Title: Episode 14 - Creating a Toxin - Free Home with Anna Turns

Have you considered how toxins might be affecting your health and your home? It's easier to imagine the impact of toxins on the environment when you hear news about an oil spill or a chemical train derailing. It's less easy to see the negative effect— the negative effects of daily microdose toxins that we're exposed to through food and products that we might bring into our homes. If you're ready to discover more and learn how to keep your home free, stay tuned. Hello listeners and welcome to the Eco-ish Podcast. I'm Tracy Lydiatt, founder of Sustainable Living School and your host today. The purpose of Eco-ish Podcast, if you're new here, is to illuminate the good work towards sustainability that people and companies are doing and honestly discuss trade-offs they might wrestle with, and to share interesting stories that help listeners like you make informed choices. Eco-ish Podcast honors the imperfect journey towards creating an eco-friendly brand in an unsustainable society. On today's episode of Eco-ish Podcast, we're so pleased to introduce our listeners to Anna Turns, environmental journalist based in the UK. Since studying biology at university, she has worked in the media for more than 20 years, including writing for The Guardian, the BBC, and presenting episodes of Costing the Earth for BBC Radio. Her work focuses on solutions, progress, innovations, and the changemakers pushing for a greener planet. In 2022, she published her first book, Go Toxic Free: Easy and Sustainable Ways to Reduce Chemical Pollution. Hi, Anna. It's so wonderful to have you on the podcast today. I'm really excited to learn more about your work and your book, Go Toxic Free. So can you share with us where you're calling in from today?

Hi Tracy, thank you for having me. So I'm from the UK. I am near the sea in sunny Devon where I work as a freelance environmental journalist.

Oh, love it. I love it. As I was sharing offline, I'm so excited to go to the UK sometime soon and I'm slowly collecting podcast guests that I'm hopefully gonna visit when I'm over. Yeah, come say hi.

Yeah.

Your home sounds wonderful, by the sea. Sounds so lovely. So speaking of environmental journalism, this was one of the first questions I wanted to start off with. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do as an environmental journalist?

So I am a storyteller. I write stories about the environment, but usually with a solutions focus. So I like taking really tricky subjects like climate change or chemical pollution or biodiversity loss, but looking at what's happening, what's, what's kind of being changed, where the sort of innovation is, what gives us hope about these crises. And also I'm a biologist originally, so part of my job is to talk to scientists and basically translate really tricky, complex concepts into something that's engaging for a mainstream audience, so telling a story that is memorable and hopefully inspiring in a way that connects people to nature or the oceans or individual action they can do at home, all of these things. And yeah, that's what I do. So I do a lot of it through writing, so I write for publications such as the BBC and The Guardian, but I also do some radio presenting as well, which I love because it's just, as you know, the podcast, a really intimate way of communicating and yeah, building an audience and talking to people.

Oh, that's so wonderful. I think the keyword that jumped out for me was hope and solutions-based. And it's so easy to get down when you start opening your mind to all of the things that are actually wrong, wrong in quotations, and, you know, pulling us towards an unsustainable pathway. So I love that you have that focus with your work.

I'm a very stubborn optimist.

I am too. Sometimes I refer to myself as a hope dealer. And, you know, I think the benefit and the flip side of opening your mind to like all of the challenges is that I'm sure you've felt this way. I certainly feel this way, that as I meet more people, I start realizing how many people are so passionate about helping and changing and innovating. Love that word. And it's— that's where my source of hope comes from.

How about you? It's that collective, it's that collective action, isn't it? So obviously all our individual actions do count, but they count even more when we work as a collective and as a movement. And yeah, I agree. I think if you can find your tribe and work with people or connect with people that really get that, That's really exciting.

Yeah.

And it's, uh, I think it's kind of the theme of our podcast today as we'll get into more about the collective action and the collective, uh, efforts all coming together sometimes for negative and for pos— and hopefully always for positive. Um, so I'm so curious, how did you jump from being a biologist and get into writing and journalism?

So I nearly did a PhD, but I decided that I wanted to know lots of different things. About the world rather than knowing loads about one thing. So I've just always asked lots of questions, been really, really curious and wanted to know why things are as they are or what the solutions might be. And I first of all worked in television and worked in wildlife documentaries and factual documentaries and then got into writing through magazine journalism and went freelance about 11, 11 years ago. And when I first started, I remember looking for a sort of environmental journalist mentor, and there weren't any around. It was really hard to find people who were specializing in this because it just wasn't that common, I suppose. And actually, in the last few years, I've had so many people approach me for advice and things because more people are wanting to join it. So it's really, really brilliant that people who might not come from a scientific background actually want to cover this hatch, I suppose, which is really, really good.

Thank you for sharing that. I love that. It's, I think, sometimes a risky move. And I'm so like you, I'm so curious about everything and how things work. And I want to understand. So I'm just actually so grateful that you took a risk not to do a PhD, which is, you know, pretty traditional pathway for if you're in academia and you've made it that far and look at all the lives that you're impacting now. And and now becoming the mentor that you wished that you'd had probably when you started.

So funny how life works out sometimes.

Oh, completely. Do you feel like that there's, um, you know, you mentioned the last 3 or 4 years, I feel like there's a tide that's kind of turned, and I don't know, I'm curious if you think the same or if you've noticed like shifts like that and what you might attribute them to.

Just more people In terms of public awareness of things?

Yeah, and getting interested in it.

Yeah, I definitely feel like the tide is turning. I do feel like some things are gaining momentum, but I'm very, very conscious that I live in a bit of an echo chamber and I'm surrounded by people who also really care. And actually, I was at the supermarket the other day and the lady at the checkout was discussing with another lady in the queue whether to Hoover or sweep their plastic grass. Their lawn, that they put plastic grass down, and I was just quietly horrified, and I basically just said, "What about the bugs?" And I just— to me, it makes no sense to have plastic grass. Why would you do that? Environmentally, it's completely bonkers. It's pretty. But there are people who think that's normal and brilliant, and it's there, so why not buy it? And it makes their life easier. So I feel like we've still got a lot of work, a lot of way to go in terms of really reaching mainstream, like mass audiences. But that's where it gets quite interesting in terms of like the climate story, for example, becoming quite a cultural conversation and cutting through to people, whether it's through like sports events or fashion shows, like getting all of these messages into different sectors, and rather than it being this other separate eco army, it needs to be integrated into everybody's lives. So I do think things are picking up, but I do think there's a way to go.

Thanks for sharing that, and I— did you say anything to the ladies in the grocery store?

I just, I literally, I said, what about the bugs? And they said, oh, they're probably underneath. And I was just like, I did start talking, but they were obviously so happy about their plastic grass and I was in a bit of a rush and I couldn't stand there in the middle of the shop. But it just reminded me that we're all at different stages on this, on this journey. And for some people it just doesn't come into their worlds.

Oh, completely. And I think maybe that's one of the hardest challenges is having all this knowledge and awareness and not wanting to like shout from the rooftops and like, what?

There was no point in getting angry. Yeah, there's no point in getting cross with her. Like she, she wasn't doing it because she was trying to kill all the bugs. But it, it's just, it shouldn't be available for sale. Basically, we need to kind of get rid of it.

Yes. Our passionate hearts take daily thumpings, don't they? Yeah, and, uh, it's such a lesson in meeting people where they're at.

And yeah, totally.

Yeah, I see that in my work too. And, um, yeah, the echo chamber is real, and I think it's also growing. Um, and part of the— I think part of the— what's the right word to use— part of the mantle that we carry as folks that are working in environmental, in this area and sustainability and, you know, journalism and raising awareness. I was just on a phone call with a couple of colleagues from mine that are all— we all did the same master's degree in Sweden together over, well, quite a while ago, over a decade ago, and we were talking about this, this trends conversation that we're kind of touching on about what trends are we seeing? And one of my colleagues was expressing just like how crazy frustrated he was that he went to this huge fashion convention in Amsterdam and they were talking about like, should we go sustainable? And he's just like, ah, he's like, get on the train, people. So I think it's harder for folks like us that have that awareness and bless you for even saying anything about the bugs. I can't stay quiet.

No, I can't either.

And so, yeah, I always try and do it with grace and peace in my heart because those people are waking up too. And also, maybe they don't have the capacity or the mobility to mow a lawn or, you know, who the heck knows?

Who knows?

Yeah, it's a toughie. I get it. So I'm also curious. Let's talk a little bit about toxins and trends. I just think it's so fascinating. I've seen trends over time about what the media cares about, and I think that's so influential. Influential about what the public then cares about. And I remember I was so excited to see your book because I remember, I don't know, like 10 years ago, there was this huge thing about BPA and it being in baby bottles. And then, you know, Mountain Equipment Co-op, which is like one of our biggest outdoor adventure stores, all of a sudden was like, oh yeah, we need to get rid of all the BPA out of our plastic bottles. And then it just went like, merp, kind of. Quieted down. So what do you see on that, on that front around chemicals and trends, or just trends in general? I'm so curious what you, what you see.

So I think there's a big— there's, there's obviously huge awareness about plastics at the moment, which has built over the last decade or so. And I'm starting to see people unpick that a little bit and realize that actually plastics contain chemicals, they contain fossil fuels, and that they are leaching out other chemicals as well, so it's kind of connecting with this idea of chemical pollution. And also the stories about PFAS, which are the polyfluoroalkyl substances that have been covered loads in the US, not so much in the UK, but in the last year or so I'd say I've seen a lot more stories about these PFAS, and these are the forever chemicals, things that go into non-stick pans and Gore-Tex jackets and anything that's really waterproof or stain-resistant, all of those sorts of things. But they stay in the environment forever. Basically, they just don't break down. And they also stay in our bodies and in the food chain forever. So they're really, really, really toxic. But one of the problems with them, which is also a problem that happened with the BPA story as well, is that when one thing gets banned and people are really aware of it, often companies get away with switching to something that's quite similar. So when BPA was banned, a lot of companies switched to BPS. Which is another type of bisphenol chemical, which is not necessarily okay. And the same with PFAS. So a couple of them have been banned and then there's actually a family of thousands and thousands of them. But really we need to see this class approach where you look at a whole group of chemicals and think actually they're all related. They might all have similar impacts on our health or on the environment and the soil and the water and all of those things. So I'm only just starting to see a mindset shift, I think, in terms of having— of needing to have that foresight and needing to really plan ahead. And there's a lot, there's a lot of stories out there about legacy contaminants, so things that have been banned decades and decades ago that are still lingering. And what I want to see is that we learn from those mistakes and apply those lessons to things like the PFAS chemicals that will be legacy contaminants in the future once they're banned, but we could actually do much more about it now if we are really proactive.

Hmm, that's such an amazing point. And it's a common thing, I feel like this type of conversation happens in, say, like when you're talking about pharmaceutical drugs and when they like potentially ban one or there's like, you know, side effects that happen off one, they'll go back and change a few chemicals and then, you know, release it again, which is not necessarily in anyone's best interest either. It seems like greed and money is always the kind of driving factor of these changes. And it's, it's so— it's such a good approach to think about it as a class of chemicals because you're right, I don't think a lot of folks know that and that they're like, oh yeah, I'm buying this and it has no BPA in it, but how, you know, it's frustrating to know that there's other chemicals out there that could be just as bad.

But I would also add that there's a, there's a whole nother trend as well for more natural things and like this whole clean eating trend as well. And that's kind of coming into cosmetics. And I'm actually a bit wary about that because I think there's this real embedded chemophobia in us. Like people might remember school and they might be scared of chemistry lessons or they might be kind of They think chemistry is this scary thing. And actually, all chemicals, most chemicals are fine. We need chemicals. My cup of tea here is a chemical. Like, yeah, all the stuff around us is chemicals. It's only a very small proportion we're talking about that are toxic and that we need to rein in. So I think it's just about cutting through some of the language. And I do see a big movement of of people who maybe are consuming things in a more eco-conscious way, like your listeners, who are becoming more able to unpick that greenwash and to be able to spot the language that is— that maybe needs a bit more questioning, perhaps.

Yeah, thank you for that. That's such an amazing point. Chemistry is extremely intimidating, like maths and physics is to me, and it is— it's such a great point about cutting through the language and You're so right, and I'm really glad that you brought that point forward, that everything is a chemical. And one, we need chemistry, we need it. Absolutely. And so this is also, I think, the nuances of sustainability that I've been exposed to, where if you, if you're not really clear about the end result of like, what is the actual like boundary of sustainability and what, what is it from a root cause perspective about how we're actually messing up the planet in that vein. So from a chemistry perspective, we know that we're undermining the health of our ecosystems and ourselves because we create those forever chemicals. Nature is really, really good at breaking stuff down. And I always want to shake— my moment of wanting to like shake people is when they're like, oh, I made a bunch of orange juice and now I have to do something with the orange peels. It's like, no, no, it's okay. Like nature's designed to take care of that.. And I feel like for the majority of chemicals, that is actually, if we put chemicals in like air quotes, it's true. Nature has solutions to like re-embed them and reuse them. And it's the class of chemicals. So I'm glad we're making this distinction that nature doesn't know what to do with. And you're right.

Yeah.

They're called bioaccumulative, well, persistent bioaccumulative toxins. And so I wanted to, Thank you for that, and I'm glad that you're making the distinction. It shouldn't be a scary thing, and we have people like you writing amazing books to help us, which I'd love to like kind of segue into and just understand where— if you, if you'd spend a year of your life writing a book about this topic, I'm imagining there's something that sparked the interest or a story behind what kicked off the— how did you come to investigate chemical pollution?

Partly because no one else seemed to be doing it in a really mainstream way, but it really started a few years back before doing the book when I ran a campaign with my daughter called Plastic Cleversolcum, which was basically a kids against plastic initiative, which was a national charity inspiring children to call for change about single-use plastics in their communities. And it had a really amazing impact. I live by the sea, we were seeing lots of things on the beach and we wanted to stop it at source. So we were asking hotels and businesses and restaurants and all of those kind of stakeholders to cut out single-use options and we were doing lots of assemblies and What really struck me most was that when a child is asking for something, it is a really powerful voice, and the answers were really obvious. Like, it's, it's a no-brainer, isn't it? Why are we throwing stuff away? It's just bonkers. But after that campaign, I carried on thinking about this, and the momentum on plastic pollution awareness kept growing, and I was kind of left thinking, but what happens when that plastic when those microplastics are inside an animal or when they're floating around the sea and accumulating other chemicals, or when someone heats something up in plastic and the chemicals leach out into their food and then they're eating it. Plastic is such a kind of tangible thing. We hold it in our hands, we see it, we use it every day. It's everywhere. And I had all these questions about what we weren't seeing and all this invisible kind of stuff, and the problem was even bigger but wasn't getting any attention, or it felt like it wasn't getting any attention. Um, and then actually my publisher, um, approached me to write the book because they liked my solutions-focused sort of, uh, approach, I suppose. And initially I was a bit like, oh, do I really have time to write a book? But actually I really wanted to see if I could translate that approach from the plastic pollution and bring that to something that was physically invisible and that isn't maybe at the top of our minds so much, but connecting people through storytelling and through a really sort of can-do attitude of, right, this is how to reduce stuff, and, and to do it in a really empowering way rather than a scary way. And so I ended up going down all these rabbit holes, talking to people around the world and looking at the latest research and trying to sort of synthesize that into something that wasn't quite so complicated, and that's how the book came about. So it's hopefully quite digestible, and you can kind of think, right, I'm not going to do the whole house, I'm just going to do my kitchen cupboard under the sink or my bathroom cabinet, and think about what's in that one section and look at what the top tips might be. And it's I think a lot of it as well is a mindset shift in terms of we all need to be asking more questions. So I don't have every single answer in this book, but it's more of a, this is the approach to take and this is how we can be empowered as consumers. And I don't even really like the word consumers. I think we should be acting more like citizens and kind of really feel like stewards of this planet, really. And we've kind of We've got to take care of it rather than just buy stuff. And one of the key messages is that it's not always better to buy an alternative. Sometimes it's better to change the habit and go, actually, I don't need to do that. I don't need to buy anything for that function. I could just not do that. So it's— a lot of it is about simplifying your sort of routines at home and streamlining what's in your home. Which is quite a liberating thing because it's almost like coming out of that consumerism cycle of like going to the supermarket and thinking you need to buy 20 different cleaning products for your home when actually you probably don't need any of them.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

So grateful. And there's a lot to unpack in there. And I, when you were sharing, I just had this vision of you building this bridge from like the land of complicated chemistry and then like building this bridge like over a little brook and going like, come on, people, like, I got you, just follow me and come on over here. And I love how your brain works. And I feel like, just, I feel kindred with that because I feel like that's part, partly how my brain works too. And I'm so interested to ask so many questions, of course. What, so when we were talking about Forever Chemicals, and I know For example, in the US, there— and the name, oh my God, just went right over my head— Environmental Protection Agency obviously is like their big thing. So do you have in your book places that people can reference? For example, so like, say I'm going to go into my kitchen and I want to think about all the toxins that I might be inadvertently bringing in there. Is that how you approach, um, how you suggest that you approach this with folks and that, that do you have places in your book that they could go and look if they want to research more, or how does that, how does that work in your mind?

Do you mean in terms of finding out more information about something?

Yeah. Oh my gosh, I have like way too much in my head right now.

It's fine. So I basically, yeah, I've got a chapter on each room in the house basically.

Amazing.

And at the end of each chapter there's a kind of takeaways, like top tips box. But also at the very end, there's— I've written a chapter which is called Toxic Free Principles to Live By, which is kind of my manifesto for what we need to do and call for globally. But also there's loads of different resources for each chapter. So there's lots of links to websites where there's campaigns going on and top tips and, and really dynamic things. So I don't know, annual updated lists of which veg have the most pesticides on them, that sort of thing. So there's, there's so much out there if you know where to look. So this is kind of a bit of a starting guide, I suppose.

Oh, that's excellent, because I feel like if you at least have the impetus to grab your book and start working through it, then you'd very likely realize that, oh, I'm just scratching the surface of this subject and I think if you're motivated enough to take this approach, that's so great that there's additional resources to— within the book, obviously, um, to help people go down further rabbit holes, like specific areas that they're really interested in. Like, um, we haven't really talked about the impact of toxins, so it's one of the, one of the things maybe it might be worthwhile talking about because I know that they're linked to certain health issues, and I know that you went as far as not just writing the book, but you actually went as far as getting your blood tested. And it's something that I would really like to hear more about and what you learned from this.

Yeah. So I, I ended up— I couldn't get it done in the UK. I had to get my blood tested. I had my blood taken at my local doctor's surgery, and then I carried it to a lab in Norway who tested my blood for 100 or so POPs, which are persistent organic pollutants, these things that stay around forever. And I was quite nervous when I got the results because it was this email document that it came back and it was 8 pages long.

Oh my gosh.

Really, really complicated names. And the kind of concentrations just didn't mean anything to me because I thought, well, I don't know what's high, what's low. It just it was quite abstract. So I got a professor who had basically designed this blood test for the UN Safe Planet campaign. And they'd, they'd basically taken blood tests from people, blood samples from 100,000 people around the world to sort of look at trends in populations at the population level of which things were more prevalent in different places and which things were kind of borderline dangerous, I suppose. So he designed this protocol and he sat me down and explained what was in my blood and he said, don't panic. Like nothing was hugely alarming to him. Like we've all got chemicals in our blood. There's no escaping it. And the first thing I say in the book is that you can't actually go toxic free. You can't literally detox everything from your life because we are living in this system. But it's about giving context to that and thinking, okay, what are the things that I can minimize and control? So I had lots and lots of different chemicals in my blood. Most of them were really, really low levels. But one of the things that was most intriguing was the fact that I had chemicals in my blood that had been banned decades ago. And this is where it comes to this sort of legacy issue. That I was born in 1980. One of the things that was relatively high compared to other people was a pesticide that was banned in 1981. So, and my mum came from a farming agricultural family, and it might well have been sprayed on the crops in the UK back then. It might have been passed to me through the womb or through breastfeeding, for example. And it has such a— this particular chemical has such a long half-life, which is what we call how long it takes for the concentration to halve of a chemical. And the half-life of this chemical is about 30, 35 years. So I have no doubt passed this on to my children. Sorry, guys. But the point is, it's not about, oh my gosh, I need to get this out of my body. It's that bans work, but they take so long to come into effect because things linger in our blood, in in our environment everywhere. So really, that was a bit of an awakening for me in that there are things in here that I wasn't even really exposed to but has been passed down through, through other generations. And things like DDT as well, the insecticide that was banned in the '70s, way before I was born. There's still traces of that in me. At the other end of the extreme, there's various PFAS chemicals forever chemicals in my blood, which they couldn't say— they couldn't pin them down to a particular source because they're everywhere. They're, they're in so many different household products. They're in firefighting foam. They're in clothes. They're in packaging. So it, it really was just a bit of a reminder that we can't escape this. And the only way to really stop the long-term impacts is to prevent them in the first place. So it's about removing the hazard, not the risk. So removing— like, don't lock the bleach up in your cupboard. Don't buy bleach, just don't have it there. And then if your dog or your kid accidentally gets in the cupboard, there won't be anything that's really lethal to them in that cupboard. Do you know what I mean? So it's about taking it out of the system to then have everything become healthier and safer. And that is, that is a two-pronged thing for us as humans, but also for the environment, for the place we live, and for the wildlife living there too.

Yeah, and I'd imagine if everybody stopped buying bleach at the household level, that would send a signal to the companies that, yeah, maybe they should slow down making them, for example.

So And we just don't need to live in a sterile place. We're not in an operating theater. We don't need to kill everything. We like a bit of vinegar and lemon juice is ample for most homes unless you've got a serious immune deficiency. Like it's actually, it's fine because you don't then go into your clean home in full PPE protective equipment. You bring in a bit of mud on your shoes and you have kids that put stuff on the side and it's not a sterile place. So this idea that we need everything to be completely sort of wiped out, yeah, it's just not necessary. It's just, yeah. And it's got a hazard symbol on the back, it says like hazardous to aquatic life, and then we pour it down the drain and you think, no, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't, doesn't make sense. Yeah.

And I don't know about the UK, definitely in North America they've really, um, really drove the like antibacterial, like germ-free. And yeah, you talk to any biologist or doctor and they're going to tell you, or you watch those documentaries about like what bugs, microbugs like live on your body.

And we need them. We need, we need bugs inside us.

You'll never even understand. Yeah, it's not possible. And It's— I'm sure folks too, I was thinking as you were talking, um, you know, you and I have a background of understanding and knowledge about this topic. And so anybody that's listening that's really new to this topic might have a big question in their mind about, well, okay, this is bad and how do I stop doing this? So key play— let's talk briefly about key places that these chemicals do enter your home, because I also think that One of the things that's really challenging, and I said in the intro to this podcast, is, you know, you see like, um, an oil spill, you know, recently they had the chemical train derailment in, in Palestine, in the U.S., and it's so easy to imagine the impact of those events, and it's so less easy, so more difficult to really like look around your home and understand that your home is this like mini system and you're bringing like thousands of products in. And so I wanted to just touch on a few places. You did talk about food, and I know— fact that I can share that I've done some research about toxins and food, uh, the— sorry, the pesticide residues that are on your food and the Dirty Dozen. And say, for example, if you switch, um, your top 12 of fruits and veg that have pesticide residues on them, you're going to decrease your body's chemical load, which is what you're talking about in the blood. By up to 70% within a week. So I feel like that's good news. And also maybe if we talk about these other places that folks can start investigating or looking at, that might be helpful.

Yeah, sure.

Just starting. Yeah.

And I would also emphasize that it's not about avoiding everything that's bad. It's about, it's not about being a perfectionist. And, and so for people who are starting out on this journey, I would hate for anyone to feel really overwhelmed by this. It's about doing what you can and taking little steps. So with the organic fruit and veg thing, I mean, I can't always access organic fruit and veg. I can't always afford it, but I do try and buy the things that my kids eat the most of. So things like broccoli and cucumber and that sort of thing. When I— when it's available, I buy those as organic and I opt for it if the option is there and I, and I can do it. But I wouldn't say that I am perfect and I completely avoid all pesticides because it's impossible. And also, that links on to another, probably another one of your questions, the whole pesticide thing is not just in our food, it's in our textiles, in our fabrics, because a lot of the cotton is grown with different chemicals. So it's about thinking, as you said, of your home as a system and you think about how much of your life you spend inside your home A lot. And, and in your bed, for example, like that's a lot of people think like, where's the most toxic room in your home? A lot of people will think, oh, it's the kitchen or the bathroom. Actually, it's probably the bedroom that can have the most impact because you're spending the most number of hours in there over your lifetime. So it's— the book is kind of there to sort of challenge assumptions, I suppose, but also enable people to take those first few steps in terms of knowing what to do. So in the bedroom, for example, I would say if you can and it's not too freezing cold, always sleep with the bed— with the bedroom window open to keep that ventilation going. Because actually, if you're sleeping on a polyurethane mattress, which is like most conventional mattresses, have lots of flame retardants in them, lots of different chemicals. And because our body heat is on them for 8 hours or however many hours, that's actually making it more likely these chemicals will off-gas and release into the air and then we're breathing that in. So it's kind of— it is trying to make the chemicals that are hidden in our homes really visible to us just by sort of thinking, okay, if I do that one simple thing, I don't need to necessarily change my whole mattress because that's obviously not very environmentally friendly either. But opening the window and making sure it's really well ventilated and maybe getting a mattress topper that isn't made of synthetic chemicals can really, really help. So it doesn't have to be this difficult, expensive switch. It can be simple, it can be little steps, it doesn't have to be everything. Like, you can pick one aspect to sort of think about, and often cleaning products is a really interesting gateway into this because you use them most days and you can smell them normally. And it's funny, like over the last few years of getting really aware of all of this, I can't stand those synthetic kind of smells of air fresheners and cleaning products, all of those things. It makes me gag a little bit. But I think that's because I haven't used them for so long. So if I go into a home, a friend's home or somebody, another home where it's being used all the time, it's really noticeable. But when we are using them all the time, we don't notice them. So actually, maybe just challenge yourself to just try not to use those bleachy synthetic cleaning products for a week and, and try alternatives, and then see if you start noticing the difference. Because actually, a clean home shouldn't smell of lemon zest or pine cones or sea spray.

I, I think you're touching on one of my personal pet peeves, which is Febreze.

Exactly.

Or the, um, oh, it's Air Wick is the, is the brand. I don't know if it's the same in the UK.

Yeah, we get that.

The wall plug-in and then you put oil in it. And so yeah, when I first got exposed to all of this as well, I realized that the word perfume covers a massive amount. I don't know what the stats are now. I think it was like 5,000 different chemicals.

Yeah.

That companies are allowed to put underneath that one little word that goes on a label.

Yeah.

Perfume. And so, and that if you think that ranges like all the way from, um, like skincare, body care, lotion, shampoo, conditioner, and then you go all the way down to the Air Wick or the Febreze. And it's again, the like, oh, we have stinky kids and, you know, you spray it on their hockey gear or, oh, the dog was on the couch and, you know, spray it on that. And I just, I scream at the television because it's, it's like, no, you're spraying like all of these horrible chemicals on surfaces that your kids and your pets and you are like literally sitting on every day. It's just, yeah, it makes— those are my moments when I want to scream on the top of the roof. So it makes a lot of sense what you're saying. And thank you for sharing the different areas, because I think anybody that's listening to this that hasn't done this work, um, is probably having a little bit of a brain meltdown right now.

Like, start small, start small.

Yeah, exactly. Start baby steps. Look at the products. So I heard you say look at the products that you, um, or the places that you spend most of your time, like your bedroom or your bathroom or your kitchen. Pick what resonates with you, start small. And for those of you listening online that can't see, Anna's got some amazing plants behind her, which also clean your house from— clean the air quality in your house. So like, get some plants, they're cheap.

And although I did look into the, um, research behind this in the book, because I write a lot about indoor air pollution. And actually, this dates back to like an early 1980s NASA study about houseplants cleaning the air. And actually, for it to make any significant difference, you'd have to have like millions of plants in your home. So yes, houseplants are great, but that's not going to fix the problem. It's about what you're bringing into your home and like just take out the kind of the toxic things, I would say.

So you're saying we all need to live in a greenhouse, okay, or a giant terrarium full of plants. That's actually kind of a fun, fun thing to think about. Thank you for sharing that. I didn't know that. So that's good to know. And speaking about pollutants, I also wanted to just touch on the fun fact that you actually had the death the dust tested from your— you call it a Hoover bag. I'm guessing that's, um, the word for vacuum in the UK. Yeah. So you had the dust tested from your vacuum or Hoover bag. What did you find out when you had this done?

So I sent, um, it was quite funny actually. So I did some hoovering and I took some of the Hoover dust out and wrapped it in tin foil, um, and sent it off to a lab at Birmingham University in the UK and they tested it for flame retardants, and there were lots of different ones in there, and there were a couple of really unusual ones that they, they thought had come from, I think, the Middle East, they said. And we couldn't work out what was in my home that these flame retardants would have come from. And so in the end, they concluded that it might have come from car seats that were possibly meant— like kids' car seats. From— that were manufactured abroad and then brought over, and they have different regulations possibly. And then obviously I use the same Hoover to Hoover the car, and they might have ended up in there. It was, it was a really difficult thing to sort of pinpoint where these things had come from. But the thing that I learned most from this scientist who did the test, it was really fascinating actually because I had not thought about it before. He was saying how obviously we know flame retardants are in lots of furniture and things like sofas, for example. It's in the material. But he reminded me that electronics have got loads of flame retardants in them as well. And one of the problems with dust, he called it, he called house dust the soil of our indoor environment. So basically, these dust particles are floating around our homes and they settle and then they might move again. And then you'll, they might get stuck on your cat and the cat might lick its fur or your baby might stick it in their hand, in their mouth, and they ingest it. And so it's in this environment, and we kind of, we all ingest it to some level. But a lot of the house dust settles on electronic surfaces that aren't necessarily the first place that we clean. So often we'll clean kitchen surfaces or windowsills and that sort of thing. And actually things like the DVD player or the Wi-Fi router might not be cleaned as often. But that's where the dust is settling and absorbing flame retardants from inside the electronics. And then it might— the window might open and the dust might move and float around to a different part of the house and end up on the floor, for example. So it's in that system. So one thing he was explaining is no need to get obsessive about dusting your house. But when you do clean, like wipe down the surfaces with a damp cloth, wipe down the Wi-Fi router and the kind of the TV, all of those things. Because actually then you're removing that dust from that system so that it's less likely to get ingested ultimately by the people and the pets that live in your home.

Wow, that is so fascinating. I'm so glad that you did that. I had no clue.

It's really interesting.

That's because it's—

yeah, you think about all the stuff that we breathe in and you think, actually, we can see these particles and we can actually actively remove them. So It's— and another thing as well is that obviously secondhand furniture is better because the flame retardants are not at such a high concentration and all of those synthetic chemicals. So actually just thinking about what might be releasing into that air to then end up in the house dust is quite an interesting thought experiment.

Yeah, and great point about secondhand furniture, and yay for thrifting is what I say.

And yeah, keep that stuff and everything.

Yeah, keep it all in use. I do remember reading an article about the half-life of flame retardants and how secondhand furniture is supportive for that if you want to minimize your exposure, because so much of it is sprayed on the fabrics, say, of like couches and the foam inside the couches.

And, you know, please, the glues between like wood furniture, all of those things, like they've all just got different things in them., and we're not going to necessarily know what that is, but at least if it's something that's older or has been bought secondhand, it's less likely to have those high levels.

Yeah, that's such a great point. And again, good for, good for those that are, um, circular economy advocates. Yeah, stop buying new stuff and start buying older stuff because it's good stuff. Oh my gosh. So I have learned so much about— I've learned a lot from talking to you already in this short time frame. And I'm curious if you have like a summation of the biggest lessons that you've taken away and learned about exposure to chemical pollutants that have really stuck with you.

I think less is more. Basically, just buy less stuff. Don't always replace stuff with an alternative, just streamline everything and simplify your life. You'll probably end up having more time and more money and more energy. Yeah, I would, I would think about simplifying things. And I think it's also really key that all of us, once we're engaged in this, use our voices to amplify those messages. So have conversations around the dinner table, chat to your friends in the pub, about this and just gently raise that awareness and pose questions. Ask what's in something at the till when you're buying something, because even if the shop assistant might not have the answer, it might plant the seed of an idea that they need to find out or question what's in something. And it's just kind of sending out these little ripples into the world that can create or start creating change.

I love that. And I feel like women in general are a lot better at, at nudging, but I also just want to have nudging these topics along. But I also really want to shout out to the men too, because one of the things when I started looking into personal care products, um, like 10 years ago, even longer, like 2010, um, it was just shocking to me how unregulated their products are and how many chemicals show up in like after shave, shaving cream, you know, body lotion, deodorant. And it's also so impactful for men's fertility and health overall, which is like one of the big things that I took away. And, um, so I just wanted to also do a shout out that, hey guys, you're not, uh, you're not being left out of this equation.

And children as well.

And children for sure. And So I love that amplifying, um, amplifying the message and saying like, hey, have you thought about this? Or even if you find like a good product that you love that you know is not toxic, be like, I like the product, I just tried this, like here, have some. Or yeah, little, the little planting, the little seeds I think goes a long way, um, on the positive side. So it's, it's beautiful that We're taking the, you know, pretty largely invisible problem of chemicals in our home, which is a problem in itself, giving voice to it. And I love that suggestion of also passing along the solutions so that they don't remain invisible as well. So I'm so grateful to have all this conversation with you, and I love that you think about legacy and legacy contaminants, and as a society, I know that we need to start thinking differently. And PFAS is— you brought up PFAS as one of them. Were there any others that you've come across in your research that are legacy contaminants that we should think about or start doing more research into?

So ones that have already been banned, some of probably the worst are PCBs, which are synthetic industrial chemicals that were used as coolants a long time ago, and they were banned decades ago, but they're still leaching out of landfills and in the sea, and they're just not going away. They're still a massive, massive problem, and they're still in our marine mammals, for example, like they're found at quite high levels in post-mortems of whales and dolphins, for example. So It's a really tricky one. I think there are a lot and it can feel a bit depressing sometimes, but I think it's about keeping tabs on that accountability and having real transparency about what is in stuff and the duty of the manufacturers to not just let it out into the world. And to really kind of keep that responsibility to— like a lot of landfills, for example, were put by the coast to diffuse and disperse the waste, so they were purposefully put by the sea so that the bad stuff would wash away.

Yeah.

And it's just changing that mindset and thinking this, this is not okay, and making sure that we are voting in governments that are going to put these policies in place that will protect us. Now and for future generations. So I think, yes, we can do lots in our home, but I think it is about using our, our pounds and our dollars and our money and our votes to call for change and to create a more equitable society. Because often it's the people who are getting the highest exposure might be the ones in a factory, for example, not necessarily us as the end user. Or it might be people in a completely different part of the world at the end of a supply chain that we haven't even thought of that are the most exposed to really quite poisonous things like lead, for example. And it's just joining those dots and thinking it's not just about what I'm buying today in my shopping basket, it's about where I sit in this supply chain and where I sit in this really complex system, and actually that we can be agents of change and we can have a voice and be a catalyst to creating a fairer society. So it's not just about protecting the environment, it's about protecting us. And another thing I would also say is that sometimes people think, oh gosh, chemical pollution, it's like another thing to worry about on top of everything else. Actually, chemical pollution is so intrinsically linked to the climate crisis, So many chemicals are based on fossil fuels and petrochemicals, and it's this, it's this kind of driving of overconsumption that is fueling both the climate crisis and the chemical pollution. So actually, if we think about this streamlining and this idea of less is more, actually we can kind of free ourselves up from lots of the other problems. So I, I think that could have a massive effect sort of in the future in terms of reducing the number of legacy contaminants that end up sticking around. We just need to have that foresight.

I love that. Thank you. And it's— I love the word that you just used, which is ethical. And it's part— it's really part of the conversation that we haven't covered yet. And it comes to mind, I actually order it and have it sent to Canada, um, sometimes, and I also read the digital copies, is Ethical Consumer magazine, which is produced in the UK. And I just honestly wish somebody would do this for North America. It is such a fantastic document that helps. And the reason I bring it up is that you said something about voting with your dollar, and we're so powerful that way. And it— the point that you bring up about having change around the world because you're in a shopping center and maybe you're deciding not to buy some chemical pollutant that maybe was manufactured halfway around the world by somebody that, you know, you've never even met, is so important to talk about, bring forward, that you really do have the ability to affect change in these supply chains because they're so global and I don't know that we are reminded of that enough. I don't know that we're reminded that we do have that impact going back up the supply chain. And I currently work in, in mining and innovation right now. And it is so encouraging to see the change that's being drawn back up the supply chain from, say, manufacturers of vehicles and other things that are asking for conflict-free metals or carbon-neutral things. So, you know, it's just like a big hurrah and cheer for people asking for those things and making those changes. So thank you for bringing that forward.

And also, I would say it's not necessarily about choosing an option that is less bad and going to do less harm. It's actually about choosing the options, like you mentioned earlier, about about a company doing amazing things. It's about choosing the option that can be positively good. So everything has an impact. And it doesn't have to be a negative one. It doesn't have to be a neutral one. You could choose something that's really regenerative and that's supporting local communities and a social enterprise that's really thinking about all of these angles of sustainability. And that's where it's really exciting because it is, it's like the kind of B Corp movement, which I don't know is, I don't know how big that is in Canada. B Corp is all about. Yeah, it's growing here in the UK too, and it's about taking all of those aspects into consideration, and from ethical finance down to workers' rights to effluent that's leached out into the rivers, it's, it's all of those things, and it's about taking that responsibility and putting our money and our energy into things that are doing good and making those bigger. So it's about amplifying that message again, like supporting those, and then they can take up a bigger proportion of the market. And then slowly that norm shifts and the big companies have to kind of go with it too, and policy will change and it kind of speeds up a little bit.

Yes, it's painfully slow.

I know.

And change happens. And yeah, B Corp is growing in Canada and it's and North America. And it's a wonderful certification for consumers looking to invest in, in companies that are really paying attention to all these topics. I think you and I can probably talk for like an entire dinner party about these topics because it's such a broad subject and no subject is in its own silo. They're all interlinked, of course. And I love the point that you brought up about regeneration. I recently found a company called Christie Dawn in the States, and they're a women's clothing company. And their dresses, say like a cotton dress, is about $300. But they say right up front, your money goes into buying land and having the land be run by a women's co-op growing organic cotton in India. So they have this farm-to-closet concept and that the money is just constantly put back into the land. And I have this mint. So I love that. Like, is it— it's an example. I get too excited and stumble over my words. An example of companies that are thinking that way. And I love the difference between sustainability and regenerative is, you know, those of us that are like, understand this concept, get a little huffy about it. And I remember one of my mentors was saying, Well, you know, sustainability is sort of like the lowest bar, like the lowest rung of the bar. And if you asked, if you had a counselor ask you, well, how's your relationship with your husband or your partner or your wife? And you said, oh, you know, it's sustainable. It's not very inspiring.

So those are not defined either. Like there's no like definition for what sustainability is. Like everyone defines it in a different way. So it's not really a regulated word.

Oh, I know, in the most part. And thankfully, I can do a shout out here about that is the master's program that I— defines what sustainability means with socio-ecological principles. So if anyone's listening, take a look into the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development. It's got 30+ years of peer review and scientific research. Which defines the basically the 4 fundamental ways we're screwing up the planet. And then that helps you plan. So if you're a company or a business or you have a project or you're a municipality, it gives you the decision-making ration— or like what isn't sustainable from a science-based perspective. And then you can start moving in a different direction. So big shout out for that. But I also wanted to say that back to my sustainability mentor and those of us like yourselves and others that are more aware of the depth and breadth of the sustainability issue. You're so right. It is only the baseline that we're aiming for just to like make it through the narrows. And regenerative is truly what we need to be looking at. And I feel like circular economy is such an exciting concept that's getting so much momentum because many, many people are understanding this. And in so many different ways, and that we truly need to think about things from a regenerative perspective. So I love that you brought that point forward. Thank you very, very much. And so my final question to you is— this is again such a great conversation, we could talk forever, I'm sure— and, uh, would love to just ask you, um, what would be your ideal future for your work and your book?

So for my work, I just want to do more of what I'm doing. I love what I do and I love the variety. I've got a few more audio projects lined up, which is really exciting. For the book, I had a really interesting conversation with somebody a couple of days ago who is from a trust that is looking to fund different projects, and they are starting to investigate chemical pollution campaigns and initiatives that they could fund, and they wanted some ideas from me, and that is really, really exciting because actually if I can kind of play a little part in terms of helping bring together some money and some solutions and get them kind of growing, I suppose, that's really amazing. I've also had some lovely feedback from people who've read the book in terms of changes they've made or people that they've passed the book on to who've then like changed what they're stocking in their shop, for example, like it's really amazing, so just for that to continue and grow and develop, but I do think that if people like really sort of top decision makers start taking this into account, I think that could be really, really exciting.

Thank you for that vision, I love hearing what people's ideal vision of success is. And I so just so clearly hear from you, um, you know, top-down meets bottom-up. Yes. And, uh, really that we as citizens have so much influence, more than we think, especially when we band together and share resources. And, um, especially when people like yourself take the time to amass all of this information and write a book It's such a tool that can be passed along through communities, and it's wonderful that you're getting super positive feedback. And I would love to encourage more people to get your book. So I'm curious, how can they— can, can you share how people listening can connect with you and find copies of your book?

Yes, sure. So my book should be available online. So I'm guessing you can access Amazon, for example, in Canada and around the world, but anywhere through local bookstores they could order it in. In terms of information about me and my work, my website is www.environmentaljournalist.co.uk, and there's links to information about my book and some of the BBC radio programs I've presented about chemical pollution as well. And also past articles I've written, so it might be an interesting starting point for people to find out more. And also my social media handles are all on there as well, so do feel free to get in touch.

Amazing. Yes, follow along everyone who's listening. I've started reading your book and it's awesome, so I can highly recommend it. And this has been such a wonderful conversation. I'm so grateful for your time and I'm excited to follow more of your radio programs. I started listening to them as well on the weekend, and, um, you know, being from Canada, it's also so nice. You have a really nice voice to listen to, and it's awesome.

Oh, thank you.

So full of information and really, really interesting. So all of those things combined, um, it's just a big shout out to you and encourage people to connect with you on your website and through social media. And I look forward to hearing more of what you're up to.

Thank you so much for having me.

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