I pruned back an overgrown bush in my back yard last fall and now the soil around it is covered in dandelions and other weeds. Is there any way to get rid of these weeds without resorting to RoundUp and other chemical herbicides? — Max S., Seattle, WA

Weeds are nothing if not opportunistic. While you may not have bargained for getting one form of eyesore (weeds) by clearing another (an overgrown bush), dandelions and other fast-growing, quickly spreading plants know no bounds when some new territory opens up. They will colonize and spread out given the slightest opening-after all, thats what defines them as weeds.

Of course, conventional herbicides such as Monsantos RoundUp will take down the weeds in a jiffy, but the negative effects on people, animals and the environment may be both profound and long-lasting. Independent studies of RoundUp have implicated its primary ingredient, glyphosphate, as well as some of its “inert” ingredients, in liver damage, reproductive disorders and Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, as well as in cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, nerve and respiratory damage.

Californias Department of Pesticide Regulation reports that, year after year, RoundUp is the number one cause of pesticide/herbicide-induced illness and injury around that state. RoundUp is also blamed for poisoning groundwater across the U.S. and beyond, as well as for contributing to a 70 percent decrease in amphibian biodiversity and a 90 percent decrease in tadpole numbers in regions where it is used heavily.

Given that youll have to manually remove dead weeds from your yard after applying RoundUp (or any other “post-emergent” herbicide), why not just pull them up by hand in the first place? No doubt, the most eco-friendly way to get rid of weeds is to yank them out without the aid of poisons. Unfortunately, many weeds have long deep roots which need to be pulled completely if you dont want them to grow back; if need be, use a metal weed puller with a hooked end or a mechanical grabber-available at any local garden supply or hardware store-if you dont want to have to pull those very same weeds next year.

Garden expert Dean Novosat of the Garden Doctor website suggests giving the weed beds a good watering the night before you pull weeds. “…the soil will be softened and will yield the entire weed plant, root and all,” he says. Another way to kill weeds, he says, is by pouring boiling hot water over them.

Of course, once youve killed or pulled up all those weeds-and make sure youre thorough or else its waste of time-youll want to make sure new ones dont start showing up in their place. Planting some regionally appropriate and ideally native plants in place of the removed weeds would be a good first step-check with a local nursery about what some good choices might be for your neck of the woods.

Once the area is cleared (and replanted), cover it with three to six inches of mulch. Mulch forms a barrier between the soil and the sun, depriving any new germinating weeds of the sunlight they need to photosynthesize. Mulch is composed of large chunky material such as wood chips and bark nuggets, and works well for weed control also because it is low in nutrients and thus wont fertilize plant starts below.

CONTACTS: California Department of Pesticide Regulation, www.cdpr.ca.gov; The Garden Doctor, www.the-garden-doctor.com.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com.

Plastic water bottles = bad news. I am a total culprit here. I LOVE having water bottles nearby, and in large amounts. I was that lady at the grocery store buying 36 packs of water bottles every couple of weeks. I thought it was a great thing because I was drinking all that water instead of soda or juice. I am kind of a water snob, also.

I will not drink tap water, I dont care what anyone says, I can taste the difference, and its nasty. There arent enough lemons in the world to mask the taste of some tap water. I have even been known to bust out my water bottle in a restaurant because I wont drink the water they bring me. Snob? Agreed.

So…in all of this “What Can I Do?” research for ideas on how to help out the innocently uneducated and lazy people who are swatting that little green angel like an annoying gnat, I discovered the evil behind the water bottle. Sure, I recycled my plastic bottles, but not everyone does. The amount I was bagging each week was amazing. To think that so many people were consuming these piles of bottles and they were being dumped in landfills to rot for years and years was disturbing. I actually needed a word bigger than disturbing that hasnt even been invented yet.

Now, Im not dissing plastic. Plastic is great. I dont really see a more sanitary baby bottle nipple or revolutionary IV bag out there, but that much plastic for a container that holds drinking water? We invented glasses a long time ago for that. I also understand that we live in a world of convenience, and glass isnt really convenient, I get it. But the sheer amount of plastic water bottles on the earth is probably increasing its density level in the universe.

Well, since Im here for a solution and not just to ramble on, here it is – Klean Kanteens. Its not just a cute name, they have a legit website. (kleankanteen.com) Heres whats great about them – 100% stainless steel (which is flavor free), BPA-free (a harmful chemical found in metals), the company uses fair labor standards, and best of all, they come in lots of nifty colors. Get a few of them, so there is no excuse that yours is “dirty” or “left at work” or “lost somewhere.” And guess what? You can refill them over and over and over and over and over and over. And over.

Another fact is that plastic contains chemicals, and Im no chemist, but I do remember that heat and cold can cause chemical reactions. How do you think these water bottles are being shipped? Large trucks and planes that have NO temperature control are bringing them to us with the utmost convenience, but we have no idea what has happened to our water from when it was freshly bottled to when we put it in our mouths. I mean I might as well stick to the tap water at that point.

For those of us that want to go a step further, thewaterproject.org is a site where you can read stats and even donate money to get clean water to people who dont have access. The domino effect is amazing – plants will grow better, people will be stronger and healthier, they can go to work and school, the diseases are cut down tremendously, and the list goes on. I just went to the website and donated $20, it was quick and painless, and according to them, $10 can pay for one person to have clean water for 10 years! You can even select where you want the water to go; Haiti, Sudan, Sierra Lione, India, or wherever it is most needed. I am gonna have two people saying “Cheers!” for the next 10 years without really putting a dent in my checkbook. Here is the link.

Canteens: Not Just for Campers by Courtney Raney

Reason and emotion, mind and heart, are the regulators of the bodys response to whole food medicine. It has been demonstrated millions of times and for thousands of years that whole food diets, colonics, mono diets and fasting restore disturbances in metabolism, the immune system, respiratory function and mental outlook.

It is considered that the increasing levels of pollutants, chemicals, and food additives encountered by anyone living in an industrialized society can create a toxic overload in the body which can lead to more than 95% of all human diseases. The human body is designed to be able to clean and repair itself. It is only when it is overwhelmed, that good health goes south and greater Self-Care is called for.

Every moment of the bodys existence, whether in health or disease, is wrapped in and electro-chemical matrice of emotional molecules, generated by the limbic emotional centre of the brain. The neutral circuitry there causes neurosecretors to create actual molecules in response to emotions.

These emotional molecular crystalline structures are an electric chemistry that oscillates in frequencies that match anatomical and physiological structures throughout the body. In this, €˜like is drawn unto itself. Simply stated, the chemistry of the emotion we call “anger”, moves through the body as molecules, then, when we no longer need them, because molecules of calm have replaced their need in the body, they are collected and released by the bladder.

If anger doesnt erupt, or is not released, over time €˜feelings of resentment and hostility can develop and can become persistent. This constant state overwhelms the bladder because negative emotional molecules are going to wreak havoc. It may be as simple as a bladder infection.

If the feelings persist and whole foods – whose electrochemical messages that generate calm emotional feelings to release the stress molecules – are not eaten, the infection could lead to a tumor (for instance) to contain them. Over time and distance this could lead to cancer. Its intriguing to me that our language has even developed phrases that allude to this reality.

We usually say that, “these people love to, piss and moan.” For more of the science behind the creation of emotional molecules, see the discussion on ‘set point energy’ in The White Stone Carillon segment, starting on page 500 of the Farmacist Desk Reference. I think that you’ll find it fascinating. Impulses are the medium of electrical surges that generate and build into emotional states. The seed of all impulse is a feeling generated by neurons in response to an impression made upon our senses bursting for expression into action.

All of the bodys responses are created by emotional molecules of photo-electric biochemistry. For more information about the relationship between human emotional frequency and whole foods, youll find an entire section on Feeding Your Emotions in my Encyclopedia of Wholefood Medicine, the Farmacist Desk Reference (FDR).

__________________________________________________________________________________ Feeding Your Emotions written by Don Tolman. Copyright Don Tolman International 2009. All Rights Reserved.

Don Tolman International publishes the popular P.O.W.E.R. (Pearls of Wisdom, Enlightenment and Results) weekly eZine with over 9,800 subscribers from all over the globe. If you’re ready to discover the wisdom and power of Self-Care and Self-Education and receive FREE tips and EVENT news from Don Tolman International, join our online community today and you’ll immediately be emailed a FREE eBook entitled “WHAT MAKES A BALANCED DIET”. Subscribe to: P.O.W.E.R. now

As I understand it, hair salons are pretty toxic enterprises on many counts. Are there any efforts underway to green up that industry? — Paula Howe, San Francisco, CA

Hair salons have long been criticized for the pollution they generate. Traditional hair dyes and many shampoos contain harmful synthetic chemicals that are routinely used on customers scalps-and then washed down the drain where they can accumulate in waterways, soils and even our bloodstreams.

While there doesnt appear to be an industry-wide, coordinated effort to green up these operations, green-friendly salons are popping up all across the country, leading the charge by taking matters into their own hands. A simple Google search for “green hair salons” followed by your two-letter state abbreviation may well turn up one or several within driving distance.

Not surprisingly, Southern California seems to be ground zero for the green hair salon movement. For example, Beverly Hills Shades Hair Studio prides itself on its chemical-free atmosphere. Spurred on by her own health problems related to working with conventional hair dyes, owner Susan Henry-so-called “colorist to the stars”-first created her own line of natural hair colors that contain no harmful ammonia, and then transformed her Shades salon into a model for environmentally friendly hair care.

Across town, Noris EcoSalon in Encino is making waves in the industry for its non-toxic permanent hair color treatments and 100 percent botanical henna using home-grown formulations. To boot, Noris interior features energy efficient lighting, recycled denim insulation, low-VOC paints on the walls and sustainably sourced bamboo on the floors, along with a number of other green touches to keep indoor air quality high. And up the coast, San Franciscos Descend Salon goes to similar lengths, and then steps it up a notch by recycling its hair clippings for use in absorbent mats used in oil spill clean-up efforts.

Not just for California anymore, eco-friendly hair salons occupy just about every major North American city, many operating in the same spirit as Shades, Noris and Descend in making use of non-toxic and/or organic ingredients while greening indoor surroundings for an overall healthy experience. Then theres the granddaddy of them all, Aveda, which in addition to operating some 200 of its own spas, supplies natural hair care and personal care products to 7,000 professional hair salons and spas in 29 countries.

Another way to get a greener hair treatment is to search on the websites of green hair care product makers such as EcoColors, Aveda, Modern Organic Products or Innersense for salons that use their products.

Of course, if none of the salons in your area have gone green, take it upon yourself to encourage them to make the transition. You can start by showing them this article and suggesting they begin to carry some all-natural products, perhaps by first contacting companies like EcoColors, Aveda, Modern Organic Products or Innersense to see whats out there that they could easily transtion to.

CONTACTS: Shades, www.shadesnaturalcolor.com; Noris EcoSalon, www.norisecosalon.com; Descend salon, www.descendalon.com; EcoColors, www.ecocolors.net; Aveda, www.aveda.com; Modern Organic Products, Innersense, www.innersensebeauty.com.

SEND YOUR ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTIONS TO: EarthTalk, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; earthtalk@emagazine.com.

What effects do fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides used on residential lawns or on farms have on nearby water bodies like rivers, streams-or even the ocean for those of us who live near the shore? — Linda Reddington, Manahawkin, NJ

With the advent of the so-called Green Revolution in the second half of the 20th century-when farmers began to use technological advances to boost yields-synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides became commonplace around the world not only on farms, but in backyard gardens and on front lawns as well.

These chemicals, many of which were developed in the lab and are petroleum-based, have allowed farmers and gardeners of every stripe to exercise greater control over the plants they want to grow by enriching the immediate environment and warding off pests. But such benefits havent come without environmental costs-namely the wholesale pollution of most of our streams, rivers, ponds, lakes and even coastal areas, as these synthetic chemicals run-off into the nearby waterways.

When the excess nutrients from all the fertilizer we use runs off into our waterways, they cause algae blooms sometimes big enough to make waterways impassable. When the algae die, they sink to the bottom and decompose in a process that removes oxygen from the water. Fish and other aquatic species cant survive in these so-called “dead zones” and so they die or move on to greener underwater pastures.

A related issue is the poisoning of aquatic life. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Americans alone churn through 75 million pounds of pesticides each year to keep the bugs off their peapods and petunias. When those chemicals get into waterways, fish ingest them and become diseased. Humans who eat diseased fish can themselves become ill, completing the circle wrought by pollution.

A 2007 study of pollution in rivers around Portland, Oregon found that wild salmon there are swimming around with dozens of synthetic chemicals in their systems. Another recent study from Indiana found that a variety of corn genetically engineered to produce the insecticide Bt is having toxic effects on non-target aquatic insects, including caddis flies, a major food source for fish and frogs.

The solution, of course, is to go organic, both at home and on the farm. According to the Organic Trade Association, organic farmers and gardeners use composted manure and other natural materials, as well as crop rotation, to help improve soil fertility, rather than synthetic fertilizers that can result in an overabundance of nutrients. As a result, these practices protect ground water supplies and avoid runoff of chemicals that can cause dead zones and poisoned aquatic life.

There is now a large variety of organic fertilizer available commercially, as well as many ways to keep pests at bay without resorting to harsh synthetic chemicals. A wealth of information on growing greener can be found online: Check out OrganicGardeningGuru.com and the U.S. Department of Agricultures Alternative Farming System Information Center, for starters. Those interested in face-to-face advice should consult with a master gardener at a local nursery that specializes in organic gardening.

CONTACTS: CDC, www.cdc.gov; Organic Gardening Guru, www.organicgardeningguru.com; USDAs Alternative Farming System Information Center, www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/ofp/ofp.shtml.

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