Consumer Electronics - We must insist on a more sustainable model!

As you ponder your Christmas shopping list - stop and think about how your purchases are like votes. When you buy consumer electronics that have toxic chemicals in them, uses them in their production, or releases them when 3rd world peoples try to harvest precious metals from discards, you support these practices. We must demand a higher standard - value engineered DVD players that stop working at 26 months and get dumped because of high repair costs into our landfills CAN NOT be tolerated any longer! These devices should have 15 year life cycles minimum! They should be built on a standard rack mount chassis and be upgradable and serviceable - with pull out modules and replaceable (maybe even by the consumer!) parts!!

Resistant Bacteria - Not just from oral antibiotics - home cleaning products too!

Vinegar - it's no just for salad dressing anymore!

While looking for info about diluted vinegar as a health aid (natural antibiotic) I discover this post about how home cleaners (disinfectants) are creating super bugs just like the antibiotics over prescribed for humans and added to livestock  feeds

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/vinegar-kills-bacteria-mold-germs.html#

Sometimes our step forward is really a step backward. I hope that rational thought wins out over greed and corporate marketing. Just use what your (great) granny used - vinegar!

Quote below from link above:

Vinegar is a mainstay of the old folk recipes for cleaning, and with good reason. The vim of the vinegar is that it kills bacteria, mold and germs.

Heinz company spokesperson Michael Mullen references numerous studies to show that a straight 5 percent solution of vinegar—the kind you can buy in the supermarket—kills 99 percent of bacteria, 82 percent of mold, and 80 percent of germs (viruses). He noted that Heinz can’t claim on their packaging that vinegar is a disinfectant since the company has not registered it as a pesticide with the Environmental Protection Agency.