Are You Down With VOCs - Not Me

by Marc A. Reynolds - Garden State Green

Even though talk of low VOC paint seems to be all over networks like HGTV and TLC there are probably many people in the dark about this topic. This particular post was written to explain what VOCs are, why you should be worried about them & what you can do to limit your exposure to them.

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids. VOCs include a variety of chemicals, some of which may have short- and long-term adverse health effects including asthma, chronic headaches and even cancer to name a few. Concentrations of many VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors. VOCs are emitted by a wide array of products numbering in the thousands. Examples include: paints and lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials and furnishings, office equipment such as copiers and printers, correction fluids and carbonless copy paper, graphics and craft materials including glues and adhesives, permanent markers, and photographic solutions.

Organic chemicals are widely used as ingredients in household products. Paints, varnishes, and wax all contain organic solvents, as do many cleaning, disinfecting, cosmetic, degreasing, and hobby products. Fuels are made up of organic chemicals. All of these products can release organic compounds while you are using them, and, to some degree, when they are stored.

EPA's Office of Research and Development's "Total Exposure Assessment Methodology (TEAM) Study" (Volumes I through IV, completed in 1985) found levels of about a dozen common organic pollutants to be 2 to 5 times higher inside homes than outside, regardless of whether the homes were located in rural or highly industrial areas. TEAM studies indicated that while people are using products containing organic chemicals, they can expose themselves and others to very high pollutant levels, and elevated concentrations can persist in the air long after the activity is completed.

I happened to experience ill feelings due to new carpeting, paint and furniture when I worked for a large corporation. They had just refinished our wing of the building. Everyone was so caught up in the new fresh look of the office that they couldn't figure out why many of us were getting headaches those first few months. With no windows to open to get immediate fresh air, we were left to sit in the toxicity that comes from new carpeting, paint & office furniture. The good news is that many companies are realizing the health hazards of producing such products. They are now being honest as people are becoming aware of the dangers of VOC and they are demanding change.

You can readily buy organic carpeting, eco friendly furniture and low to no VOC paint. We're going to focus on paint since it's the one home improvement project many of us tackle ourselves and do so fairly often. The products below and others like them will help keep your home and the environment less polluted and virtually odorless.  I painted with both Aura and milk paint and there was no smell like VOC ridden paint.

Here are some choices for low to zero-VOC paints.

Milk paint and whitewash are free of VOCs,  biocides and fungicides, and both allow the material being painted to breathe, reducing the growth of mold and mildew. Milk paint is made with milk protein casein and lime; whitewash is made with lime and water (and sometimes casein). Natural earth pigments are used for coloring, as they are in natural plaster.  You can buy milk paint right here in Morris County at my friend Carol's store Chester Country Furnishings - tell them Middle Man Marc sent ya. 

Mythic Paints - Mythic Paint is a zero-VOC, Zero-carcinogenic, premium quality line of latex paints. Mythic provides and requires a Zero-VOC colorant system that maintains zero-VOCs and provides bright and beautiful colors. You can pick up a can right here in Denville at Painten Place .

The Freshaire Choice - The Freshaire Choice paint contains no volatile organic compounds — commonly known as VOCs.  This is sold at The Home Depot.  

Aura, ben, &  Natura  all from Benjamin Moore.  The first two are low VOC and Natura is supposedly zero-VOC. There are plenty of Benjamin Moore stores in Morris county - Chester, Denville, Morristown & Dover just to name a few.

California Paints  their consumer green line of paints is called flawless ELEMENTS™ and their commercial line of green paints is called Envirotech.  Both are LEED certified and have zero VOCs.  You can purchase California Paints right in Dover, NJ at Sacks Paint & Wallpaper. 

Enso - Zero-VOC

Three Trader Joe Products I Can't Live Without

by Marc A. Reynolds
Garden State Green

I'll start out by saying that you have to be careful when shopping at Trader Joe's.  To the unsuspecting shopper or someone new to the world of organic food it's easy to be fooled.  Unlike Whole Foods, Trader Joe's allows foods with their own name on it to contain less than healthy ingredients.  Their standards are just not as high when it comes to keeping with all natural and organic.  Now that the negative news is out of the way, let's get on with it.

The first item that my family finds to be very tasty and super convenient is Trader Joe's Organic Brown Rice.  The box contains three pouches, you cook each one in the microwave for 3 minutes.  It's as simple as that, no guessing water levels when cooking and waiting around for your brown rice to cook.  

Item number two that will help eliminate a slew of other cleaning products is Trader Joe's Multi Purpose Cleaner.  With no chemicals and keeping it truly green this stuff cleans glass, granite, stainless steel and pretty much any other household surfaces.  I even use it on my hardwood floors and ceramic tile if I have a little spot to clean up.  It works well without being toxic.

The last great find that is now a staple in our household is Trader Joe's Unscented Deodorant.  This stuff is awesome.  You can now enjoy the health and environmental benefits of using a deodorant that is Paraben and Aluminum free.  Even better, you don't have to sacrifice smelling clean.  This is years ahead of that old crystal that would leave you smelling like you spent the day running laps under a hot sun.

While there are other products I regularly purchase at Trader Joe's these are the top three.  They really changed how we clean our home.  We eat dinner faster with the tastiest organic brown rice I have found.  We are stink free without polluting our bodies with unnecessary chemicals (mostly).  I do have to point out that this deodorant is not 100% natural, but I have yet to find one that is that doesn't leave me smelling like a BO ridden bus boy by mid morning.  I highly recommend you give some or all of these products a try if you're in the market for greener, healthier products.

Fracking - What Is It & Why Should I Care?

Hydraulic fracturing (called "frac jobs^" or "frac'ing" in the industry and recently, "fracking" by the media) is a process that results in the creation of fractures in rocks, the goal of which is to increase the output of a well. The most important industrial use is in stimulating oil and gas wells, where hydraulic fracturing has been used for over 60 years in more than one million wells. On the other hand, high-volume horizontal slickwater fracturing is a recent phenomenon. The fracturing is done from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations to enhance oil and natural gas recovery.

Hydraulic fractures may be natural or man-made and are extended by internal fluid pressure which opens the fracture and causes it to grow into the rock. Man-made fluid-driven fractures are formed at depth in a borehole and extend into targeted rock formations. The fracture width is typically maintained after the injection by introducing a proppant into the injected fluid. Proppant is a material, such as grains of sand, ceramic, or other particulates, that prevent the fractures from closing when the injection is stopped. Natural hydraulic fractures include volcanic dikes, sills and fracturing by ice as in frost weathering.

Considerable controversy surrounds the current implementation of hydraulic fracturing technology in the United States. Environmental safety and health concerns have emerged and are being debated at the state and national levels.

History

Hydraulic fracturing for stimulation of oil and natural gas wells was first used in the United States in 1947.^[14] It was first used commercially in 1949,^[14] and because of its success in increasing production from oil wells was quickly adopted, and is now used worldwide in tens of thousands of oil and natural gas wells annually. The first industrial use of hydraulic fracturing was as early as 1903, according to T.L. Watson.^[15] Before that date, hydraulic fracturing was used at Mt. Airy Quarry, near Mt Airy, North Carolina where it was (and still is) used to separate granite blocks from bedrock.

Volcanic dikes and sills are examples of natural hydraulic fractures. Hydraulic fracturing incorporates results from the disciplines of fracture mechanics, fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, and porous medium flow.

Environmental & Health Concerns

Some environmental and human health concerns possibly associated with hydraulic fracturing may include the potential mishandling of solid toxic waste, potential risks to air quality, potential contamination of ground water, and the unintended migration of gases and hydraulic fracturing chemicals to the surface within a given radius of drilling operations. The potential costs associated with possible environmental clean-up processes, loss of land value and human and animal health concerns are undetermined. New technological advances and appropriate state regulations are working to study and safely implement the process.

A well blowout in Clearfield County, PA on June 3, 2010 sent more than 35,000 gallons of hydraulic fracturing fluids into the air and onto the surrounding landscape in a forested area. Campers were evacuated and the company EOG Resources and the well completion company C.C. Forbes have been ordered to cease all operations in the state of Pennsylvania pending investigation. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has called this a "serious incident".

Industry groups dispute whether hydraulic fracturing has a significant environmental impact, with arguments centered around the extent to which fracturing fluid used far below the earth’s surface and isolated from fresh water zones, could contaminate surface or near-surface water supplies.impact rock shelf causing seismic events or lead to surface subsidence. Indeed, the principal water-related risks from hydraulic fracturing are on or relatively-near the surface. With the transport, handing, storage and use of so many chemicals, and so much chemical-laden water, on so many sites, accidents or cost-cutting inattention on the part of producers seem inevitable.

In April 2010 the state of Pennsylvania banned Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. from further drilling in the entire state until it plugs wells believed to be the source of contamination of the drinking water of 14 homes in Dimock Township PA. The investigation was initiated after a water well exploded on New Year's Day in 2009. The state investigation revealed that Cabot Oil & Gas Company "had allowed combustible gas to escape into the region's groundwater supplies."

Injection of fluid into subsurface geological structures, such as faults and fractures, reduces the effective normal stress acting across these structures. If sufficient shear stress is present, the structure may slip in shear and generate seismic events over a range of magnitudes. Subsidence is not directly caused by hydraulic fracturing but may occur after considerable production of oil or ground water. Subsidence occurs over reservoirs whether they have been subject to hydraulic fracturing or not because it is a result of producing fluids from the reservoir and lowering the reservoir pore pressure. The subsidence process can be associated with some seismicity. Reports of minor tremors of no greater than 2.8 on the Richter scale were reported on June 2, 2009 in Cleburne, Texas - the first in the town's 140-year history. It must be noted that no scientific studies have been conducted that can substantially prove that conventional hydraulic fracturing is directly related large scale seismic activity.

One use of hydraulic fracturing is in stimulating water wells. In that case, the fluid used may be pure water (typically water and a disinfectant such as bleach). Another use of hydraulic fracturing is to remediate waste spills by injecting bacteria, air, or other materials into a subsurface contaminated zone.

It has been reported that the hydraulic fracturing industry has refused to publicly disclose, allegedly due to intellectual property concerns, the specific contents of the fluids employed in the fracturing process. A "NOW on PBS" episode aired in March, 2010 introduces the documentary film Gasland. The filmmaker claims that the chemicals include toxins, known carcinogens and heavy metals which may have polluted the ground water near well sites in Pennsylvania and Colorado. The film also makes a case for explosive gases entering private potable water wells, causing "flammable water."

A 2008 newspaper report states that medical personnel were inhibited in their treatment of workers injured in a fracturing accident because they did not know which specific chemicals were used. In the article, a nurse claimed she may have been exposed to the unknown chemicals on the patient’s clothes.

In the United States, a 2004 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study concluded that the process was safe and didn't warrant further study, because there was "no unequivocal evidence" of health risks, and the fluids were neither necessarily hazardous nor able to travel far underground. That study, however, was not intended as a general study of hydraulic fracturing, but only of its use in coalbed methane deposits, and the study did not consider impacts above ground. The EPA report did find uncertainties in knowledge of how fracturing fluid migrates through rocks, and upon its release service companies voluntarily agreed to stop using diesel fuel as a component of fracturing fluid, due to public concerns of its potential as a source of benzene contamination. With critics claiming that Bush administration officials influenced the 2004 EPA study, the U.S. Congress has requested that the EPA undertake a new, broader study of hydraulic fracturing. The report is due to be released in 2012.

The increased use of hydraulic fracturing has prompted more speculation about its environmental dangers. A 2008 investigation of benzene contamination in Colorado and Wyoming led some EPA officials to suggest hydraulic fracturing as a culprit. One of the authors of the 2004 EPA report states that it has been misconstrued by the gas-drilling industry.