February 17th, 2010
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Concerned about all those dangerous household chemicals you keep hearing about: BPA, phthalates and pesticides with cryptic names like 2,4-Dioxane?
We’ve found just the book for you.
Slow Death By Rubber Duck:The Secret Danger of Everyday Things (Counterpoint, 2009. U.S. $25) will take you on a chilling, but informative ride through our chemically enhanced consumer product world. Starting with your kid’s Rubber Duck, which contains five chemicals of concern, imagine what the rest of the household contains.
Frankly, I worried that this cleverly titled book about the dangerous additives lurking in our house dust, furniture, hand soaps and Teflon pans would be just that, an inspired title followed by surface information. But I was quickly relieved of that concern. Co-authors Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie are not just scratching the stick-resistant surface here.
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift
