Top Environmental Toxins the Government Downplays
The EPA is in charge of keeping our air and water clean, and they do so by establishing guidelines and regulations. However, these regulations do not eliminate toxins from our environment. Rather, they are there to give us the impression that we are safe, and that the contaminants we encounter on a daily basis are perfectly healthy. The reality is that everyday, run of the mill pollution sends millions of people to the hospital and kills hundreds of thousands every year.
Basis for Testing
Before understanding the true nature of the risk, it’s important to know how the EPA tests pollutants and establishes guidelines. Basically, the do a risk-management assessment that involves looking at how much of a particular substance the average person can tolerate before getting sick or killed. Then they find a way to average this out and come up with an upper-limit of what is allowed in the environment.
What this method doesn’t account for is the huge number of people that fall outside of this “average person” range. The young, old and sick are not always accounted for, nor is anyone else who may be more susceptible to becoming ill from a particular contaminant.
Loopholes Everywhere
Furthermore, the government provides enormous loopholes and allowances for entities to fall in line with new as well as existing regulations. For example, southern California is notorious for air pollution, and the Clean Air Act has been around for almost 40 years. However, many communities, including Los Angeles and San Diego are no where near being close to having acceptable air quality. Phoenix and Las Vegas are also consistently in violation of clean air standards. Consequently, the government keeps giving communities time to find ways to address chronic problems. Meanwhile, problems still exist and people still get sick and die.
What Toxins are we Talking About?
The top environmental toxins in our air and water involve PCBs and VOCs. PCBs are industrial chemicals that used to be put in almost everything we use, and they have been banned for decades. However, they still exist in our soil, water and ground water supply. Not only that, but they get absorbed by fish and other animals that we eat as well as some crops. They cause cancer, impair development during pregnancy and a host of other medical problems that are too extensive to list here.
VOCs, or Volatile Organic Compounds are another way of saying carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. They also are common in plastics, fabrics, building material and health and beauty products. These are regulated by the government, but high concentrations still exist in the air we breathe and water we drink. They cause cancer, respiratory tract problems, eye problems, impaired memory and headaches just to name a few. This is one reason that using water and air filters and staying in well-ventilated areas is so important to our health.
Chlorine
Chlorine in small doses is not harmful to our health, but there is a cumulative effect that even persistent small doses can have on the body. One thing that people don’t realize is how abundant chlorine is in our daily lives. It’s in our water, our cleaning products and many industrial applications. Exposure to too much chlorine can lead to lung disease, skin problems and death.
Heavy Metals
Heavy metals include exposure to lead, mercury, arsenic, aluminum, cadmium and uranium. Unfortunately, we can’t go far without encountering these metals since they are part of our daily lives. However, they generally don’t make us sick from physical contact, with rare exception. Rather, exposure comes from ingesting these metals from foods that we eat or water that we drink. They cause a range of health problems that can include anything from cancer and circulatory problems to brain damage and immune deficiencies.
This is just a short summary of a long list of contaminants that are present in our environment. The government has done nothing, literally nothing to protect the population from the harmful effects of these substances, other than to say that things are generally okay as long as you don’t get too much exposure. Consequently, most people are lulled into a sense of false-security in terms of us living in a clean and green world. The reality is that most cancers, chronic illnesses and genetic defects can be traced to exposure to these and other contaminants.
There is also very little that we can do to prevent exposure. Test your water, make sure that you are avoiding processed foods and food items that are known to contain contaminants. Avoid being indoors encased in buildings with poor air circulation, and use natural cleaning or health and beauty products as much as possible.
These environmental contaminants take more lives than any disease we’ve experienced in the United States, yet nobody is talking about this very real problem. However, just because it isn’t getting talked about or addressed by the government doesn’t mean these problems don’t exist. If you are serious about getting on the road to self-sufficiency, then you need to be serious about making your own alternatives to commercial products and food supplies.
