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What do all of these have in common?
They're all ending up in our water supply!
|| What’s your PCP Footprint?
 PCPs or Personal Care Products include a long list of products like sunscreen, shampoo, makeup, toothpaste, lotion, and finger nail polish. By now, we’ve all heard about carbon footprints – how much we individually consume in energy and produce in greenhouse gases. But have you thought about your PCP footprint?
According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit dedicated to protecting human and environmental health, nearly 90% of ingredients used in PCPs have never been evaluated for safety. From hand soap to deodorant, an average of 126 “unique” ingredients are applied to our skin every day. Talk about a massive footprint!
Here at the Conservation Center we often challenge you to consider the life cycle of the products we buy. With PCPs, there are substantial impacts to the environment (and to humans) in the phases of production, consumer-use, and disposal. Many PCP contaminants are manufacturer side-effects derived from petroleum, surface runoff, and animal by-products.
Not only do we absorb some of these PCP toxins, they often rinse off our bodies and flow down the drain. Sewage systems are not equipped for PCP and pharmaceutical removal and there are no water treatment plants engineered to eliminate these chemicals from our drinking water or nearby streams.
In fact, many contaminants in addition to PCPs and pharmaceuticals have been detected in our water…
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|| Emerging Contaminants:
*EDS = endocrine disrupting substances that can mimic or block the action of natural hormones in the body
Pharmaceuticals – From ibuprofen to antibiotics and birth control pills, the human body absorbs between 50-90% of the active ingredients in drugs and the rest is excreted and flushed down the toilet.
Cleaning Agents – Artificial fragrances and preservatives in cleaning products are EDS that include synthetic chemicals like formaldehyde, phenol, sulfates, ammonia, and bleach.
Pesticides – At least 53 carcinogenic pesticides are routinely applied to American food crops. Pesticides, including insect repellent DEET, can seep into nearby water ways. Some pesticides have been known to cause gender mutations in amphibians and fish.
Personal Care Products – Contain EDS such as estrogen, estriol, and orestradiol and known carcinogens like parabens.
Plastics – Chemicals leaching from plastic is a major source of estrogen compounds in our water supply. EDS such as Bisphenol A and Phthalates (used to soften plastics) have affected reproduction in fish and humans. For more about Toxic Plastics - click here.
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|| Summit County’s Pharmaceutical Drug Take-Back Program:
You can dispose of unused medications in Summit County in secure collection bins at: 
City Market in Breckenridge
400 N. Park Avenue
City Market in Dillon
300 Dillon Ridge Road
NEVER flush pharmaceuticals down the toilet. Flushing or trash disposal of unused or unwanted medications can cause pollution of our lakes, streams, and water supplies!
What CAN I Dispose of in the Collection Bins?
- Prescription Medications, except for narcotics or controlled substances
- Over-the-Counter Medications
- Medication Samples
- Pet Medications
- Vitamins
- Liquid Medications in Glass or Leak-Proof Containers
- Inhaler
What CAN’T I Dispose of in the Collection Bins?
- Narcotics and Other Controlled Substances
- Bloody or infectious waste
- Personal Care Products
- Hydrogen Peroxide
- Aerosol Cans
- Thermometers
- IV Bags
- Needles
- Plastic Bags
- Business Waste
What about narcotics and other controlled substances?
The High Country Conservation Center and Summit Water Quality Committee are currently working on local collection days for controlled substances and narcotics. Please check back for more details.
The other option for narcotics and controlled substances is carefully disposal. Follow the steps listed below. Never flush any medication down the toilet or drain!
- Take the medications out of their original containers. Mix them with an undesirable substance like kitty litter or used coffee grounds.
- Conceal or remove personal information, including Rx number, on the empty medicine containers by covering it with black permanent marker or by scratching it off.
- Wrap the medication mixture and the empty containers in newspaper to help conceal them from children and pets and place them in the trash.
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|| The Solution to Toxic Cleaning Agents:
.jpg) The 2009 Green Cleaning
Guide
Our most popular publication to date, this booklet is full
of recipes, tips, and resources for making your own cleaning
products, largely from ingredients you already have in your
home. The Guide has been updated since its original
printing, so the version you get here is the latest and
greatest out there. You can download the entire 2009
Green Cleaning Guide here.
As it is a large document, we have broken it into sections
so that the download time is not so long:
Introduction
General Home
Bathroom
Kitchen
Laundry
Outdoors
Green Cleaning Resources (Includes our list of ingredients to avoid and resources
for more information)
Did you know? If every household in the U.S. replaced just one box of 112oz. petroleum-based laundry detergent with a plant-based product like Seventh Generation's Natural Laundry Detergent, we could save 171,000 barrels of oil - enough to heat and cost 9,800 U.S. homes for a year.
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|| Household Hazardous Waste Program
HHWs (Household Hazardous Wastes) should be disposed of responsibly. Never flush HHWs down the toilet, sink, or drain. Read the labels of the products in your home. Words such as: poison, toxic, corrosive, volatile, flammable, danger, combustible, caution, and warning are signs that the contents are hazardous. Such products should be disposed of at the HHW Collection facility at the Summit County Landfill. Click here for more info about HHWs and to find out what is accepted at in the Summit County Program. You can also call the HHW program at the landfill at 468-9263 to inquire about fees and regulations.
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|| Smart Shopping and Reading Labels:
How do you know which PCPs are safe to use? Some say the longer the list of ingredients on the back of shampoo bottle, the worse the product is for the environment. I don’t know about that but I will advise you to carefully read the label, especially the small print!
Greenwashing is becoming a powerful marketing tool as “green” continues to increase in popularity. There are tons of PCP manufacturers that market their product as organic, natural, fragrance free, and non-toxic. However, these claims are usually not regulated under the law so it’s important to put on your smart consumer hat and read the ingredients. If you see dozens of ingredients on a bottle that you don’t recognize or can’t pronounce, it’s probably not good for you or the environment.
- Who doesn’t like a sweet smelling lotion? I often find myself drawn into labels that advertise avocados, lemons, and lavender. But be cautious of products with fragrance. A single fragrance can contain hundreds of different chemicals.
- Discontinue using products that use parabens – Parabens are a class of synthetically produced, antimicrobial preservatives often used in cosmetics and PCPs. Parabens have been linked to breast tumors. Parabens are widely used as antimicrobial preservatives. There are six commonly used forms (Methylparaben, Ethylparaben, p-Propylparaben, Isobutylparaben, n-Butylparaben and Benzylparaben) and it is estimated that they are used in at least 13,200 cosmetics products.
- Check out EWG’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database. You can research toxic brands and products. You can even ask the database to exclude hazardous ingredients like carcinogens and neurotoxins and Skin Deep will generate a custom shopping list for you.
What about all the waste generated by PCPs? Labels, containers, and caps – oh my! Have you ever noticed the fancy PCP packaging (tags, shiny plastics, and bright colored boxes) used to get your attention? I’ve peeled through rows of plastics and paper just to find a tiny container of product. I know that small things come in big packages, but again, why is that?
Next time you shop, why not ask yourself – “Will this increase my PCP Footprint?” Since Eartha Steward is all about eco-stylish shoes, isn’t it time we lightened our impact?
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|| Action Steps: What can you do?
1). Step 1: Prevent Contamination
- Never flush emerging contaminants down the drain.
- For women on birth control pills, look at alternatives to estrogen-based drugs.
- Eat less dairy and meat. Choose organic; organic farming does not incorporate the use of hormones, antibiotics, and steroids.
- Reduce or eliminate use of plastics in your home. If you must use plastics, use the safer, more stable plastics #2,4, or 5. Cans are lined with plastics too so choose fresh and local food when you can.
- Avoid herbicides and pesticides around the house.
2). Step 2: Manage Responsibly
- Filter out contaminants: A simple carbon filter hooked to your faucet is very effective in filtering out emerging contaminants. Bottled water is NOT the answer! Bottled water is not any safer than tap water as there are few regulations governing bottled water. Many plants use tap water as their source and plastic containers for their products. And knowing that plastic chemicals leach into water, why would you want to drink water in a plastic bottle anyway? Click here for ideas on how to Break the Bottled Water Habit!
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|| Resources:
There is No “Away” – Pharmaceuticals, Personal Care Products, and Endocrine-Disrupting Substances: Emerging Contaminants Detected in Water. By Susan Holtz, Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy, January 2006
Pink water: plastics, pesticides, and pills are contaminating our drinking supply. By Holly Pyhtila, Earth Island Journal, Sep 22, 2008
Download a Summit Pharmaceutical Take-Back Program Brochure
Summit Pharmaceutical Take-Back Program Press Release
Colorado Medication Take-Back Pilot Project
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|| Thanks to the Summit Pharmaceutical Take-Back Program Sponsors:
  
 
For more information, please contact the High Country Conservation Center at 970-668-5703 or info@highcountryconservation.org
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