In the 1999 bill, Congress found 73 million women in the United States use tampons, and that a single woman may use as many as 16,800 in her lifetime—24,360 if she’s on estrogen replacement therapy. The Women’s Environmental Network stated one woman will use 2,190 disposable pads a year. In 2006, the non-profit Ocean Conservancy found almost 20,000 tampon applicators underwater and along shorelines. While this is a vast improvement from its 1998-1999 study, in which they found 170,000 applicators, it’s still a whole lot of waste, even before you factor in packaging. Many women, tampon users and not, have gone green when it comes to feminine hygiene products to help combat the staggering numbers. Some of the available solutions include:

Jade and Pearl sea sponge tampons, for example, are an all-natural alternative to cotton tampons. Sponge tampons last approximately six months before they need to be replaced and are 100-percent biodegradable. The sponges are easy to clean and can be refreshed using a bevy of natural cleaners.

Menstrual cups are another alternative to tampons. Different kinds of menstrual cups use different materials. The Keeper, which has been on the market for almost 20 years, is made of all-natural, soft gum rubber. The Moon Cup and the Diva Cup are both made from silicone, an option for women with latex allergies. The cups are cleanable and can last for a decade, which also saves women money.

Natracare originally introduced organic cotton tampons in 1993, and offers them in both applicator and non-applicator versions. Seventh Generation more recently developed its own line of tampons made with organically grown cotton. The tampons are whitened without using chlorine, eliminating residue from chlorinated hydrocarbons, including dioxin, and are free of rayon, dye and fragrance. Seventh Generation uses 100-percent recycled material in the packaging, and there is no applicator, eliminating unnecessary waste.

o.b. is a popular brand of applicator-free tampons that can be found in most stores. According to their site, using o.b. tampons eliminates 1 pound of waste a year, has 58 percent less waste than other disposable brands with applicators and uses recycled materials for their boxes. You can also find non-period related green tips on the o.b. website.

Non-tampon users also have green period options as well. GladRags makes a variety of cloth pads, which are made from “100-percent cotton and come in conventional cotton, organic undyed cotton and organic color cotton.” The pads are reusable, machine-washable, and can last more than five years.

To get the convenience of a disposable pad without chemicals or waste, Natracare developed pads that are chemical-free and made from natural materials. The moisture-barrier layer is made from BioPlastic, a biodegradable material made from plant cellulose. The pads are free of rayon and plastic, tend to be less bulky than cloth pads, and have an adhesive strip like mass-market pads, but are biodegradable and even compostable.

Like the commercial says, have a happy period, and next month, make it green.

I’ve written a lot about the hazardous and toxic materials that go into light bulbs, even the energy saving kind. But once these bulbs burn out, don’t just discard them into the trash. As a hazardous waste material, they must be disposed of appropriately.

Bulbs contain mercury, which the Center for Disease control listed as the third most hazardous material on their list in 1997.  But only seven states in the Union: California, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, have actually passed laws against throwing bulbs out in the trash. Bulbs contain mercury, a toxic substance that is especially harmful to pregnant mothers and their unborn fetuses. Mercury can create brain damage resulting in mental retardation, incoordination, blindness, seizures, and the inability to speak. The EPA reports that 187 incinerators across the country put out 70,000 total pounds of mercury into the environment each year. It takes only one fluorescent bulb to pollute 6,000 gallons of water, making it undrinkable. But although the government has deemed it unlawful to dispose of bulbs with the rest of your trash, they haven’t yet instituted a program to help consumers easily and properly dispose of the toxic waste. Until they do, you have a few options to greenly get rid of your “green” bulbs:

First check with your local waste management company to find out if they collect toxic materials, like your bulbs. If they don’t, or if the procedure seems unnecessarily complicated, check the following sites for solutions:

http://earth911.org/ allows you to search for local recycling centers according to where you live and what item you need to recycle. Many local hardware stores will take your bulbs, as well as other toxic materials, like batteries and all you have to do is get your waste to the store, without breaking it and releasing the toxins.

www.lamprecycle.org also provides information about bulb recycling.

Until the government steps up, it is your job to be green.

A U.N. global food crisis summit will provide emergency measures for the current world food crisis.

Currently, the spread of hunger is threatening nearly one billion people in the world’s poorest countries. The cost of major food commodities, including rice, corn and wheat has nearly doubled over the years. With prices still on the rise, hunger may strike another estimated 100 million people in addition to the 850 million already threatened.

"We commit to eliminating hunger and to securing food for all, today and tomorrow," read a draft declaration from the three-day Rome summit, whose opening session on Tuesday was attended by leaders of about 44 nations. The draft further promised to "stimulate food production and to increase investment in agriculture, to address obstacles to food access and to use the planet's resources sustainably for present and future generations."

The United States and Brazil came under repeated fire for pushing biofuel producing crops, corn in the US and sugar cane in Brazil. Asian nations' export restrictions on rice, which has affected prices as far away as Haiti, causing riots and a severely weakened government was also blamed for part of the problem.

According to an article by  Stephen Brown and Robin Pomeroy, Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the main cause of food inflation was "tolerable protectionism" by rich countries and British International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said rich countries "subsidized farming by $1 billion a day, costing poor farmers in developing countries an estimated $100 billion a year in lost income."

The summits continue throughout the week and a press release is promised.

The LAPD has hired a dietitian to help get rid of chubby cops who aren't fit for duty.

Rana Parker, the dietitian in question, explains, “"I joke with them that I'm not the food police, that I'm just here to give them information, education and hopefully give them motivation to help themselves."

Although being overweight isn’t unique to only the LAPD, the force believes it is the only one to hire a dietician to help rectify the problem. As a need for officers has increased, the department has relaxed weight criteria to do so, changing body fat limits from a maximum of 22 percent for men and 30 percent for women.

Parker strives to educate police on good nutrition, emphasizing portion size and balanced meals. Police shifts can lend themselves to irregular eating and physical fitness habits. If they are sitting in a car, they may suddenly need to start running and that’s harder if they aren’t physically fit. The same situation may make the officers hungry, so Parker tells them to make sure that they have healthy snacks around to combat the need for those donut breaks that everyone jokes about.

Although the LAPD is the first to start addressing the issue, their move has gotten positive national attention. Kevin Sommers, national chairman of safety and technology for the Fraternal Order of Police, says, “For the longest time in law enforcement we trained our people in policing, but we didn't teach our people about how to maintain their mental and physical well-being.”

With a population of 75, you wouldn’t think that Boulder, Wyoming could generate enough pollution to warrant ozone alerts and pose health risks. But according to reports, it does just that.

Boulder is the home of one of the two largest natural gas well areas in the country. As interest in finding sources of alternative energy has increased, so has the number of natural gas wells in the area, with over 4,000 additional wells planned for in the future.

The pollution stems from vehicles and equipment in the gas fields as well as dust, weather and geography. It has come in the form of ground-level ozone, which has exceeded healthy levels 11 times since January and caused Wyoming to issue its first ozone alerts. Now the ozone threatens to cost the industry and taxpayers millions of dollars to stay within federal clean-air laws.

Ozone is a component of smog, a yellowish haze of pollutants that lingers near ground level and can raise the risk of asthma and heart attacks, especially among the elderly and children with respiratory illnesses.

Ozone needs sunlight to form, and state environmental officials believe the ozone levels in Wyoming this past winter and spring were exacerbated by heavy snowcover, which intensified the sunlight by reflecting it off the snow. By comparison, in 2007, when the area had little snowcover, there were no elevated ozone readings.

Recently, the government has made stronger restrictions on ozone levels to better protect public health. Failure to meet federal air-quality standards could result in mandatory pollution-cutting measures ranging from restricting wood-burning stoves in homes to placing limits on the booming oil and gas industry.

Linda Baker of the Upper Green River Valley Coalition said, "Obviously, the pace and level of development is just too much."  And other groups have called for limits on drilling as well, although energy industry insiders have said drilling is not the problem and that they are working on solving it through other means.

Instead of waiting for federal regulations to be mandated, oil companies are already working on reducing pollution by using natural gas operated rigs that have reduced emissions and reducing field operations as well, which would be part of the government solution. The gas companies also are offering $36 million to pay for environmental monitoring and other measures that lessen the effects of drilling on air quality, wildlife and plants.