrible things in the past and present by failing to vote. Sorry.

Should you need to absolve your own existence? Some people talk as if you do, but personally I passionately do not think so. Guilt and actions caused by it do not create good activism. The person who convinces themselves that voting is the same as committing war crimes themselves will have a lot of difficulty with basically anything they apply that standard to. That's the problem with society- you can't opt out, not really. Not even with the hyper-anarchist existence I was trying to describe recently. Everything we do, if through enough degrees of separation, harms someone. Anything we need to survive in this world- clothes, food, electronics. We know this. We have to live with this, and not succomb to the type of thinking that most closely resembles OCD with morality fixation. When I see people behaving like this, it blows my mind, like I spent so long trying to unlearn these thought patterns and you're doing it to yourselves?!!

Society is currently set up so that we have to harm people all the time, from living in countries that sanction wars in other countries to damaging the planet. We have to live with that in the here and now, and do what we can when we can. Of course we can ask for better, but I firmly believe the only way to work towards better is to work within society and make connections to others rather than driving them away with this absolutist guilting and hostility to each other. Do not take on a burden of guilt that the person you passed on the street doesn't have. We cannot make society better if we are constantly stumbling under the burden of guilt.

Signed- an OCDer and eco activist

[vampirekittystore]

The collection is finally back! Everything (except the kandi) is made of eco-friendly materials! So you can shop till you drop 100% guilt free!

[vodstoys]

4 Reasons to Choose Wooden Toys

[diwns]

got ourself a stalker. question mark. question mark.

[petula-xx]

This is 4kg (8.8lb) of natural soap off cuts that arrived today. The company who makes the soaps sells these trimmed end pieces at a cheap price online.

They are all hand made, vegan, cruelty and palm oil free.

A cost effective and zero waste outcome for both the company and me. They smell amazing too by the way!

[envirogoth]

today I just finished up a hat my friend asked me to make for her sister. she asked how much, I said $5. I learned how to crochet because another friend gifted me a loom and some black yarn for my birthday one year. I only knew how to make one thing- hats. I didn't even make them correctly. it was supposed to bunch up in the middle to be a beanie. well I messed something up on the last step and it became a square. putting it on made cat ears. my friends thought it was cute, so I decided to make some for Christmas gifts!

the crocheting took a couple of hours, but it was fun, though frustrating, and I was just excited to make my friends a cute hat they enjoyed. I didn't think they would be so coveted that more people would ask for them *and pay*!

so when my friend asked me how much the hat would be I told her 5 dollars. after all, isn't that how much hats cost? when you go to Walmart, isn't a hat about $5?

My hats aren't amazing quality. the loom is large, so the loops are big, I still only know how to crochet one thing (two if you count the fact that now I know how to make a non-cat beanie..) and I can't tie my loose ends in a pretty way. but they are made from a soft yarn that keeps your head warm, and they are ADORABLE.

then I factor in the work I put in. once when I was really in the mood for crocheting I took a quick 4 hours, give or take, while binging TV shows.

the materials were cheap, about $9 for a skein that can make like 3 hats

so I'm putting in $3 per hat and selling them for $5.. making my time, over 4 hours, worth.. 50 cents an hour..

i asked for 10 since they're friends of friends, and maybe I'll ask for 15 next time.

I am not going to charge $40 for my hats. frankly nobody would buy them. but in what world should i be selling myself so short that I sell them for 5?

in what world should a hat cost $5. I don't even have shipping costs, and I don't have employees to pay. sure, I also don't have machines, or cheaper materials...

but there is someone out there, putting effort into that shein hat you got made out of plastic for $5, who is getting paid cents an hour. do they deserve that?

[umbrellacorphq]

Climate change affects us all. That's why Umbrella is proud to announce 100% renewable power generation at our new Midwestern research facility. Because it's not slave labor if they're already dead. 🌏 💚