Recycling Chemicals





 Baby cotton flannel pj topper, early 50s.

 I bought vintage for my son because i like the little prints, now i am grateful for exposing him to less toxins. Following the heart can have intersting rewards.

Lets play fool the public!

You are a business. You make chemicals. You are doing great; selling flame retardants to clothing and fabric manufacturers. You are raking in profits because back in the 50s you helped frame the stories about kids being burned because their pajamas caught on fire. You put this ad on TV and asked America to protect their kids.

It worked, America got up and voted to protect children from space heaters and cigarettes.  This problem was magnified to sell more chemicals to a public already hyped with ads like the one i found in a 1940s National Geographic "Living Better Through Chemistry." 

This emotional hype was needed because of the growth story. To grow you needed to sell more. How better to sell things than to make the public believe they needed them. You became a great storyteller.

To be fair, there is good chemistry but a lot of bad applications. Like synthetic vitamins are not a replacement for real food, household cleaners can harm your lungs, scents are full of endocrine disruptors..ai yi yi ...we have a mess on our hands.

So the we try to make amends and the we cleaned up this pj problem back in 1977 when Tris was banned from children's clothing. That was when it was found out to be an agent of cancer and perhaps not that great a fire retardant.

So now you start freaking out about lost sales and investors pulling out and your stock prices diving. This is bad ju ju, how will you live? How will your employees fare if you fail? CEO knows to get that bottom line straightened out or off with "the head." Loss of title, failure, spouse is alarmed, bills pile up- no this cannot happen.

So in survival mode the you pull together and find another way to sell Tris. You succeed by forming an alliance with cigarette companies who want to blame sofas and pillows for burns. You brilliantly change the story.

You succeed!!
& now :

85% of U.S. couches tested contained toxic or untested flame retardant chemicals.

• The newer the couch, the more likely it is to contain toxic chemicals.

• 41% of the couches contained cancer-causing chlorinated Tris, which was removed from children’s pajamas back in 1977!  (thank you Women's Voices for the Earth, WVE)

So when i say it is time to write the new stories...i mean it..enough of this nonsense.
(and i am working on it, please see the WaterRIP stories posted to FashionRIP blog)

The above story is not alone, our economic system enables, supports even protects this battle of the tall tales.

 I am embarassed by this lack of understanding, angry at this lack of foresight and insight, and amused that the enablers do not see that they too are being exposed to ever higher risk of disease. Are they suicidal?

Well anyway, now you know.

Safe Chemicals Act information is on the WVE site. Together we will change the stories.

Shame on US

Tris is back, though banned in 1977 for use in children's pajamas, it is now turning up on changing tables, car seats and other foam filled infant products.

banner for occupy seattle (occupy chaplains) 

stencilled panel by michael, fabric border finish  by djb

Flame retardants are chemicals meant to protect us, but once again the "cure" is might be worse than the disease. The effectiveness of flame reatarding toxins is being questioned but the health consequences of this body of  "halogenated flame retardants – those containing bromine or chlorine – can cause endocrine disruption, immunotoxicity, reproductive toxicity, cancer, and adverse effects on fetal and child development and on neurologic function."

Toxic flame retardants found in many foam baby products

By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | May 18, 2011

KOMO television just aired this "news" a few days ago.  Washington State legislators are seeking a ban, so this news is about the politics more than the health of children. That is a sad reflection of what our media considers important.

Kids Killer Klothes

"Ask your legislator to support the Toxic-Free Kids Act! The Toxic-Free Kids Act will be introduced in January, but we need to get the word out now. Why? Because we don’t want cancer-causing flame retardants in our children’s products and we need companies to stop replacing one toxic chemical with another in products made for kids.

The Toxic-Free Kids Act will get cancer-causing Tris Flame Retardants out of baby products and encourage companies to switch to safer chemicals that won't harm health, the environment, or their bottom line. Tris flame retardants are especially concerning because they can cause cancer. One was even removed from kids pajamas in the 70s because of health concerns but now it’s back, and we need to get it out of our homes and away from our kids."

This is a message from Washington Toxics Coalition, in the hope that we as a people will start taking back our responsibility for the well being of life on this little planet, we call home.

I am for a "Sanity Act" as there is no rational excuse I can find to not freak at what our "leaders" have allowed. In the name of commerce we as a species have been duped into a suicidal trance of sugars, fats and seductive virtual worlds.

The manmade processed, patented, promoted for profits reality lost it's human purpose. What have we become and why is it so much less than our true possibility.?