May 3rd, 2012
We usually watch out for snakes in the garden. You don’t want to be caught unaware.
It turns out that the same could be said for your garden hose, which could be a snake in the grass when it comes to chemical pollution. Like most real snakes, it’s probably not mortally dangerous. But you need to know more about it, especially if you’re using your hose as a drinking spigot or to water an edible garden.
Healthy Stuff.org, known for testing common kids’ toys for lead, cadmium and other pollution, recently tested 179 garden products, including two types of garden hoses and four types of garden work gloves, for chemical contaminants and toxic metals.
The environmental protection group Greenpeace hung a large banner at Dell’s Round Rock headquarters Wednesday morning, saying the company hadn’t kept its promise of eliminating certain chemicals from its products. Greenpeace claims that Dell promised to eliminate chemical byproducts such as PVC plastic and brominated flame retardants. The company has pushed that deadline back to 2011.
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift
