Word: toxicants
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...season spiral so far out of control? For one, as the losses start piling up, the locker room becomes a toxic place. "The offense starts blaming the defense," says Greg Camarillo, a wide receiver on the 2007 Miami team that flirted with infamy by starting 0-13 (his Dolphins finished 1-15, but made the playoffs this season - and won the AFC East - by beating the New York Jets on Sunday 24-17). "The defense starts blaming the offense. You get that 'every man for himself' feeling. In the NFL [the ultimate team game] that's the last thing...
...When the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. both had The Bomb, what was the point in pretense or courtesy? Pinter's quietly murderous insolence was the theatrical equivalent to Nikita Khrushchev's shoe-banging at the United Nations. Good manners were the creamy lie the great powers poured on the toxic gruel of their realpolitik. The only counteroffensive was to write plays in which people misbehaved, tortured each other; for the postwar generation, writing what the Cambridge Review called his "skull-beneath-the-skin" plays, he was the Pinter of Our Discontent. Back then, his works were taken as murky dramas...
...also urging hospitals to replace their ubiquitous PVC (vinyl) flooring with rubber floors. PVC can emit toxins such as dioxin and phthalates, particularly when wet, which studies suggest may affect reproductive health and fetal development, and may also trigger asthma. "Hospitals change to rubber flooring because of the toxic emissions," says Cohen, "As it turns out, switching to rubber actually cuts down on noise and reduces slips and falls, which are also a threat to patient and worker safety...
...burned, releasing additional dioxin. In between, there's the [emission] of phthalates," says Cohen, noting that PVC is found throughout the hospital, not only in flooring, but also in shower curtains, blood bags and intravenous tubing. "If you can have a safer IV system without exposing patients to toxic substances, especially pregnant women and babies in the neonatal intensive care unit, then hospitals have a responsibility to replace PVC with safer alternatives." Fortunately, safer alternatives exist and may cost as much or less as PVC products...
Hospitals have also managed to save money by greening their cleaning supplies. The Hackensack University Medical Center's pediatric oncology center in New Jersey swapped its toxic-chemical-laden cleaners for its own custom-made natural products, dropping cleaning costs by 15% - and, more important, minimizing employees' and young patients' exposure to irritants and harsh substances, such as ammonia. The hospital has also developed a "Greening the Cleaning" program for other hospitals, schools and organizations and, more recently, even began selling a consumer product line that includes laundry detergent and glass cleaner...