environmental pollution

Now that GreenGirls.net has adopted a street that we are responsible for cleaning up on a quarterly basis, we are acutely aware of the pollution caused by cigarette butts. During each cleanup session, we notice that there are countless butts scattered along the roadside. The amount of time it takes to clean up these items is huge. Even a small segment of our designated street, say 100 feet, can take hours depending on the volume of butts.

Do the people flicking these butts even realize that they are creating a workload for their fellow citizens? If they did know the effort required, would they care enough to change their habits? We don't know. However, we need to at least try to educate drivers and pedestrians to think twice before flicking their butts on the ground and instead put them in a trash receptacle. There are many reasons to do so.

Volunteers in Pearland (TX) hold annual Cigarette Litter Awareness Days. The following link offers a wealth of information that we may want to use in the future:
http://www.keeppearlandbeautiful.org/cigarettelitter.html

If you want to take action on your own, you can report any litter violations via the Don't Mess With Texas web site. See link below:
http://www.dontmesswithtexas.org/report-a-litterer.php

We can all do our part to keep Austin clean. Prevention is the key.

For those greengirls who could not make it to the March meeting...Dr. Rhonda Steinke, ND presented a powerpoint on pollutants in our environment and their effects on health. The talk was extremely informative and also alarming in some ways! The unfortunate truth is that these chemicals and hazardous substances are an inseparable part of our daily lives...they are all around us.

Dr. Steinke covered solvents, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and heavy metals and what she called "terrible toxins" in our environment and explained what parts of our bodies they affect and what diseases they can cause. The good news is there is something we can do to help our bodies deal with and expel these toxins. We have the option to purify our water and air, eat more organic foods, buy farm-raised meats, and help our body's natural mechanisms to expel these harmful substances.

Dr. Steinke's presentation is available for download here. More info on natural health is available at Dr. Steinke's web site at http://www.healthtn.org.