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Hans India
2 days ago
- Lifestyle
- Hans India
5 Eco-Friendly Beauty & Fashion Must-Haves for World Environment Day
This World Environment Day, let your shopping choices reflect your commitment to a greener planet. Whether you're updating your beauty routine, wardrobe, or work essentials, these eco-friendly picks prove you don't have to compromise on style or performance for sustainability. Here are five planet-loving products to add to your cart and celebrate the Earth in style: 1. No Nasties Dimple Linen Dress (Olive) The No Nasties Dimple Linen Dress in olive is a relaxed shirt dress crafted from organic cotton linen and finished with corozo nut buttons. This chic piece is made using organic, vegan, and upcycled materials, making it as gentle on the planet as it is on your skin. Every dress purchased plants three trees and offsets three times its carbon footprint, with a total offset of 14.01 kg CO₂e for each dress, making it a true statement in sustainable style. No Nasties is known for its transparent, planet-positive approach, so you can feel good about every wear. Price: ₹6,499 2. Earth Rhythm Lip & Cheek Tint The Earth Rhythm Lip & Cheek Tint is a versatile, everyday essential that adds a healthy flush of color to both lips and cheeks. Formulated with non-toxic pigments, this tint is gentle on your skin and safe for daily use. It's long-lasting, easy to blend, and perfect for those who want a natural look while supporting sustainable beauty. Earth Rhythm is committed to eco-conscious practices, and this product is a great choice for anyone seeking clean beauty alternatives. With over 24,000 positive ratings, it's a crowd favorite for good reason. Price: ₹499 3. Oriflame Love Nature Up-Loved Purifying Shampoo and Energising Shower Gel Oriflame's Up-Loved Purifying Shampoo is formulated for oily hair, featuring upcycled apple seed oil and organic kale extract. This biodegradable shampoo is free from parabens and silicones and comes in a bottle made from 100% recycled plastic. The use of upcycled apple seed oil, a byproduct from the food industry, helps reduce waste while mimicking your scalp's natural oils to nourish and restore shine. It's a refreshing, juice-inspired product that purifies the scalp and keeps hair feeling light and healthy. The Oriflame Up-Loved Energising Shower Gel is suitable for all skin types and features upcycled lemon seed oil, along with organic carrot and ginger extracts. This citrusy, nutrient-rich shower gel is biodegradable and packaged in a bottle made entirely from recycled plastic. By using upcycled ingredients from the food industry, it gives new life to what would otherwise be waste, while carrot and ginger extracts help refresh and nourish your skin. It's a zesty, sustainable addition to your daily routine. Price: ₹399 each 4. Pure Earth Hydrate & Glow Set Pure Earth's Hydrate & Glow Set includes the Wild Rose Himalayan Mist (100ml) and Wild Seaberry Supercritical Oil (15ml), both handcrafted in India using clean, ethical, and sustainable methods. Free from preservatives and chemicals, these vegan, cruelty-free, and gluten-free products are made with pure botanicals. The seabuckthorn oil is wild-harvested by women in Ladakh at 13,000 feet, supporting local communities while deeply nourishing and revitalising your skin. This set is a celebration of Earth-friendly luxury and mindful beauty. Price: ₹3,800 5. Zouk FloMotif Women's Office Bag The Zouk FloMotif Women's Office Bag combines style and sustainability with its PeTA-approved vegan leather and traditional handicraft fabric. Designed with an abstract motif, double straps, and a spacious interior, this bag is water-resistant and perfect for daily use. Proudly made in India, it supports local artisans and offers a cruelty-free, eco-friendly alternative for your workday essentials. The water-resistant inner lining is especially handy for unpredictable weather, making it as practical as it is planet-friendly. Price: ₹1,499
Khaleej Times
01-04-2025
- Health
- Khaleej Times
Battery boom drives Bangladesh lead poisoning epidemic
Bangladeshi Junayed Akter is 12 years old but the toxic lead coursing through his veins has left him with the diminutive stature of someone several years younger. Akter is one of 35 million children — around 60 per cent of all children in the South Asian nation — who have dangerously high levels of lead exposure. The causes are varied, but his mother blames his maladies on a since-shuttered factory that hastily scrapped and recycled old vehicle batteries for profit, in the process poisoning the air and the earth of his small village. "It would start at night, and the whole area would be filled with smoke. You could smell this particular odour when you breathed," Bithi Akter told AFP. "The fruit no longer grew during the season. One day, we even found two dead cows at my aunt's house." Medical tests showed Junayed's blood had twice the level of lead deemed by the World Health Organization to cause serious, and likely irreversible, mental impairment in young children. "From the second grade onward, he didn't want to listen to us anymore, he didn't want to go to school," Bithi said, as her son sat next to her while gazing blankly out at the courtyard of their home. "He cried all the time too." Lead poisoning is not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh, and the causes are manifold. They include the heavy metal's widespread and continued use in paint, in defiance of a government ban, and its use as an adulterant in turmeric spice powder to improve its colour and perceived quality. A great many cases are blamed on informal battery recycling factories that have proliferated around the country in response to rising demand. Children exposed to dangerous levels of lead risk decreased intelligence and cognitive performance, anaemia, stunted growth and lifelong neurological disorders. The factory in the Akter family's village closed after sustained complaints from the community. But environmental watchdog Pure Earth believes there could be 265 such sites elsewhere in the country. "They break down old batteries, remove the lead and melt it down to make new ones," Pure Earth's Mitali Das told AFP. "They do all this in the open air," she added. "The toxic fumes and acidic water produced during the operation pollute the air, soil and water." 'They've killed our village' In Fulbaria, a village that sits a few hours' drive north of the capital Dhaka, operations at another battery recycling factory owned by a Chinese company are in full swing. On one side are verdant paddy fields. On the other, a pipe spews murky water into a brackish pool bordered by dead lands, caked with thick orange mud. "As a child, I used to bring food to my father when he was in the fields. The landscape was magnificent, green, the water was clear," engineer and local resident Rakib Hasan, 34, told AFP. "You see what it looks like now. It's dead, forever," he added. "They've killed our village." Hasan complained about the factory's pollution, prompting a judge to declare it illegal and order the power be shut off -- a decision later reversed by the country's supreme court. "The factory bought off the local authorities," Hasan said. "Our country is poor, many people are corrupt." Neither the company nor the Chinese embassy in Dhaka responded to AFP's requests for comment on the factory's operations. Syeda Rizwana Hasan, who helms Bangladesh's environment ministry, declined to comment on the case because it was still before the courts. "We regularly conduct operations against the illegal production and recycling of electric batteries," she said. "But these efforts are often insufficient given the scale of the phenomenon." 'Unaware of the dangers' Informal battery recycling is a booming business in Bangladesh. It is driven largely by the mass electrification of rickshaws -- a formerly pedal-powered means of conveyance popular in both big cities and rural towns. More than four million rickshaws are found on Bangladeshi roads and authorities estimate the market for fitting them all with electric motors and batteries at around $870 million. "It's the downside of going all-electric," said Maya Vandenant of the UN children's agency, which is pushing a strategy to clean up the industry with tighter regulations and tax incentives. "Most people are unaware of the dangers," she said, adding that the public health impacts are forecast to be a 6.9 percent dent to the national economy. Muhammad Anwar Sadat of Bangladesh's health ministry warned that the country could not afford to ignore the scale of the problem. "If we do nothing," he told AFP, "the number of people affected will multiply three or fourfold in the next two years."
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Battery boom drives Bangladesh lead poisoning epidemic
Bangladeshi Junayed Akter is 12 years old but the toxic lead coursing through his veins has left him with the diminutive stature of someone several years younger. Akter is one of 35 million children -- around 60 percent of all children in the South Asian nation -- who have dangerously high levels of lead exposure. The causes are varied, but his mother blames his maladies on a since-shuttered factory that hastily scrapped and recycled old vehicle batteries for profit, in the process poisoning the air and the earth of his small village. "It would start at night, and the whole area would be filled with smoke. You could smell this particular odour when you breathed," Bithi Akter told AFP. "The fruit no longer grew during the season. One day, we even found two dead cows at my aunt's house." Medical tests showed Junayed's blood had twice the level of lead deemed by the World Health Organization to cause serious, and likely irreversible, mental impairment in young children. "From the second grade onward, he didn't want to listen to us anymore, he didn't want to go to school," Bithi said, as her son sat next to her while gazing blankly out at the courtyard of their home. "He cried all the time too." Lead poisoning is not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh, and the causes are manifold. They include the heavy metal's widespread and continued use in paint, in defiance of a government ban, and its use as an adulterant in turmeric spice powder to improve its colour and perceived quality. A great many cases are blamed on informal battery recycling factories that have proliferated around the country in response to rising demand. Children exposed to dangerous levels of lead risk decreased intelligence and cognitive performance, anaemia, stunted growth and lifelong neurological disorders. The factory in the Akter family's village closed after sustained complaints from the community. But environmental watchdog Pure Earth believes there could be 265 such sites elsewhere in the country. "They break down old batteries, remove the lead and melt it down to make new ones," Pure Earth's Mitali Das told AFP. "They do all this in the open air," she added. "The toxic fumes and acidic water produced during the operation pollute the air, soil and water." - 'They've killed our village' - In Fulbaria, a village that sits a few hours' drive north of the capital Dhaka, operations at another battery recycling factory owned by a Chinese company are in full swing. On one side are verdant paddy fields. On the other, a pipe spews murky water into a brackish pool bordered by dead lands, caked with thick orange mud. "As a child, I used to bring food to my father when he was in the fields. The landscape was magnificent, green, the water was clear," engineer and local resident Rakib Hasan, 34, told AFP. "You see what it looks like now. It's dead, forever," he added. "They've killed our village." Hasan complained about the factory's pollution, prompting a judge to declare it illegal and order the power be shut off -- a decision later reversed by the country's supreme court. "The factory bought off the local authorities," Hasan said. "Our country is poor, many people are corrupt." Neither the company nor the Chinese embassy in Dhaka responded to AFP's requests for comment on the factory's operations. Syeda Rizwana Hasan, who helms Bangladesh's environment ministry, declined to comment on the case because it was still before the courts. "We regularly conduct operations against the illegal production and recycling of electric batteries," she said. "But these efforts are often insufficient given the scale of the phenomenon." - 'Unaware of the dangers' - Informal battery recycling is a booming business in Bangladesh. It is driven largely by the mass electrification of rickshaws -- a formerly pedal-powered means of conveyance popular in both big cities and rural towns. More than four million rickshaws are found on Bangladeshi roads and authorities estimate the market for fitting them all with electric motors and batteries at around $870 million. "It's the downside of going all-electric," said Maya Vandenant of the UN children's agency, which is pushing a strategy to clean up the industry with tighter regulations and tax incentives. "Most people are unaware of the dangers," she said, adding that the public health impacts are forecast to be a 6.9 percent dent to the national economy. Muhammad Anwar Sadat of Bangladesh's health ministry warned that the country could not afford to ignore the scale of the problem. "If we do nothing," he told AFP, "the number of people affected will multiply three or fourfold in the next two years." pa/gle/cms/jfx
Associated Press
06-03-2025
- Health
- Associated Press
Meridian Bioscience Congratulates Catherine Lufkin For Receiving Pure Earth's 2025 'Force Of Nature' Award
CINCINNATI, March 6, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Meridian Bioscience, Inc., a leading global provider of diagnostic testing solutions and life science raw materials, proudly congratulates Catherine Lufkin, Senior Director, Global Point of Care, on being honored with Pure Earth's 2025 'Force of Nature' Award. This prestigious recognition celebrates her leadership and dedication to advancing environmental health, particularly in the fight against lead poisoning. Lufkin is being recognized at Pure Earth's International Women's Day celebration for her unwavering commitment to ensuring access to fast, accurate blood lead testing in communities impacted by lead contamination. Her leadership has been instrumental in Meridian's partnership with Pure Earth, which has provided LeadCare® II blood lead testing technology to under-resourced communities worldwide since 2016. Her dedication to advancing lead testing was also a driving force behind Meridian winning the CDC's Lead Detect Prize, a prestigious competition that fostered the development of innovative, rapid lead detection technologies to enhance public health efforts. 'We are immensely proud of Catherine's achievements and this well-deserved recognition,' said Tony Serafini-Lamanna, President of Meridian Bioscience Diagnostics. 'Her work exemplifies our mission to improve global health through innovation and collaboration. In our ongoing partnership with Pure Earth, we remain committed to reducing lead exposure and its harmful effects on vulnerable populations.' The LeadCare II system, the only CLIA-waived point-of-care blood lead testing system, is a vital tool in Pure Earth's global efforts to combat lead poisoning. It enables rapid, reliable testing, allowing for timely intervention and treatment. Through strategic collaboration, Meridian and Pure Earth continue working to expand access to testing in communities with high lead exposure risks, helping to safeguard children's and families' health worldwide. 'I am deeply honored to receive the 'Force of Nature' Award from Pure Earth,' said Catherine Lufkin. 'Lead exposure is a preventable public health crisis, and I am proud to contribute to efforts that bring vital testing solutions to those who need them most. This award underscores the power of partnership in driving meaningful change.' Meridian Bioscience remains steadfast in supporting initiatives to reduce the global burden of lead poisoning. Through continued innovation and collaboration, the company is dedicated to protecting public health and improving lives, one person and one test at a time. About Pure Earth Founded in 1999, Pure Earth is a global leader in developing evidence-based solutions to mercury and lead pollution. Committed to transparency, collaboration, measurable impact, and technical excellence, we work with partners worldwide to tackle the root causes of these toxic threats. Our focus is protecting the most vulnerable—children and pregnant women living in toxic hotspots—by breaking the multigenerational cycle of poisoning that persists in many low- and middle-income countries. Through strategic partnerships with governments, communities, and industry, we identify and implement solutions that prevent toxic exposures, safeguard health, and restore contaminated environments. Learn more about Pure Earth's work to improve women's health at About Meridian Bioscience, Inc. Meridian is a fully integrated life science company that develops, manufactures, markets, and distributes a broad range of innovative diagnostic and life science products. We are dedicated to developing and delivering better solutions that give answers with speed, accuracy, and simplicity that are redefining the possibilities of life from discovery to diagnosis. Through discovery and development, we provide critical life science raw materials used in immunological and molecular tests for human, animal, plant, and environmental applications. Through diagnosis, we provide diagnostic solutions in areas including gastrointestinal and upper respiratory infections and blood lead level testing. We build relationships and provide solutions to hospitals, reference laboratories, research centers, veterinary testing centers, physician offices, diagnostics manufacturers, and biotech companies in more than 70 countries around the world. Meridian is a privately held company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Meridian's website address is Courtney Schulz Meridian Bioscience, Inc. Phone: 513.991.1091
