clair098

Hello Coop Members! Environmental Committee's Tip of the Month:  Try Non-Toxic Cleaning Products Combine baking soda and vinegar for kitchen and bathroom cleaning.   Vinegar alone is great for cleaning glass windows and mirrors, as well as for getting cat odors out of fabric, wood floors or anything else. Go online for tons of tips on cheap, nontoxic cleaning.

The TerraCycle Collection is expanding and needs YOUR help! We currently have two work shifts, which fall on the second Wednesday of the month from 3:30 to 6:30p.m., and the fourth Saturday of the month 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. If these shift times do not work for you to become a squad member, we still want to hear from you as we are very interested in adding new collection times . Dedicated FTOP workers are also welcome. If you can be on a shift more times than not, we would definitely welcome you on shifts as much as you can schedule with us. Info about the shift: *Shifts are very stable, 12 shifts per year, no moving around the calendar based on work week A, B, C. or D. Shifts are set for a particular day/time of the month and do not change. *Enjoy working your shift with like-minded environmentally conscious Coop members, members you work with and members who drop off their recyclables. *This shift is a very feel good shift knowing you are making a difference and helping members to make a...

Where: Outside of the Coop except during inclement weather when collection will be held inside the Coop Times: 2nd Wednesday of the month 3:45-6pm 4th Saturday of the month 1:45-4pm (Please try to come at least 15 minutes before the end of the shift.) New expanded plastic collection for Coop members only!  Please be ready to show your membership card.  New items collected: Plastic bags/wrapping/packaging from most Coop items (both food and non food items.) Plastic roll bags distributed by the Coop. Thin plastic film wrapping from items such as cheese, meat, toilet paper, tea boxes etc.  NO foil backed packaging is accepted at the moment. The regular TerraCycle collection is still available to Coop and non-Coop members! Ongoing community collection items: Toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes, any brand and size. Baby food pouches and caps, any brand Energy bar wrappers (any brand but only energy bars) Brita and other similar water filters Plastic food storage zip loc bags, cl...

Photo credit: Jenna Spevack With the recent roll bag vote and the expanded TerraCycle collections happening at the Coop, plastic has had increased visibility among Coop members.  However, there’s one area where plastic chemicals are ubiquitously present yet mostly unseen within the walls of 782 Union. Where? Actually inside our food and then ultimately in our bodies.  To understand how plastic chemicals end up food and then in people, a basic lesson in polymer chemistry is needed.  Simplified, plastics are made up of long chains of plasticizer chemicals (a monomer is a plastic compound, which when strung together make up polymers that form the building blocks of plastic.)  Plastics of course have a wide variety of uses.  From hard, colored plastic to flexible, transparent cling film and other types of food packaging, plastics have brought a certain ease to many us living a modern life. Unfortunately popular plastic chemicals share two characteristics that’s a pr...

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It’s very difficult to eat or drink these days without ingesting plastic, which comes into contact with nearly all commercially sold foods. Cardboard milk containers and cans of peas are coated with plastic; it is sprayed on produce to preserve freshness and used to irrigate, mulch, wrap and transport fruits and vegetables. Since the 1950s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has known that plastic “migrates” into the food and drinks it comes in contact with. In fact, until 2002 “food grade” plastic was classified by the FDA as an “indirect food additive.” And since the 1990s, when scientists worldwide began monitoring urinary concentrations of environmental chemicals, it’s been known that virtually all of us have chemicals in our blood and tissue that migrated from plastic food wrap, bags, packaging and bottles.  As was covered in a Gazette Coop Environmental Committee Report last year, these chemicals are known endocrine disrupters that are linked to health risks ranging from ...