This is Girl Zone's "going green" section. What can you do in you life to improve the enviroment, reduce your carbon footprint and influence other teens and adults in your world?
We will routinely highlight what others are doing and provide you with tips and resources.
Read about how there are drugs in your water!
We are also partnering with Teens Turning Green.
Why Turn Green? Teens Turning Green tells us.....
Did you know?
The average consumer uses between fifteen and twenty-five personal care and cosmetic products everyday. Those products may contain more than two hundred synthetic chemical compounds, which may cause harm with repeated exposure.
Untested
89% of the 10,500 chemical ingredients used in personal care products have never been tested for safety.
Unprotected
Unlike food or drugs, cosmetics are not monitored by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and require neither testing nor adequate labeling.
Toxic
One in three personal care products contain one or more ingredients classified as a possible human carcinogen or reproductive toxin. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health found that 884 chemicals used in personal care products and cosmetics are known to be toxic.
Chemicals banned in US vs. Europe
The European Union has banned over one thousand chemicals. The US has only banned nine.
Chemistry
An expanding body of evidence has linked pollutants and man-made chemicals in the environment and in consumer products to cancer, birth defects, and declining sperm counts among other health problems in a population.
Breast Cancer and Women
The incidence of breast cancer has increased alarmingly over the past sixty years:
- 1940 - one in twenty women
- 1994 - one in nine women
- 2004 - one in seven women
Damage to Men
Sperm count among men throughout the industrialized world has decreased by 50% over the last 50 years
Early onset of Puberty
Girls get their first periods today, on average, a few months earlier than did girls 40 years ago, but they get their breasts one to two years earlier. Over the course of a few decades, the childhoods of U.S. girls have been significantly shortened.
