Episode 39 

Maya is the Senior Market Campaigner at Defend Our Health.  Defend has just released a research report called Hidden Hazards: The Chemical Footprint of a Plastic Bottle: How the Beverage Industry's Addiction to Plastic Bottles May Prolong the Climate Crisis, threaten Human Health and Promote Environmental Racism.  

Maya discusses strategies for leveraging power to influence soda companies to demand cleaner plastic from the bottle producers.  She also shares stories of impacted people living in communities on the fence lines of plastics manufacturing plants, suffering ill health.  

One resource consumers can use to check the safety of everyday products is through Green Screen Certification. 

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Mike Belliveau is the Founder, President and Executive Director of Defend Our Health, which is a national organization, based in Maine, that has advanced public health, environmental justice and clean production since 2002.  For over forty years, Mike has led chemical policy reform and worked with corporations to phase out toxic chemical use. 

Defend Our Health has just released an innovative study, Hidden Hazards: The Chemical Footprint of a Plastic Bottle, which illustrates the comprehensive cost of a plastic bottle, from creation to waste.  Many of the dangerous chemicals used to make PET plastic bottles are either migrating out of the bottle into the food and beverages they contain, or are polluting the waterways upstream, where the plastic is produced.

Belliveau doesn't despair because he sees solutions. He says, "There's a better way of doing things, so let's put those in place. We have an obligation to future generations to make a difference."

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Episode 37
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Madison Madden is an Ayurvedic practitioner, trained in California and India.  She uses a detoxification practice called Panchakarma to help people remove toxics  from their bodies, as part of an ancient medical tradition, which originated in India. 
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Madison is the author of a book called Mind Body Food, which tells the tale of her journey from a toxic pesticide exposure, as a toddler, through an impaired childhood.  She finds yoga and Auryvedic medicine and walks a path to healing and health.  Now she helps others along that path. 

Madison is also an expert yoga and somatic practitioner and she lives in Colorado, where she's a consultant at Live Wise. ​

We reference this medical research about getting PFAS out of your blood.  To find auryvedic practitioners in the USA look here. 

​Play audio, below:

Episode 36

Will Chappell is the President of Air and Water Quality, Inc., a Maine-based business that helps homeowners resolve water quality concerns.  Since Maine has a higher percentage of residents drinking from residential wells than any other state, it is a matter of public health to get regular testing for well water.

Toxic heavy metals (arsenic, manganese, uranium) and man-made chemicals (PFAS) can often be present in our residential well water.  Because you cannot see, smell or taste these toxics, it is important to test your residential wells every 3-5 years.  

One can get started by contacting a lab or reaching out to a water treatment business.  In Maine, there are also funds available to help low-income households with testing and remediation expenses. 

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 Episode 34

Dianne Kopec is a Research Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability at the University of Maine. Her biological research documents toxic contaminants in wildlife, such as mercury in fish (and the animals that eat them, like birds and harbor seals). 

Because of mercury contamination in Maine's waters, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has a posted fish consumption health advisory. Since all 50 states have such advisories, the EPA also offers safe eating guidelines for fish consumption, especially for pregnant women, as exposure can cause behavioral problems and decreased cognitive performance.  

For decades, mercury contamination in Maine freshwater fish has denied members of the Penobscot Nation their legally protected sustenance fishing rights. Currently, Dr. Kopec's research is helping to minimize mercury exposure to tribal members. 

With an eye on the future, Dianne Kopec says, "We don't have to accept mercury pollution as a given."  She discusses how legislation today can protect all of us from toxic exposures tomorrow, so that we might be able to fish with our grandchildren...and eat the catch.  

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Episode 33

Julie Rosenbach is the Sustainability Director for the City of South Portland, Maine.  Together with Portland's Sustainability Coordinator, Troy Moon, the two cities are pioneers in collaboration between municipalities in an award-winning  joint climate action plan.  They have led teams of citizens to create One Climate Future goals. Both cities have banned the use of fertilizers and pesticides, as a way to meet these goals by 2040.

Another way toward becoming a more climate change resilient community is through South Portland's new "100 Resilient Yards" initiative, which just launched in March of 2023.   Julie shares her hopes for this creative program, a wonderful example of partnership with 8 collaborators and 4 funders, (including Healthy Babies, Bright Futures).
​Julie walks the talk when she says, "Partnerships are everything!"

​Play audio, below:

Episode 32

​Dr. Kyra Naumoff Shields is an Environmental Health Scientist at Healthy Babies, Bright Futures, an organization known for protecting children's developing bodies and brains from neurotoxins, present in our everyday lives. 

Dr. Naumoff Shields is HBBF's Director of the program called  Bright Cities, reducing toxic exposures on a community level.  

She discusses research and engagement the organization has done around toxic-free baby food, the increased incidence of developmental delays and the link between toxics and climate change.

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Episode 30

Mike Garfield is the Director of the Ecology Center in Ann Arbor, MI.  Established in 1970, the Ecology Center works on ending lead poisoning, air quality, climate action and energy equity.  It is also the home of the Healthy Stuff Lab.  

Mike discusses "greenwashing" and how it relates to the plastics industry.  Presently, the oil and petro-chemical industries are promoting the idea of "chemical recycling" (aka catalytic pyrolysis of plastic waste or "depolymerization") which means melting plastic and making it into solid, liquid and gaseous fuel products. Twenty states have already changed laws to relax regulations against pyrolysis and gasification, even though such incinerators create huge amounts of toxic pollution and a substantial carbon footprint.  

Play audio, below:

Episode 37

Madison Madden is an Ayurvedic practitioner, trained in California and India.  She uses a detoxification practice called Panchakarma to help people remove toxics  from their bodies, as part of an ancient medical tradition, which originated in India. 
​
Madison is the author of a book called Mind Body Food, which tells the tale of her journey from a toxic pesticide exposure, as a toddler, through an impaired childhood.  She finds yoga and Auryvedic medicine and walks a path to healing and health.  Now she helps others along that path. 

Madison is also an expert yoga and somatic practitioner and she lives in Colorado, where she's a consultant at Live Wise. 

A listing of Ayurvedic medicine practitioners can be found here.

Play audio, below:

Episode 28

Adam and his wife own Songbird Organic Farm, in Unity, Maine which became central to the PFAS deliberations last winter, after they learned that their organic farm was in fact heavily contaminated by PFAS, from historic sludge spreading. With great courage and integrity, they immediately curtailed their food production and spoke up about this growing problem.  This spring (2022) Maine passed a law (LD 1911) that banned the spreading of sludge.  As awareness grows about there being no actual safe level of exposure we have to make other choices about what to do with "bio-solids." 

Adam is now the Campaign Manager for Defend Our Health, working to organize impacted farmers around the state of Maine.  Adam describes the process underway to allocate the $60M PFAS aid package.  (LD2013) The aid will most importantly offer a safety net for impacted farmers, as well as medical monitoring/care and research.  Recently, Senator King introduced a similar bill to support farmers,  at the federal level, called Relief for Farmers Hit with PFAS Act. 

​In the meantime, Adam talks about slowing down, becoming aware of our sense of place, and using the precautionary principle whenever possible, as a way to protect Mama/Mother Earth.

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