Save Our Skins

Introduction

There is so much demand for changing our skins these days that we take it for granted in so many ways. Please spare a second thought for it on World Nude Day on July 14th. There’s hope, but we must act now.

What is skin?

Skin is the flexible outer protective organ of your body, and is vital for three main functions, which are protection, regulation, and sensation. It is capable of continually regenerating and repels foreign substances, including dirt, water, bacteria, viruses, etc. It regulates temperature by reducing/increasing blood flow to the surface, and by closing/opening pores allowing sweating which also removes contaminants from the body, even in winter through the feet and armpits. It has many nerve endings which sense touch, pain, heat, cold, moisture, dryness, etc.

What is on the skin (and what should not)?

These days, more and more people complain about having sensitive skin, which could have many causes. Many people blame their family’s genetics, but if we look a little more carefully at the environment around us we may start to see some more startling reasons why…

Cosmetic Improvement

Sensitive skin is not only caused by clothing made from synthetic fibres, like polyester, or contamination and pollution, but also from all of the cosmetic creams, gels, lotions, sprays, sunscreens and talcs we seem to cover ourselves in nowadays, not to mention tattoos and body piercing. How often do we think about what goes into things like makeup, hair products, body sprays, antiperspirants, deodorants, shampoo, conditioner, shaving foam, shower gel, hand soap, etc? If you are anything like the majority of the human race, you would hardly even think about it, but very often they pollute the water, poison the land and contaminate the air. The Cosmetic Industry makes an extraordinary amount of money from us, and then even tries to sell us things to fix the problems they create. A good example of this is makeup, which can block your pores and cause acne, so firstly you need to buy something to remove the makeup, and secondly, something for the acne. Their products might not always be safe to use either, and some may even cause us cancer, like those containing Petroleum Jelly, Parabens, Formaldehyde, and who knows what else that you cannot even pronounce? Nail polish and their removers are normally highly toxic, and even your toothpaste and mouthwash contains fluoride, which is toxic to your pineal gland. Add all of that to the fact that the Cosmetic Industry normally tests its products on animals, often leaving them ill, mutilated or worse!

Clothing

Fast fashion” is just like its “Fast food” counterpart: Bought as a whim, but just as easily finds its way into the rubbish bin. Prior to the COVID-19 recession, we bought 5 times as many clothes as in the 1980s, but wear them 50% less than back then. According to Fast Company, 150 billion pieces of clothing (62 million tonnes) are produced every year. Many of these fast fashion items also become single use items, primarily because the level of quality has fallen dramatically. In the recent past, the Italians and Spanish used to be master shoemakers, but that industry has almost disappeared due to cheaper inferior products from Asia. It reminds me of a great saying the Spanish have for this… “He who buys cheaply, buys twice”. Sadly though, most of us seem to be ok with that concept. Clothes and shoe shopping, or as some like to call it, “retail therapy”, causes a massive problem, not only financially because people overpay, but because of waste and the drain on the planet’s limited resources. It is a problem of consumerism so large that we really do not know what to do with it all. Earth Overshoot Day gets sooner every year (on August 22nd, 2020 and July 29th, 2021) and we currently need two and a half planet’s worth of resources. Borrowing against our future is indeed a bad idea, but Sustainable Fashion is trying to change that, although it would appear that the average consumer does not seem to want to pay more for a better product. Greenwashing is also out of control in the fashion industry and is often difficult to spot. For example, if a company claims to use Organic Cotton in its products, yet makes the clothing in Asia to then transport halfway around the world, does that not defeat their environmental pledges? Anyway, I digress. Prior to the COVID-19 recession, 60% of new clothing produced each year found its way into landfills, making up as much as 12% of the landfill volume, or just as sadly, dumped in a desert, like the Atacama Desert near Chile. This varies from country to country, but typically the problems are worse in highly developed countries. Even our attempts to reuse or recycle clothing fall short with around 5% re-sold, about 1% recycled, and 85-90% of donated clothing also ending up in landfill. So many man-made fibres (acrylic, nylon, polyester, etc) are used nowadays that clothing is now being considered plastic waste (taking up to 500 years to biodegrade). Just like with our plastic waste exports, many poor countries no longer want our discarded clothing, because they are totally inundated. The problem finally became so large that in March 2016, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda proposed a ban on all imports of used clothing by 2019. They hoped to boost local textile and clothing industries, but the main exporters of used clothing (Canada, UK, US, etc) attempted to impose economic sanctions on these countries, and also threatened others who have contemplated the same thing.

Pollution and Contamination

More than 60 chemicals are put on clothing, and at least 30% are hazardous for the health of the wearer or the environment, including lead, mercury and arsenic… Some to colour them, others to straighten fibres to aid cutting, to smell nice, to stop mould growing on them while being transported from Asia, etc. Unsurprisingly, 20% of global wastewater comes from the excess chemicals which often end up in local rivers and, of course, in water closer to home once we wash them. Much of the runoff from cotton farms ends up either poisoning the wildlife, or the fertilizers causing algal bloom, which then chokes fish and other wildlife to death. According to Forbes, fast fashion is responsible for 10% of all carbon emissions globally and the average piece of clothing travels around 42,000 kilometres before it gets to you, polluting as it goes. This makes the Fashion Industry the second largest polluter, after the Petroleum Industry, followed by the Meat Industry. Of course, let’s not forget the leather industry in this equation, which heavily pollutes the environment as well, and the incidence level of cancer around tanning facilities is 20-50% higher.

Cost

Think about the human cost for a moment… If a piece of clothing costs $5 for you to buy, then only a small fraction of that goes to the maker of that clothing who more than likely works in a sweatshop in Asia (Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, etc). Around 75 million people work in the Textile industry making garments and the typical worker is usually female and very young, including children. Pay is usually so low it might take several years of work for them to afford to buy a single piece of the clothing that they make. Many are forced to live at the factory in appalling conditions and many work 12-hour shifts every day of the week. It is a similar story even for Luxury goods retailers with huge profit margins for subjectively only slightly better final products.

How does humanity benefit from skin?

Our skin provides protection, regulation, sensation, and if that wasn’t enough, there’s nothing better than the feeling of a hug from someone we love.

How to Save Our Skins?

Individually: We must educate ourselves about the products and chemicals we so freely put on our skin. Many of them are harmful to us and nature, and also find out about the substances we put inside our bodies, either deliberately or that might enter through our skin, including tattoos.

Collectively, including Governments: We should encourage the Government to strictly control new products, and revise those already in existence. We must do more to protect the rest of the flora and fauna on the planet too.

Unpopular opinion: We ought to only consume things that are natural in origin, and that are good for our bodies. I realise it is quite hard to always do that, so try to limit the damage to a minimum. Protecting ourselves from further environmental disasters and cleaning up our mess must be top priorities. As my dearly departed mother always used to say, “Everything in moderation!”

 

Disclaimer: Whilst every effort has been made to check the veracity of the information contained within, certain limitations could result in not all data being current or completely accurate. Please feel free to contact us if you feel particular data needs updating.

Save Our Skins Test

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How it started

How it's going

SOSquiz Glossary of Terms (with links to Wikipedia)

 

5G technology

6th mass extinction (Holocene Extinction)

Abyss

Active Denial System

Activism

Adolescence

Ad hominem

Ad Populum

AEEA (Asociación Española de Educación Ambiental)

Agent Orange

Agrochemical industry

Alcoholism

Algal bloom

Algorithm

Alzheimer’s disease

Animal testing

Anorexia nervosa

Anxiety

Arable land

ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)

Artefact

Asbestos

Atmosphere

Atmosphere of Earth

Atmospheric methane

Bacteria

Bad faith

Bank

Battlefield

Begging the question

Bill Gates

Biological warfare

Bisphenol-A

Black carbon

Black sites

Blue whale

Bot

Bottom trawling

Brain

Burden of proof

Burnout

Cancer

Carbon

Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

Carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere

Carbon Footprint

Carbon Monoxide (CO)

Carcinogen

Carpet bombing

Casualty of war

Central Nervous System

Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Cetaceans

Challenger Deep

Chemical weapon

Chemotherapy

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

Civil war

Climate change

Clinical Psychology

Clothing

Clothing Industry

Coastal erosion

Coastline

Cockroach

Common sense

Communism

Computer network

Conservation

Conspiracy theory

Consumerism

Contamination

Controversy

Copy and paste

Coral bleaching

Coronavirus (Covid-19 or SARS Cov-2)

Corruption

Cosmetic Industry

Covid-19

COVID-19 recession

Cyber attack

Cyber warfare

Dark Web

DDT

Dead zone

Deepwater Horizon

Deep sea mining

Deforestation

Dementia

Depleted Uranium

Depression

Developed countries

Developing country

Dietician

Doctor

Domestic violence

Drinking water

Drought

E number

Earth

Earth Overshoot Day

Eating disorders

Education

Eco-anxiety

Eco-friendly

Ecology

Economic sanctions

Ecosystem

Electric motor

Electric vehicle

Electromagnetic radiation

Electronic Waste

Elon Musk

Energy industry

Engine Efficiency

Environment

Environmental Disaster

Environmental education

Environmental impact of war

Environmental Issues

Environmental Report

European Union

Experience

Extinction

Extreme weather

Factory

Fallacy

False Dilemma

FAQ

Farmer

Fascism

Fast fashion

Fast food

Fauna

Fertilizers

Fibre

Fight or flight response

Flood

Flora

Food additive

Food allergy

Food industry

Food wastage

Food-drying

Forbes

Formaldehyde

Fossil fuel

Fossil fuel industry

Fracking

Free content

Friends of the Earth

Fungicide

Global dimming

Global warming

Glyphosate

Government

Great Barrier Reef

Greenhouse effect

Greenhouse gas

Greenpeace

Greenwashing

Greta Thunberg

Groundwater

Guided bombs

Habitat destruction

Hasty Generalizations

Healthy diet

Heavy metals

Herbicide

Holocene Extinction

Horsepower

Human digestive system

Human impact on the environment

Humanitarian disaster

Humanity

Hydrothermal vent

Infectious Diseases

Infertility

Insecticide

Intensive farming

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Internal combustion engine (ICE)

International waters

Internet

Internet forums

Internet service providers (ISP)

Internet Troll

IPCC’s 6th Report

Knot

Lady Elliot Island

Land mine

Landfill

Larvacides

Lead poisoning

Lead–acid battery

Leather

Leather tanning

Light pollution

List of fallacies

Livestock

Long Covid

Luxury goods

Magnetic nanoparticles

Malnutrition

Marine diesel oil

Marine pollution

Massacre

Meat Industry

Mesothelioma

Microbiome

Microplastics

Microsoft

Mid-ocean ridge

Migration

Military-Industrial complex

Mindfulness

Mining

Mood disorders

Mooring

Museum

Napalm

NASA

National Geographic

National Security Agency (NSA)

Nature

Nature (Journal)

Neonicotinoid

NOAA

Noise pollution

NOx

Nuclear power

Nuclear weapons

Ocean acidification

Oceanography

Organic farming

Overfishing

Ozone

Ozone layer

Palm oil

Parabens

Parkinson’s disease

Particulate Matter (PM 10, 2.5 & UFP)

Peripheral

Peripheral Nervous System

Pesticide

Petroleum Industry

Petroleum Jelly

Pharmaceutical industry

Photosynthesis

Phthalates

Phytoplankton

Plastic

Plastic pollution

Plate tectonics

Plogging

Pollution

Polypropylene

Post hoc

Poultry

Poverty

Precipitation

Preservative

Pressure

Prestige

Psychological impact of climate change

Psychotic disorders

Quality of life (QOL)

Quiz

Radiation

Rechargeable electric battery

Recycling

Renewable energy

Retail therapy

Sailing Yacht A

Salinity

Saliva

Sea

Sea level rise

Seabed

Seawater

Seawise Giant

Sensitive skin

Shelf life

Shrapnel

Sleep

Social media

Soil

Soil erosion

Solar power

Soviet submarine K-222

Stomach

Straw man

Stress

Suicide

Surfers Against Sewage

Surveillance

Sustainable Fashion

Synapse

Taboo

Talc

Tang Ping

Tectonic plates

TED (conferences)

Territorial waters

Tesla, Inc

Textile Industry

The Lancet (Journal)

Tornado

Toxic waste

Transport

Trivia

Troposphere

Ultrafine particles (UFP)

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)

Unmanned drones

Urban Heat island

Urban sprawl

Vaquita

Vendetta

Victoria

Volcano

Wall Street

War

Wastewater

Water table

Water vapour

Weapon

Weapons of mass destruction

Weather

Western world

White phosphorus

Wildfire

Wildlife

Wireless radiation

World Health Organization (WHO)

World Oceans Day

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)

World Wide Web (www)

“Year without a summer”

Zooplankton