By doing something as simple as repainting Stella’s bedroom using high-quality non-VOC paints and primers (Dick’s Color Center and Pratt & [...]]]> Nine-year-old Stella was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) on February 1, 2010. When Michelle Bexelius, owner of ecoRemedi, heard of Stella’s plight, she contacted the family and offered them free ecoConsultation and ecoInterior services.

By doing something as simple as repainting Stella’s bedroom using high-quality non-VOC paints and primers (Dick’s Color Center and Pratt & Lambert), Bexelius is proving that ecoHealthy can also be ecoBeautiful. “There is always an alternative [to unhealthy products]; you just have to pick your priorities and know what to look for,” she explains.

ecoRemedi checked the electromagnetic frequency (EMF) levels, moved Stella’s bed, and checked for lead in the windowsills. On the advice of ecoRemedi, the family is also getting new, healthy mattresses, pillows and bedding thanks to (Eclectic Home), sustainable cork floors (Eco Haus) and custom designed textiles (cool cotton). The bedroom was cleared of clutter, the stuffed animals were minimized and the space was organized to create a harmonious haven.

We also want her room to resonate with her style making it fun for an almost 9 year old and her 4 year old sister to call their own. Michelle designed curtains and a duvet cover and pillow to brighten the room.  Melamine furniture and plastic storage containers were replaced with solid wood pieces to improve the indoor air quality.

It will be a bright moment when Stella sees her room for the first time. We will be there smiling too knowing we helped improve the health of her room so a little girl can heal and grow up and fulfill her dreams.

Air Testing Results

ecoRemedi has suggested to check with the NW Natural Gas to come and see if there could be a leak or the have their HVAC system inspected to help clean the indoor air.  There were also higher levels of carbon dioxide which can result in a blocked air duct. Every room should have clean air flowing. We recommend a filter and UV light to cut down on bacteria and allergens. The room was retested and the air results were much improved.

We will test again after the room is complete and post the results on www.ecoremedi.com.

EMF results:

Readings were higher than normal at the original site of the bed. Looking beneath the room, in the basement we discovered there were many wires that were concentrated there resulting in a higher voltage reading. When the body is exposed to high amounts of voltage it reduces the immune system. Solution: We moved the bed across the room and placed a dresser there.

Healthy Room for child with Leukemia helps her heal.

Michelle Bexelius consults and writes about ecoHealthy living, and is currently writing a book on the subject. Her ecoInterior work has been featured on an HGTV special where she designed an ecoNursery for a celebrity mom. Bexelius’ goal is to promote healthy, sustainable lifestyles.

For more information on ecoRemedi’s ecoConsulting and ecoInterior services, please contact owner Michelle Bexelius at michelle@ecoremedi.com.

Healthy, Green Ideas for Families

Find out where the top toxins are lurking in your home that could be affecting your child’s health. Learn what products to avoid and what healthy, safe ones to replace [...]]]> Simple, Smart and Safe ways to reduce chemical exposures in everyday products for children.
By Michelle Bexelius – Founder of Eco Remedi

Healthy, Green Ideas for Families

Find out where the top toxins are lurking in your home that could be affecting your child’s health. Learn what products to avoid and what healthy, safe ones to replace them with. Michelle recommends testing your indoor air quality for chemical VOC’s, radon, and EMR (electromagnetic radiation)- the new pollution that contributes to childhood illnesses. She provides simple solutions that give you and your family peace of mind.

Environmental toxins are everywhere and we show you how be your own advocate so you can take control of your space, so it doesn’t take control of you.  There are still 80,000 chemicals in products today that aren’t approved by the FDA, only 200 are. Until the Toxics Substance Control Act (TSCA) is changed, people need to be more in control of their environment.

Here are Eco Remedi’s Top toxins to avoid for you and your kids:

1. EMR – Electromagnetic Radiation – test all sitting and sleeping areas. Health effects: lowers immune system, cancers.
2. Indoor Air Qualilty – test your air, use a good filter, avoid chemicals in products. Health effects: asthma, allergies, lowers immune system, multiple chemical sensitivity, fatigue.
3. PBDE’s – (fire retardants) found in mattresses, pillows, car seats, pjs, furniture.  Health effects: neurotoxic chemical.
4. Triclosan- Antibacterial products. Castile soap does the same job. Health effects: damaging to the immune and reproductive systems.
5. PFC – Perfluorinated Chemicals – dental floss, non stick, Teflon, popcorn bags, jackets. Health effects: cancer, liver damage.
6. PVC – flooring, toys, jackets, binders, shower curtains. Health effects: Endocrine disrupter.
7. Phthalates – Synthetic fragrances, plastic toys, bottles. Health effects: Endocrine disrupter.
8. BPA – dental fillings, plastic food storage, water bottles Health effects: Endocrine disrupter.
9. Parabens – preservative found in hair and skin products, cosmetics, personal lubricants, toothpaste. Health effects: Endocrine disrupter.
10. Pesticides – food and garden – Health effects: Endocrine disrupter.

Eco Remedi educates and inspires clients about creative steps they can take to help their health, home and the planet and that green isn’t always healthiest for the human body. Many buildings, commercial, educational or residential have hidden toxins that you can’t smell or see, like EMF or Radon. We go over simple solutions, talk about great products that will help remedy your space into a healthy, stylish place.

Eco Remedi consults with experts ranging from doctors to builders hearing their latest solutions and success stories. If you are having a baby, moving, remodeling or recovering from an illness Eco Remedi is perfect for you.

Eco Remedi has helped many people who have illnesses such as leukemia, multiple chemical sensitivity, cancer, lupus and asthma to create a healthy space so they can heal at home.

Michelle Bexelius is the CEO and Founder of Eco Remedi a consulting and design firm that remedies residential and commercial spaces into healthy, sustainable places. She consults and blogs about eco healthy living and is currently writing a book regarding the subject. In 2007 she was featured in a special on HGTV “Green is Beautiful” where she revealed an Eco Nursery with healthy, sustainable remedies from the mattress to diapers.

Michelle Bexelius is a mother of 2 remarkable children who started Eco Remedi to share with others her tips and resources that she does to create a healthy and safe environment for her family.

www.ecoremedi.com

michelle@ecoremedi.com

503 477 5508

My accountant always has told me, “keep your receipts”, it’s the responsible thing to do to log data and report to the IRS for “write-off’s.” After reading the recent findings that the thermal paper you receive when you purchase something has BPA in it. I am telling everyone I meet about [...]]]>

BPA found in Receipts

My accountant always has told me, “keep your receipts”, it’s the responsible thing to do to log data and report to the IRS for “write-off’s.” After reading the recent findings that the thermal paper you receive when you purchase something has BPA in it. I am telling everyone I meet about this to encourage retailers to purchase the alternative to keep their employees and customers BPA – FREE.

I found this resource from Laughing Planet Cafe in Portland who made the switch. Food Front also make the switch. Buy thermal paper without BPA. http://www.pospaper.com/19015dt.html

Thermal paper is widely used for point-of-sale receipts, prescription labels, airline tickets and lottery tickets. Thermal printers use paper that is coated with a dye and developer (BPA or an alternative chemical). Heat from the thermal printing head triggers a reaction between the dye and developer, allowing the black print to appear. In an effort to quantify how much BPA would transfer to a person’s hand, the laboratory performed wipe tests on four BPA-laden receipts. In all four cases, BPA transferred from the receipts to the wipes. An average of 2.4 percent of the receipts’ total BPA content wiped off, suggesting that a person who handled receipts would be exposed to some BPA in the thermal paper.
http://www.fastcompany.com/1674881/environmental-working-group-finds-bpa-covered-receipts-from-safeway-whole-foods-walmart

Bisphenol A (BPA)
Definition: A synthetic substance widely used to make polycarbonated plastics for the past 50 years to make them durable. Type of plastic: polycarbonate #7.
Products: Found in food and drink containers, the lining of tin cans, toys, baby bottles, dental sealants, flame-retardants,plastic wraps and now recently discovered in thermal receipt paper from the register. This chemical easily leaches out into food and water. Polycarbonate plastic, which is clear and nearly shatter-proof, is used to make a variety of common products including baby and water bottles, sports equipment, medical and dental devices, dental fillings and sealants, lenses, CDs and DVDs, and household electronics. Epoxy resins containing bisphenol A are used as coatings on the inside of almost all food and beverage cans. Bisphenol A is also a precursor to the flame retardant, tetrabromobisphenol A, and was formerly used as a fungicide.

Health problems: Endocrine Disruptor. Increase of obesity, diabetes, cancer (breast and prostrate). Reduced fertility. Alternatives: stainless steel water bottles, glass and stainless food containers, mother’s milk, bpa free compost fillings. From www.ewg.org In January, the Food and Drug Administration, which previously called BPA safe, announced it has “some concerns” about the chemical’s potential effects on brain development of fetuses, infants and children. It did not say BPA is unsafe.

The Environmental Working Group recommends these tips for reducing BPA exposure from receipts:
* Minimize receipt collection by declining receipts at gas pumps, ATMs and other machines when possible.
* Store receipts separately in an envelope in a wallet or purse.
* Never give a child a receipt to hold or play with.
* After handling a receipt, wash hands before preparing and eating food (a universally recommended practice even for those who have not handled receipts). * Do not use alcohol-based hand cleaners after handling receipts. A recent study showed that these products can increase the skin’s BPA absorption.
* Take advantage of store services that email or archive paperless purchase records. * Do not recycle receipts and other thermal paper. BPA residues from receipts will contaminate recycled paper.
* If you are unsure, check whether paper is thermally treated by rubbing it with a coin. Thermal paper discolors with the friction; conventional paper does not.

From EWG: The company that has consumer’s backs.
http://www.ewg.org/bpa-in-store-receipts

Here is a resource on where to buy thermal paper without BPA.
http://www.pospaper.com/19015dt.html

Pass it along to everyone you know! They will thank you.

Eco Healthy School

How Eco Healthy is your school? From cafeteria meals to energy [...]]]> by Michelle Bexelius – founder of Eco Remedi

Eco Healthy School

How Eco Healthy is your school? From cafeteria meals to energy use to recycling efforts, your school can have a major environmental impact – and provide opportunities to teach students about healthier, more sustainable practices.

Fostering a healthy environment is crucial given that many of the nation’s schoolchildren are vulnerable to pollution: According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 50 percent of U.S. schools have indoor air-quality problems, exposing those inside to lead, asbestos, chemical fumes, pesticides, molds and other toxic substances. And researchers at the University of Cincinnati found that more than 30 percent of U.S. public schools are in “air-pollution danger zones” because of their proximity to major thoroughfares. Despite these problems, parents can work with school officials to implement policies that protect children – and the planet.

On the Road

If you live close to your school, have your child take the bus, carpool, bike or walk as often as she can to cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions from cars.

If you walk or bike with your child, you’ll improve your health while helping the environment. Get other families involved by organizing “Walk-or-Bike-to-School Days” once a month.

If you do drive, don’t idle.

Turn off your engine while waiting for your child. Encourage others to do the same by putting up a “Turn your engine off” or “Don’t idle” sign at your school’s pickup spot. The exhaust pollutes the air near your child’s school and can trigger asthma attacks, so any effort to cut down on fumes will help improve students’ health and you’ll save gas – and money.

In the Cafeteria

Healthy lunches build healthy minds.

Encourage your school to scrap the corn dogs, chicken nuggets and french fries in the cafeteria and buy from local, organic farmers. Urge your school to switch to reusable trays, flatware and recycled paper napkins.

If you’re packing your child’s lunch, opt for organic foods when possible and put filtered water in a stainless steel container. Use a lunch box that is not made with PVC. Pack waste-free meals by using reusable containers.

On the School Grounds

Create a learning garden at your school so that kids can see firsthand where healthy food comes from.

It doesn’t have to be big – a small area will do – and kids can be involved in planting, harvesting and eating the produce. Encourage your teachers to plan lessons around it.

Organize a composting committee.

This will help your school reduce its waste and provide fertilizer for the learning gardens at the same time.

Start a campaign for clean water.

Urge your school to put water filters on every drinking fountain to cut the risk of exposure to lead, arsenic and bacteria often found in water supplies.

Use environmentally friendly lighting and cleaning products.

Encourage your school to replace its incandescent lightbulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). These bulbs use about 75% less power than incandescents and last up to 10 times longer. Since CFLs contain small amounts of mercury, make sure your school knows how to properly dispose of them. Encourage your school to turn off lights when they aren’t being used. Use natural daylight as much as possible.

Encourage your school to use castile soap, which is cheaper and gets rid of germs just as effectively as soaps with antibacterial properties do. Antibacterial soaps can be harmful because they contain a dioxin chemical called triclosan, which has been known to cause liver damage and cause resistance to antibiotics.

Urge your school to use healthy cleaning products. Ask your custodians what products they use and encourage them to look into green alternatives.

Ask the grounds crew to use natural herbicides and pesticides. Children are highly susceptible to toxic pesticides sprayed on playgrounds and athletic fields because of their high metabolisms and low body weights. There are many safer pest-control alternatives.

Start a recycling program.

Place paper, plastic and aluminum recycling bins near every trash can. Encourage recycling through drives and by enrolling your school in a program that collects computer printer cartridges and used cell phones. Request that the school use 100 percent recycled paper.

At the Store

Go green when shopping for school supplies.

When purchasing backpacks, rain jackets and binders, make sure they don’t contain harmful PVC materials or fire retardants. See Green Dorms for more options.

Use recycled paper goods.

Ask your school to purchase 100% recycled paper and print lessons on both sides of the paper. Also ask for 100% recycled toilet paper, paper towels and tissues.

Michelle Bexelius is also the founder and director of Eco Kido, a nonprofit that helps schools get healthy and go green.

by Michelle Bexelius – founder of Eco Remedi

“EMF Pollution may be the most significant form of pollution human activity has produced in this century, all the more dangerous because it is invisible and insensible. ” -Andrew Weil, MD

“Ten years ago, one birth in 100,000 was an autistic [...]]]>

EMF - The New Pollution by Eco Remedi

by Michelle Bexelius – founder of Eco Remedi

“EMF Pollution may be the most significant form of pollution human activity has produced in this century, all the more dangerous because it is invisible and insensible. ” -Andrew Weil, MD

“Ten years ago, one birth in 100,000 was an autistic child. In 2005, one birth in 162 birth was an autistic child. A few years ago, these problems were due to cell phone use, in the last year and a half 80% of the people presenting problems don’t even use cell phones. The problem now has to do with the high levels of background EMR.” -Dr. George Carlo, EMR expert

What you can do inside your home.
By simply checking your EMF (Electro Magnetic Frequency) readings you can prevent serious illnesses from occurring. Most of the older homes that are remodeled homes have old faulty wiring and need a professional electrician to re-wire them. Often times when we think of faulty wiring, we think fires, not so in this case. I spoke to a mom at my son’s school and she told me this story.I thought I would share it with you to enlighten you about the importance of checking the electromagnetic fields in your home. Not only can this be a health hazard it can help your home be more energy efficient.  Go to http://www.lessemf.com/gauss.html to purchase your own EMF tester.

True Story – written by Patti- Santa Barbara, CA.
“In 1995 my son, Tyler had an outlet next to his bed that had a power reading of 10.0,normal, or safe readings should be 0.1-0.3. My husband and I did not even know what electrical magnetics were. The same year our five year old son became very ill. Doctors did not know what it was.

Later, through many medical tests. He had a tumor behind his neck, which was making him paralyzed from the neck down. Tyler also had a high temp. which would not go away (105*). He was hospitalized for two weeks and he almost died. He was sick at home for three months with a visiting nurse giving him antibiotics through a catheter in his chest, finally he pulled through and was well.
Later, through a friend we found out about electrical magnetics in old wiring in homes and what it can do to the nervous system, especially in children. We had our house tested. Our outlets all measured very high. We had the whole house re-wired and now the house is safe. We talked to many doctors and came to the conclusion that too much electrical magnetics had gotten into our sons body, which was the cause of his illness”.

What are EMFs and are they harmful?
Electric and magnetic fields (EMFs) are invisible lines of energy from electric charges surrounding power lines, electrical appliances and other electrical equipment.  People receive the majority of EMF exposure from power lines near homes, electrical appliances held closely to the body, and cell phones and towers.  Radio-frequency and microwave-frequency EMFs, such as from cellular phones and towers, involve a much higher frequency than power lines and most electrical appliances.  There are no federal standards limiting work or home exposure to EMFs. Over 80% of the electromagnetic fields you are exposed to every day are background EMRs coming from Cell Phone Towers, Satellite Systems in Space, WiFi, TV/Radio Broadcast Towers, HAARP, GWEN, etc.

Health Effects
There is disagreement among scientists as to whether or not typical EMF exposures can have serious health consequences.  Above 60 Hertz, electrical frequencies can potentially break chemical bonds and cause irreversible changes to molecules such as DNA or body tissue.  Microwave currents cause vibrations within water molecules and resulting friction and heat (this is how they heat food). The concern is what effect exposure to these microwave-frequencies have on the human body.  At high levels, microwave and radio frequency EMFs can heat body tissues, and when a person is very close to the source, they can interfere with cardiac pacemakers and the normal heart conduction system. The question is how much is acceptable.

Because you cannot see EMFs and there are no current federal regulations, most people are unaware of the possibilities.  Some studies suggest an association between occupational exposures to EMFs and breast cancer, leukemia and brain tumors.  In children, EMFs and cancer and brain tumors is mostly from power lines close to the child’s home, but there have also been links to risks associated with exposures to household appliances such as electric blankets, hair dryers and televisions. EMFs are reduced greatly by increasing distance from the source such as a few feet from most electrical devices and approximately 100 feet from a distribution power line and 500 feet from a transmission line.

Cell Towers

Living near towers has also been linked to brain tumors, cancer, suppressed immune function, depression, miscarriage, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and autoimmune illnesses such as fibromyalgia and lupus. Studies have found that kids living near cell towers have twice the amount of leukemia.

Solutions
As an eco consultant an added service is to check for “hot zones” from wiring or electronic devices in the home with a gaussmeter. He/She will use the EMF device around sitting, playing and sleeping areas. Solutions could be moving furniture or rewiring if no other solution is available.

Geopathic Clearing
A geopathic clearing is to neutralize unhealthful flows of energy. Terrestrial energies flow in a manner very similar to a naturally pure steam of water, which then can become a carrier of a noxious energy. These ley Lines, or Hartman grid lines as they are often called, can be visualized as a flow of energy which moves through any building or structure as though it were not in its path. These curtain cutain-like flows of geomagnetic and other energies flow above and below the surface of the soil. They frequently become carriers for unhealthful forms of electromagnetic pollution and other energies. These flows of EMF (electromagnetic field) pollution pose a serious risk to our health and well-being. A geopathic clearing neutralizes these harmful energies in the area of your home, business, or property.

I just had this done to our home by Richard Bryant  of www.adinfinitum.org and he revealed we had high levels of EMF pollution going straight through our home. He then went on to survey our whole property placing neutralizer rods to disperse the flow from combatting into our home. I will write more on this subject as I learn more. He is checking back next week to see the progress. Stay tuned.

Resources : www.lessemf.com,  www.adinfinitum.org