Living a life that’s less toxic
Lendri Purcell is on a mission to purge toxins from our homes, gardens and communities, and get us to use safer alternatives instead.
Petaluma’s Purcell is president of Families Advocating for Chemical and Toxics Safety (FACTS) and vice president of her family’s Jonas Philanthropies, where she spearheads the Children’s Environmental Health Initiative, a project that identifies and combats commonly used toxins that harm the health of children and helps people make positive changes.
Her activism came about after her infant son tested for high levels of lead and observing environmental illnesses in students as a special education teacher in Oakland for a decade.
Purcell and a friend created a science-based checklist of common toxic environmental exposures that should be avoided, linked them to valid studies and then shared them online.
That was the start of FACTS, a one-stop clearinghouse for evidence-based information and expert resources in children’s environmental health.
It serves as a bridge between concerned scientists, environmental health organizations, advocates, politicians and families.
“Of the 3,000 high-prevalence chemicals used in the United States, only about 250 have been tested for their toxicity,” she says. “None of these chemicals have been tested for their toxicity to children, who are more vulnerable to toxic exposures.”
FACTS gives “families sciencebased ‘toolkits’ to reduce toxic exposure in their homes, schools and larger communities,” she says. “In addition, we work with environmental health organizations and policymakers to urge them to draft or support laws that keep their constituents, our families, healthy and safe.”
Some of the side effects of common toxins can be IQ loss, attention or memory deficits, endocrine disruption, multiple organ damage, cancer, decreased sperm counts, hormone changes, hyperactivity, headaches, impaired neurodevelopment and increased oxidative stress, and abnormal increases in calcium in the blood associated with Alzheimer’s and autism.
Purcell says she’s shocked at “how much people trust our
governmental regulatory agencies (and elected officials) to keep us safe and how they are failing miserably at doing that.”
Until they do, she says, it’s up to everyone to become educated and use purchasing power to create a demand for toxic-free products.
FACTS offers a good toxics-free living for a healthy home checklist but here’s some of Purcell’s tips:
• Know your chemicals. They can show up in everything from water and baby bottles, cosmetics, toothpaste and cleaning products to water-resistant clothing, bathroom floor mats and lawn and garden care products. Check out FACTS’ common exposures page for a good list.
• Check ingredient lists. Avoid heavy metals and chemicals, such as triclosan, biosan, phthalates, parabens, PFAS, DECA and BPA.
• “Check the tags on your furniture to see if they contain flame retardants,” she says. “If you have upholstered furniture manufactured before 2015, you can change out the old foam.”
• Skip pesticides and fumigants. “Get on Californians for Pesticide Reform’s email list at pesticidereform.org,” she says.
• Opt for “natural products
without synthetic chemicals,” she says. Find safer options for personal care and cleaning products on the comprehensive lists at Environmental Working Group (ewg.org) or Made Safe (madesafe.org)
• Choose cruelty-free products. “Toxics in consumer products and animal testing go hand-in-hand,” she says. “When you purchase less-toxic chemicals, you are moving the market in the direction of less-toxic products in general, and companies have less of a case to try to justify animal testing.” (Lists can be found at leapingbunny.org or crueltyfree.peta.org.)
• Consider others. “Think about the most vulnerable people who might have the most exposures, such as landscapers, house cleaners, school custodians, farm workers and hairdressers,” she says. And offer safer alternative products when appropriate.
• Incentivize organic fruits and vegetables for school lunches. “Healthy soil sequesters carbon; pesticides kill soil,” she says.
• “Buy less fast food,” she says.
• “Reduce the amount of packaged foods you consume to reduce your exposure to chemical additives in the plastic as well as the food,” she says.
• Use your zip code to check contaminants in your tap water — and find good water filters — at ewg.org/tapwater. “Despite many municipalities having switched away from lead pipes, lead connectors are still used and when pipes are disturbed or flushed, lead is flushed through,” Purcell says.
• Reduce exposure to electromagnetic fields and wireless radiation from cellphones, computers, Wi-Fi, baby monitors, virtual assistants, alarm systems, video
game consoles, Bluetooth and some plush toys, among other things, she says.
“Keep routers away from bedrooms and off at night. Turn off wireless antennas you don’t need on your devices. It’s possible to hardwire devices and your home. Use a corded landline as much as possible. Ditch your microwave or unplug it when not in use,” she says.
• Buy or borrow an EMF meter to check EMF levels in your home. “The Acousticom 2 is a good $200 meter,” she says. “I know people who lend these out in Petaluma and Marin, and can connect interested readers with them.”
• Improve air quality. Help “ban diesel buses in cities and don’t allow school or tour busses to idle,” she says. “Buy an air purifier to keep the air you breathe in your home as clean as possible. Find one at becausehealth.org.
• Replace nonstick pans with ceramic or stainlesssteel ones instead.
• Use organic pest management in the garden. Avoid rodenticides.
• Join the cause. People will have to “learn to be OK with a slightly less sparkling toilet and some weeds,” she say. “We will learn to use less and better-quality items and (understand) that safer, cruelty free items purchased locally are always best.”
Start at home, work, school and childcare places, she suggests. “Ask stores to stop carrying toxic chemicals. Share your letters and actions with us because an action that works can easily be copied by others.”
Finally, “don’t be discouraged,” she says. “One action a day works.”
For more information, call 510-798-4962 or go to factstoaction.org.
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