What Mama Wants - Less Toxics, More Health WMPG

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.

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 scientific paper (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."

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. ​

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.

For Earth Day, Nik Charov, (President and Chairman of Laudholm Trust at Wells Reserve) thinks of Mother Earth as an "accountant, as much as a nurturer." The spreadsheet is all about living in the balance, not over-spending our resources for corporate profit or convenience.


Nik thinks about the art of science communication and "climate pollution," as it relates to plastics and local climate change. Located next to a Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge, Nik illustrates how policy changes led to a raptor comeback-- a toxics success story. He calls on us all to use our power as citizens to pressure government for environmental changes for a healthy future.

​Wells Reserve is an estuarine research center in Wells, Maine where you can connect with nature through miles of trails, festivals, speakers and so much more. ​FMI: www.wellsreserve.org.

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.

https://www.whatmamawants.org/archived-episodes/dianne-kopec