Eye-Catching Designs Made from Recycled Plastic Bottles
waterlust.com / @abamabam
The company sells a range of eco-friendly items like leggings, rash guards, and board shorts that are made using recycled post-consumer plastic bottles. There are currently 16 causes represented by distinct marine-life patterns, from whale shark research and invasive lionfish removal to sockeye salmon monitoring and abalone restoration.
One such organization is Get Inspired, a nonprofit that specializes in ocean restoration and environmental education. Get Inspired founder, marine biologist Nancy Caruso, says supporting on-the-ground efforts is one thing that sets Waterlust apart, like their apparel line that supports Get Inspired abalone restoration programs.
"All of us [conservation partners] are doing something," Caruso said. "We're not putting up exhibits and talking about it — although that is important — we're in the field."
Waterlust not only helps its conservation partners financially so they can continue their important work. It also helps them get the word out about what they're doing, whether that's through social media spotlights, photo and video projects, or the informative note card that comes with each piece of apparel.
"They're doing their part for sure, pushing the information out across all of their channels, and I think that's what makes them so interesting," Caruso said.
And then there are the clothes, which speak for themselves.
Advocate Apparel to Start Conversations About Conservation
waterlust.com / @oceanraysphotography
Waterlust's concept of "advocate apparel" encourages people to see getting dressed every day as an opportunity to not only express their individuality and style, but also to advance the conversation around marine science. By infusing science into clothing, people can visually represent species and ecosystems in need of advocacy — something that, more often than not, leads to a teaching moment.
"When people wear Waterlust gear, it's just a matter of time before somebody asks them about the bright, funky designs," said Waterlust's CEO, Patrick Rynne. "That moment is incredibly special, because it creates an intimate opportunity for the wearer to share what they've learned with another."
The idea for the company came to Rynne when he was a Ph.D. student in marine science.
"I was surrounded by incredible people that were discovering fascinating things but noticed that often their work wasn't reaching the general public in creative and engaging ways," he said. "That seemed like a missed opportunity with big implications."
Waterlust initially focused on conventional media, like film and photography, to promote ocean science, but the team quickly realized engagement on social media didn't translate to action or even knowledge sharing offscreen.
Rynne also saw the "in one ear, out the other" issue in the classroom — if students didn't repeatedly engage with the topics they learned, they'd quickly forget them.
"We decided that if we truly wanted to achieve our goal of bringing science into people's lives and have it stick, it would need to be through a process that is frequently repeated, fun, and functional," Rynne said. "That's when we thought about clothing."
Support Marine Research and Sustainability in Style
To date, Waterlust has sold tens of thousands of pieces of apparel in over 100 countries, and the interactions its products have sparked have had clear implications for furthering science communication.
For Caruso alone, it's led to opportunities to share her abalone restoration methods with communities far and wide.
"It moves my small little world of what I'm doing here in Orange County, California, across the entire globe," she said. "That's one of the beautiful things about our partnership."
Check out all of the different eco-conscious apparel options available from Waterlust to help promote ocean conservation.
Melissa Smith is an avid writer, scuba diver, backpacker, and all-around outdoor enthusiast. She graduated from the University of Florida with degrees in journalism and sustainable studies. Before joining EcoWatch, Melissa worked as the managing editor of Scuba Diving magazine and the communications manager of The Ocean Agency, a non-profit that's featured in the Emmy award-winning documentary Chasing Coral.
By Lynne Peeples
Editor's note: This story is part of a nine-month investigation of drinking water contamination across the U.S. The series is supported by funding from the Park Foundation and Water Foundation. Read the launch story, “Thirsting for Solutions," here.
In 1954 the revolutionary "nonstick" Teflon pan was introduced. Since then, an entire class of human-made chemicals has evolved: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, better known as PFAS. There are upward of 6,000 of these chemicals. Many are used for stain-, grease- and waterproofing. PFAS are found in clothing, plastic, food packaging, electronics, personal care products, firefighting foams, medical devices and numerous other products.
But over time, evidence has slowly built that some commonly used PFAS are toxic and may cause cancer. It took 50 years to understand that the happy accident of Teflon's discovery was, in fact, a train wreck.
As a public health analyst, I have studied the harm caused by these chemicals. I am one of hundreds of scientists who are calling for a comprehensive, effective plan to manage the entire class of PFAS to protect public health while safer alternatives are developed.
Typically, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assesses chemicals for potential harm, it examines one substance at a time. That approach isn't working for PFAS, given the sheer number of them and the fact that manufacturers commonly replace toxic substances with "regrettable substitutes" – similar, lesser-known chemicals that also threaten human health and the environment.
As PFAS are produced and used, they can migrate into soil and water. MI DEQ
Toxic Chemicals
A class-action lawsuit brought this issue to national attention in 2005. Workers at a Parkersburg, West Virginia, DuPont plant joined with local residents to sue the company for releasing millions of pounds of one of these chemicals, known as PFOA, into the air and the Ohio River. Lawyers discovered that the company had known as far back as 1961 that PFOA could harm the liver.
The suit was ultimately settled in 2017 for $670 million, after an eight-year study of tens of thousands of people who had been exposed. Based on multiple scientific studies, this review concluded that there was a probable link between exposure to PFOA and six categories of diseases: diagnosed high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney cancer and pregnancy-induced hypertension.
Over the past two decades, hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers have shown that many PFAS are not only toxic – they also don't fully break down in the environment and have accumulated in the bodies of people and animals around the world. Some studies have detected PFAS in 99% of people tested. Others have found PFAS in wildlife, including polar bears, dolphins and seals.
Widespread and Persistent
PFAS are often called "forever chemicals" because they don't fully degrade. They move easily through air and water, can quickly travel long distances and accumulate in sediment, soil and plants. They have also been found in dust and food, including eggs, meat, milk, fish, fruits and vegetables.
In the bodies of humans and animals, PFAS concentrate in various organs, tissues and cells. The U.S. National Toxicology Program and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have confirmed a long list of health risks, including immunotoxicity, testicular and kidney cancer, liver damage, decreased fertility and thyroid disease.
Children are even more vulnerable than adults because they can ingest more PFAS relative to their body weight from food and water and through the air. Children also put their hands in their mouths more often, and their metabolic and immune systems are less developed. Studies show that these chemicals harm children by causing kidney dysfunction, delayed puberty, asthma and altered immune function.
Researchers have also documented that PFAS exposure reduces the effectiveness of vaccines, which is particularly concerning amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
PFAS, a class of chemicals that have been associated with health hazards including liver damage, birth defects, can… https://t.co/NtnVkmMQs0— WIRED (@WIRED)1596831547.0
Regulation Is Lagging
PFAS have become so ubiquitous in the environment that health experts say it is probably impossible to completely prevent exposure. These substances are released throughout their life cycles, from chemical production to product use and disposal. Up to 80% of environmental pollution from common PFAS, such as PFOA, comes from production of fluoropolymers that use toxic PFAS as processing aids to make products like Teflon.
In 2009 the EPA established a health advisory level for PFOA in drinking water of 400 parts per trillion. Health advisories are not binding regulations – they are technical guidelines for state, local and tribal governments, which are primarily responsible for regulating public water systems.
In 2016 the agency dramatically lowered this recommendation to 70 parts per trillion. Some states have set far more protective levels – as low as 8 parts per trillion.
According to a recent estimate by the Environmental Working Group, a public health advocacy organization, up to 110 million Americans could be drinking PFAS-contaminated water. Even with the most advanced treatment processes, it is extremely difficult and costly to remove these chemicals from drinking water. And it's impossible to clean up lakes, river systems or oceans. Nonetheless, PFAS are largely unregulated by the federal government, although they are gaining increased attention from Congress.
Reducing PFAS Risks at the Source
Given that PFAS pollution is so ubiquitous and hard to remove, many health experts assert that the only way to address it is by reducing PFAS production and use as much as possible.
Educational campaigns and consumer pressure are making a difference. Many forward-thinking companies, including grocers, clothing manufacturers and furniture stores, have removed PFAS from products they use and sell.
State governments have also stepped in. California recently banned PFAS in firefighting foams. Maine and Washington have banned PFAS in food packaging. Other states are considering similar measures.
I am part of a group of scientists from universities, nonprofit organizations and government agencies in the U.S. and Europe that has argued for managing the entire class of PFAS chemicals as a group, instead of one by one. We also support an "essential uses" approach that would restrict their production and use only to products that are critical for health and proper functioning of society, such as medical devices and safety equipment. And we have recommended developing safer non-PFAS alternatives.
As the EPA acknowledges, there is an urgent need for innovative solutions to PFAS pollution. Guided by good science, I believe we can effectively manage PFAS to reduce further harm, while researchers find ways to clean up what has already been released.
Carol Kwiatkowski is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University.
Disclosure statement: Carol Kwiatkowski has worked for two nonprofit organizations that receive foundation funding: The Endocrine Disruption Exchange and the Green Science Policy Institute.
Reposted with permission from The Conversation.
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As we learn more about the novel coronavirus and COVID-19, research is revealing ugly realities about social and environmental effects on health – including how the same chronic illnesses associated with exposure to endocrine-disrupting compounds also increase your risk of developing severe COVID-19.
In the U.S. and abroad, the chronic disease epidemic that was already underway at the start of 2020 meant the population entered into the coronavirus pandemic in a state of reduced health. Evidence is now emerging for the role that environmental quality plays in people's susceptibility to COVID-19 and their risk of dying from it.
Why Endocrine Disruptors Are a Problem
Endocrine-disrupting compounds, or EDCs, are a broad group of chemicals that can interfere with natural hormones in people's bodies in ways that harm human health. They include perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, better known as PFAS, flame retardants, plasticizers, pesticides, antimicrobial products and fragrances, among others.
These chemicals are pervasive in modern life. They are found in a wide range of consumer goods, food packaging, personal care products, cosmetics, industrial processes and agricultural settings. EDCs then make their way into our air, water, soil and food.
Research has shown that people who are exposed to EDCs are more likely than others to develop metabolic disorders, such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol, and they tend to have poorer cardiovascular health.
EDCs can also interfere with normal immune system function, which plays a critical role in fighting off infection. Poor immune function also contributes to pulmonary problems such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease; and metabolic disorders. Many EDCs are also associated with different cancers.
EDCs Can Mimic Human Hormones
EDCs affect human health by mimicking our natural hormones.
Hormones are chemical signals that our cells use to communicate with one another. You might be familiar with reproductive hormones – testosterone and estrogen – which help distinguish male and female physiology and reproduction. Yet, hormones are responsible for maintaining virtually all essential bodily functions, including metabolism and healthy blood pressure, blood sugar and inflammation.
The chemical shape or structure of EDCs resembles hormones in ways that cause the body to misinterpret an EDC for a natural signal from a hormone.
A comparison of the structures of estradiol (left), a female sex hormone, and BPA (right), an endocrine disruptor found in plastics often used in containers for storing food and beverages. Wikimedia
Because the human body is very sensitive to hormones, only small amounts of hormones are required to convey their intended signal. Therefore, very small exposures to EDCs can have dramatic, adverse affects on people's health.
Environmental Quality and COVID-19
Researchers are only just beginning to paint a picture about how environmental quality contributes to COVID-19 susceptibility, and there is much we still don't know. However, scientists suspect that EDCs can play a role based on clear scientific evidence that EDCs increase people's risk of developing chronic diseases that put people at greater risk from COVID-19.
Public health organizations such as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Heath Organization officially recognize underlying health conditions – including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, immunosuppression, chronic respiratory disease and cancer – as risk factors for critical illness and mortality from COVID-19.
Scientific evidence shows that EDC exposure increases people's risk of developing all of these conditions. Scientists are thinking about these connections, and research efforts are underway to answer more questions about how EDCs may be influencing the pandemic.
Air Pollution and Other Environmental Risks
In addition to EDCs, other environmental conditions are also likely playing a role in the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, multiple studies have reported increased risk of COVID-19 illness and deaths. The findings are consistent with those reported in China following the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003.
Recent evidence also shows that COVID-19 infection can lead to lingering health conditions, including heart damage. Environmental conditions such as heat waves are particularly dangerous for individuals with heart disease or heart damage. In places like California that are currently experiencing wildfires and heat waves, we can clearly see how multiple environmental conditions can combine to further increase risk of deaths associated with COVID-19.
In the U.S., regulations such as the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act have improved environmental quality and human health since the 1970s. However, the Trump administration has been trying to weaken them.
In the past three and a half years, about 35 environmental rules and regulations pertaining to air quality or toxic substances like EDCs were either rolled back or are in the process of being removed, despite unambiguous evidence showing how poor environmental quality harms human health. Allowing more pollution threatens to exacerbate the trend toward a sicker, fatter and poorer America at a time when people's overall health is necessary for our collective resilience to COVID-19 and future global health challenges.
Kathryn Crawford is an assistant professor of environmental health at Middlebury College.
Disclosure statement: Kathryn Crawford has received funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
Reposted with permission from The Conversation.
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