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Hawaii Proposes Aspartame Ban

Following a 2006/2007 attempt in New Mexico, a bill to ban aspartame is being proposed in Hawaii.

Regular readers of this blog know that while aspartame sweetener itself does not contain any GM material, it is made with the assistance of genetically modified microorganisms and the expired patent was formally owned by Monsanto.

Aspartame is metabolized by the body into products known to be carcinogenic and neurotoxins; it has no discernable health benefits, and is known to make you crave carbohydrates possibly leading to weight gain; it is known to destabilize diabetes and other medical conditions.

Aspartame is very important economically because it is sold at the same or higher price than sugar, but manufacturing and distribution costs are a tiny fraction compared to sugar. Advertising campaigns are amazingly similar to tobacco, with names like zero, diet, light and sugar-free, often displaying athletes or other healthy or attractive people, suggesting health benefits without making any direct health claims.

The failed attempt in New Mexico came in the wake of massive corporate lobbying from all directions, from soft drink giants to food and chemical giants.

A number of prominent health professionals in New Mexico made compelling public statements supporting the proposal, like HJ Roberts, Internist; Russell Blaylock, Neurosurgeon; and Ralph Walton, Psychiatry. Details can be found by entering these names into an Internet search engine such as Google or Yahoo.

The battle in Hawaii looks set to be a fierce one, and unfortunately the local press seems to be ignoring it. Most of the attention has been from New Mexico’s press. The stakes are high for all of us, and after all the issue is not making aspartame products unavailable, because they could still be imported informally from other states or prescribed by doctors. What’s at stake is the freedom of choice, because passage of this bill would mean alternatives to aspartame would be more readily available to Hawaiians.

This is a battle we should all be watching and supporting. If you have contact with friends, media or health professionals in Hawaii, please ask them to help. Success or failure in Hawaii could could have ramifications felt all over the world. Even if the bill in Hawaii doesn’t pass, benefits can be had if world attention is drawn to the debate, so be sure to spread the word.

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Let Them Eat Windows

Jeremy of the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog made two posts recently about the Bill and Melinda Gates foundations decision to dramatically increase the amount of money they give to support agriculture in some of the worlds poorest countries. Jeremy’s posts are here and here.

Two somewhat conflicting articles can be found in the New York Times and The Seattle Post.

One thing is for sure, the Gates Foundation looks set to have a big influence on how agriculture is developed in many parts of the world. It also seems likely many of us will take issue with how this unfolds.

Will this aid emphasize new technologies like GM varieties, high input systems requiring large amounts of energy, pesticides and nitrogen based fertilizers? Will it emphasize sustainable local food systems or export crops? Will it seek to relieve poverty, or simply drive farmers into cycles of debt and dependence on corporate products?

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Garden Pictures: Growing Garlic and Water Containers

Garlic in January

Not much growing in the garden now. In the background you see some artichokes, and covered in straw is one of my two garlic beds. You can see little bits of green sticking through in a few places, where the garlic is growing through the straw.

Several bloggers have recently been talking about collecting rainwater. I don’t have any other source of water, and I have to collect all I use.  Here’s what I inherited from the previous gardener in the way of rainwater collection systems.

Water Barrel

Please ignore the trash piled next to it… You can’t really see but this is connected to the greenhouse gutter with a piece of cut garden hose connected with a clamp. It sits about 30cm off the ground on a small platform. At the bottom of the barrel is a tap, which unfortunately won’t connect to a hose so I can only use it to fill buckets or watering cans.

At the left, near the top, bent at a 90 degree angle, you can see an overflow pipe. An overflow pipe is something not everyone thinks of with a water barrel, but it’s very useful. If you don’t have one, the barrel will fill absolutely all the way to the top, which is usually not desirable. It can be hard to get water out of it or move it slightly without getting yourself wet if it’s filled all the way up. In addition, if you have more than one barrel connected in a cascade fashion, it’s normal they are connected via the overflow pipe(s) and each have their own tap.

In this case the barrel is an old plastic industrial barrel that probably had some chemical in it. It’s closed at both top and bottom, which will make it hard to clean if that’s ever necessary.

This barrel seems to work well enough, and I’ll use it for the time being.

On the other garden structure, the shed, there’s this prize winning setup:

Water Bin

This is just a garbage can on wheels sitting under the gutter pipe. You can’t really see it in the picture, but there is an overflow pipe in the middle near the top. There is no tap, which means the water has to be taken out of the top, and it will have to be cleaned more often because crud will accumulate on the bottom. I would like to have a barrel with a hose connection on it, so I’ll probably replace this with something a little higher tech when I get a chance.

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Chlorine in the Garden

Kelly of Future House recently did a great series of posts about the rain water collection system they built. He mentioned he used PVC pipes to build the system, which is what gave me the idea for this post.

Two Kinds of Chlorine

There are two kinds of chlorine, and the difference between them is very important.

The first kind is ordinary pure chlorine, sometimes called household chlorine, and is what common bleach is made from. This is also sometimes used in swimming pools, or added to drinking water. While there can be health issues with this type of chlorine, in particular both high concentrations and chlorine gas can be toxic and some people can have allergies to it, but overall it is considered very safe both for people and the environment. This type of chlorine occurs naturally in the environment, so moderate use is generally considered to be 100% biodegradable.

The other kind of chlorine is what is used in manufacturing processes. This is also sometimes called elemental chlorine, and this is what happens when atoms of chlorine are combined with other elements. One of the most important characteristics of these compounds is they are usually very long lived in the environment, and sometimes very toxic. Some common examples we are probably all familiar with are ozone depleting CFCs, PCBs which are very toxic, DDT as well as a number of other pesticides that have now been mostly banned (these are sometimes referred to as POPs or Persistent Organic Pesticides) and also PVC plastic.

These chlorine based compounds are so damaging to the environment, they have frequently been the focus of Greenpeace actions. Together with nuclear waste and heavy metals, chlorine compounds are some of the most serious environmental contaminants in the world now.

The Good

Household bleach really has many uses in the garden as well as in the house. Many people think of it as a harsh cleaner, because it smells so strong, but this is not actually the case. It’s a great environmentally friendly cleaner to use for the toilet, and is perfectly safe for septic tanks or for grey water collection systems to be used for plant irrigation. It is a much better alternative to bathroom scrubbing powders or creams, which are mostly very bad for the environment.

While you should never apply it in any way to plants or your garden, it’s very useful to clean greenhouses, tools, pots, seed trays and so on. It’s a very good disinfectant and can be very important in preventing the spreading of plant diseases. When you are done using it, it can be poured down the drain or on an unused spot in the garden. Within 48 hours it will completely break down into the environment.

The Not So Good

Most of us have something made from PVC plastic in the garden. Plastic coated fence or tools, maybe irrigation pipes. It can be really great stuff because, by design, it really does stand up to sunlight and last forever.

If you ever look into alternatives, you will see there aren’t many. Galvanized steel is sometimes used, but it contains trace amounts of heavy metals that will stay in your garden after the original material decomposes.

The main problem with using PVC in the garden is that it will be around long after you throw it away. It’s a very difficult plastic to recycle, if it’s incinerated or heated to a high temperature it will decompose into PCBs and if it is put into a landfill it will stay a very, very long time. While other kinds of plastics may be around for decades or maybe even centuries, PVC will likely be around a lot longer. When you think it will probably stay in your garden for 10-20 years, that’s a small percentage of it’s total lifespan.

Kelly of Future House asked the question if there were environmental problems with the manufacture of PVC. As far as I’m aware, there is no harmful waste created in the manufacture of it, but this is only half the equation! You should consider how what you buy will be disposed of, and if there are more environmentally friendly alternatives. Until now we have all been taught not to worry about what you throw away, and that what can be disposed of now can be dealt with by some future technology that will be soon developed. Not all of these technologies are emerging, and toxic waste and landfill space are already becoming serious problems.

Specifically addressing Kelly’s rain harvester system, what they might have used instead of PVC were metal fittings connected with rubber or plastic hose. Yes, it almost certainly would have leaked from time to time, and not worked as well, but it would have been easier to dispose of or recycle the individual components. It may also be possible to design a system where a single leak wouldn’t be as catastrophic as it would be in their system, perhaps top filling the barrels and having a separate tap on each one, maybe connecting the barrels in pairs or groups instead of all together. Another possibility might have been to try to use second hand PVC fittings, but I guess this would have been very difficult to do.