Green Earth OrganicsNatural Fertilizers

If you have an asphalt based driveway sealer than it is important to seal it every three or four years.  If you don’t you run the risk of water seeping into cracks and causing damage.  When you see a pot hole in an asphalt roadway this is exactly what has occurred.  Water seeped into the asphalt layer and caused failure.

This can happen in two ways, first, if you live in a northern climate where it freezes the water can actually turn into ice and expand.  When this happens it forces the crack open even wider.  This starts a domino effect where by the crack gets wider so more water enters and freezes making the crack wider again.

The second problem can occur whether you ever have freezing weather or not.  When the water seeps through the crack is will liquefy the substrate under the asphalt layer. This removes the benefit that this hard packed layer of gravel provides to keep the asphalt firm.  As cars drive over this spot they cause the asphalt cement bond with the aggregate (gravel in the mixture) to fail and thus you have a pot hole again.

Driveway Sealer Choices

For years, the best driveway sealer was coal tar.  This is a by product of the manufacture of coke which is used for making steel.  Coal, under heat and pressure, is converted to a more dense energy source and a liquefied hydrocarbon is left as a waste product.  This is coal tar. 

Coal tar works very well as a sealer because it is sticky and bonds with the existing surface.  The problem is, coal tar has a very high VOC (volatile Organic compound) rating.  These are the gases that are given off when the tar cures.  These are very dangerous and have been linked to cancer and respiratory problems.  Consequently, this product has been banned in many municipalities.

The next best driveway sealer is an asphalt emulsion.  It is much safer than coal tar but it does not last as long when applied.  Since the asphalt is emulsified in water, the water is what evaporates which means there are no VOC’s to gas off.  Since coal tar is no longer available this will probably be what you will need to use.

There is a third option that is just now coming on the market.  Latex based sealers are now being sold in many big box home improvement stores.  These products seem promising but they haven’t really been around long enough to really determine their longevity.

When it comes to big businesses the average Joe and Jane does not get much of a say in the way they run their companies. However there is one way we can possibly influence how they decide to market, manufacture and sell their products. How is that? With our dollar. We vote for a company each time we spend a dollar at the local grocery store, department store or online.

In terms of the impact a company has on the environment through the creation of their products at the manufacturing level as well as delivery and sale we can choose to spend our money with companies and on products that have a lower impact in terms of carbon foot print during manufacturing and delivery.

Choose companies that stand for the good of the environment. When you’re shopping for a wrinkle cream or skin care product consider all natural companies such as Aveda or Body Shop. These are two companies that are interested and stand for what happens to our environment. Also if you can shop online direct from the merchant. This means the products don’t have to be delivered to a retail outlet and while it’s still up in the air wether shopping online and paying for delivery produces a lower carbon footprint then driving around to local stores, I think it makes more sense.

An even better alternative is to shop local for skin care, beauty, food and all your other consumable products that are bought often. These products don’t make much of a journey at all to your local retailers. Consider farmers markets, craft shows as well as small online local businesses that have a web store.

A lot of people buy cheap Capstar online and there is no doubt that this is a great way to save money. But a lot of people have concerns about using meds too much because of the environmental impact.

And ths is why Capstar is such a great option. It is not like a monthly medication where you are using a lot of chemicals to keep your pet flea free for a long period of time. Capstar has a minmal impact as it uses a minimal amount of chemicals. This is because it is used to just get rid of adult fleas that are on our pets and just keeps them protected for a day.

Just enough time to deal with the problem. If you want to make sure that your pet is totally protected then this is about the best possible way to do it. You are keeping some “green” credentials and have a minimal impact on the environment.

It is much better to use a flea medication like this if your pet does not get fleas on a regular basis as you are leaving a smaller footrpint and are ensuring that your pet stays totally safe and flea free at the same time. It is a win win situation.

Having watched the movie, Jaws, who isn’t scared of sharks? But, you know there is no need to be scared.  Sharks may be top dogs in the oceans of the world, but they don’t come on to land where we live and pester us. We, unfortunately, go into their domain, the oceans and seas, and slaughter them. The vast majority of the world’s sharks are now facing extinction, thanks to the finning industry.

Very few of us eat shark meat, and most of us in the West have never even tasted shark’s fin soup, but that is what the majority of sharks are caught and killed for. The Asian market is enormous, and the shark’s fins change hands for huge amounts of money.

You might not feel saddened when you hear of the death of a shark from being caught, having its fins sliced off on deck, then shoved overboard while still living to sink to the bottom and die, but I do.

Sharks are the top dogs in the oceans. They have no natural enemies – at least none that can kill them, except for man.

We do not have fins or gills, we do not belong in the sea.

We have no right to cause any species to become extinct, yet we are going to do that to sharks unless we put a stop, or at least controls, on the shark finning industry.

Sharks are a bit like humans in that the majority of them reach puberty at about 14 years of age. They cannot reproduce before this. The similarity ends there of course, because shark mothers, having given birth to live pups, then swims off and leaves them to fend for themselves.

Social Services would round us up and jail us if we did anything like that.

Sharks are being killed at a greater rate than they are reproducing and already 90% of them are gone. Critically endangered sharks include the shortfin mako, the hammerhead and the porbeagle shark.

We can’t just shrug and say we don’t care, because without the shark, who knows what creature will take over at the top of the oceanic food chain once they are gone.