Finding out which restaurants in Los Angeles serve sustainable seafood isn’t easy. I’ll read about individual restaurant’s fish-related policies in random reviews, but no easy-to-find compiled list seems exist — yet.

We’ve got the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s list of local restaurants that serve only sustainable fish — but doesn’t list sustainable seafood restaurants in the L.A. area like Border Grill and is limited to the nonprofit’s unique program.

We’ve got the Sustainable Sushi blog’s short list of sustainable sushi restaurants — but that list is by no means complete, and none of the restaurants on the list are in L.A.

That’s why I’m hoping a new website called Fish2Fork will become a complete database. Fish2Fork ranks restaurants based on their sustainable fish options, ranging from five dead red fish skeletons for horrific to five blue fish for best in class. (via Treehugger)

Being new, though, the database isn’t robust yet, with only two restaurants listed for Los Angeles — but you can help add to the lists by recommending — or naming and shaming — local restaurants.

Ted Danson — who narrated The End of the Line, last year’s documentary about our collapsing fisheries — calls Fish2Fork “the greatest thing in the world”:

His description of the site’s a tad premature, but let’s hope Fish2Fork lives up to Ted’s expectations! The Bored to Death and Damages actor also plans to pen a book about our oceans, due out next year.

Earlier:
>> Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Guide is an iPhone app!
>> Sushi fraud: When “tuna” actually means tummy trouble
>> Greenpeace’s sustainable seafood guide gives Trader Joe’s an F — again

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Do you eat frozen dinners heated up in the microwave? And if so, how closely do you look at the packaging for those meals?

Recent concerns about BPA, an endocrine disruptor linked to everything from breast cancer to sexual dysfunction, have convinced many people to stop using plastic water bottles that aren’t marked BPA-free. But if you’re heating up plastic-encased food in your microwave, your could be using containers that contain and leach BPA, as well as phthalates, a plasticizer linked to genital deformities and other health problems.

These plastic concerns apply not just to items like disposable yogurt cups that were never intended for the microwave, but also to plastic containers specifically marketed as “microwave safe.” That’s what Good Housekeeping found back in Nov. 2008 when it tested 31 plastic items people are likely to use to heat up foods. While the majority of the items showed no traces of BPA or phthalates, three items were found to contain BPA: Rubbermaid EasyFind Lids container, Rubbermaid Premier container, and Glad Press’n Seal Multipurpose Sealing Wrap. And one item — Glad Press’n Seal wrap — showed to contain low levels of both phthalates and BPA.

The disturbing part of this experiment is that these questionable items are expressly marketed as BPA-free products by Rubbermaid and Glad. Rubbermaid, for example, includes its EasyFind Lids on a list of BPA-free items — and contends its own experiments found no traces of BPA. Glad Press’n Seal wrap’s FAQ also brags that their item contains no BPA — and includes a link to an official-looking letter from Clorox (PDF) reiterating this statement.

In Good Housekeeping’s tests, the BPA or phthalates in the containers weren’t found to leach into foods. However, a similar test of 10 items — including a Rubbermaid multipurpose container — done by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal did find that BPA leached from “microwave-safe” plastics ranging from frozen food trays to plastic baby food packaging. Here are the charts and graphs (PDF) detailing which products contained how much BPA.

That’s why many people are worried about putting plastics in the microwave. Last month, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof asked doctors at a symposium what they do in their own homes to reduce risks of diseases linked to environmental pollution, like cancer:

They said that they avoid microwaving food in plastic or putting plastics in the dishwasher, because heat may cause chemicals to leach out. And the symposium handed out a reminder card listing “safer plastics” as those marked (usually at the bottom of a container) 1, 2, 4 or 5.

Even those “safer plastics” may not be safe in the microwave, however, according to the Journal Sentinel’s testing, which found BPA leaching in plastics marked 1, 2 and 5. Considering these uncertainties, it’s easy to see why some may choose the precautionary principle, keeping all types of plastics out of the microwave. Florence Williams, the author of the Good Housekeeping feature piece, says that her research has changed her habits in the kitchen:

Since learning more about the health effects of plastics, including how much we don’t know, I’ve changed some habits…. I now store leftovers in ceramic or glass containers in the fridge, and I don’t put anything plastic in the microwave because there’s still a lot to learn about the interactions of heat and plastic — and it’s easy to find an alternative….

I’d be happy to stop doing all this, but until the government starts testing household plastics in ways that will tell us what’s safe and what’s not, I will go on being a little obsessed.

With more environmentalists opting against plastics in the microwave, some organic frozen food companies have opted for less-plasticky packaging. Organic and natural frozen food company Amy’s Kitchen, for example, says it shuns plasticizers and uses paper containers for its products, though these containers are still PET-lined and usually have a top film made of polypropylene. “These measures have been taken to ensure that all of our packaging material is safe for use,” according to the FAQ on Amy’s Kitchen’s website. “However, if you would prefer not to cook in plastic, our products can be easily removed from the original container and cooked in glass.”

Of course, an easy way to avoid plastic or plastic-lined containers for frozen meals is to avoid frozen meals altogether. Yet although many green LA girl readers like to make their meals from fresh farmers’ market ingredients, the big aisles of overpackaged meals and frozen dinners at supermarkets — and even Whole Foods and many local co-ops — makes clear that microwavable convenience foods are still quite popular.

What decisions have you made to limit plastic-related health risks in your kitchen? Does the microwave meet plastics in your home?

Photo by rutlo

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Did you know your microwave uses up more power when you’re not using it than when you are? Yes, the microwave draws a lot of energy when you start nuking something, but the vast majority of the time, the machine’s sitting idle while slowly sipping energy to light up its display. According to Umbra at Grist, that slow, daily sip ends up being about 80% of the energy your appliance consumes!

Such is the silent cost of vampire power — the slow draw of energy and drain on your wallet by gadgets that are plugged in, but not in use. That’s why last year, I wrote about how to slash vampire power and save money. But while more people know about vampire power now, many have yet to take action to reduce it — maybe because the thought of running around the house unplugging everything all the time seems like a lot of work for releatively little money savings.

Once you have a vampire slaying habit worked out though, starving energy sippers comes really easy. Plus, new greener routines can be better for your health too. Increasing evidence shows electrical energy could be harming our health, as Katherine Butler points out in MNN — a concern if you tend to leave your wireless router on all night. And light pollution’s been linked to everything from insomnia to cancer — not to mention larger ecological problems for birds and other wildlife. While your microwave display or wifi router may not be creating a huge amount of light and electric pollution, it makes sense not to have dozens of electronics lit up and buzzing away while you’re trying to sleep at night.

Before you freak out about cancer and develop fear-induced insomnia: Reducing wasted vampire power, electrical energy, and light isn’t too hard — at least inside your own home. Below’s how I’ve gotten rid of all three in my apartment. Depending on your own quirks and preferences, you may want to use slightly different methods — like relying more on hi-tech smart strips and less on manual unplugging. But hopefully this post’ll help you figure out how to get started!

1. Get power strips. I have 3 power strips around the house — one for kitchen appliances, one for the TV and VCR, and one for the stereo and its accoutrements.  Basically, the gadgets plugged into each power strip are gadgets I use in tandem — like the electric kettle that boils water while I grind coffee beans in my electric grinder for the French press, or the VCR I put a Netflix DVD in to watch a movie on my TV (I don’t have cable or an antenna, so I never use the TV alone).

I simply flick on the power strip switch whenever I need to use any of the attached gadgets — which makes things a lot simpler than manually plugging and unplugging individual items — then flick it off when I’m done. Newbies may forget to turn the power strip off at the beginning, but the money-saving habit will form soon enough.

2. Unplug.  For items I use alone or use rarely, I manually plug and unplug — just as most people do with, say, irons. Remembering to unplug my laptop at the end of the day at home’s easy, since I’m in the habit of unplugging the laptop whenever I take it to a coffee shop or library. This unplugging habit also has the happy side benefit of extending the life of my laptop battery. As I write this though, I’m wondering if I should get a fourth power strip to plug my laptop and wireless router in together, since when I’m home, I always use the two in tandem.

I also manually plug and unplug my microwave — my kitchen power strip is full and the microwave’s the appliance I use least — and my printer, which I rarely use. Depending on your lifestyle, you may single out complete different gadgets for manual unplugging. In fact, if instead of a laptop you have a desktop computer-and-monitor setup, you may want to go with the third option altogether –

3. Think smart strips. Smart strips are like power strips, except they’re smart enough to figure out when to turn themselves on and off. Because I already had my vampire-slaying habits in place before I ever got a smart strip, I haven’t found these newfangled gadgets particularly useful — but for the forgetful, smart strips may be the way to go.

Smart strips can be especially useful for charging up gadgets with batteries overnight, or cutting off power to electronics like TVs and computer monitors if you’re the type of person who forgets to flick off power strips. To see if smart strips may meet your energy efficiency needs, read my review of one new smart strip devide on the market: the iGo Power Smart Tower.
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Figure out a vampire slaying solution before Earth Day so you can sign up on Unplug, a Facebook app that lets you pledge to unplug electronics for Earth Day! (via Treehugger)

Top photo by tim7423; bottom photo by Siel

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>> Spot birdies for The 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count starts Fri., Feb. 12 and runs through Mon., Feb. 15. Sierra Club’s The Green Life points out that “identifying birds in your neighborhood will help researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Audubon Society, and Bird Studies Canada monitor and protect avian populations.”

>> Trap arachnids for the Los Angeles Spider Survey. According to LAist, the survey’s a Natural History Museum’s Citizen Scientist Project where “residents can bring or send in spiders they find around town for scientists to study (added bonus: you’ll get a call-back from a scientist who will identify your spider and tell you all about it).”

>> Tree killers caught on Google Camera. Those Google’s images could help prosecute for illegal tree removal, but future Google images may not be so helpful for law enforcement: “After the Canadian privacy commissioner and others raised questions about whether the roaming cameras were legal … the company implemented an automated feature that blurs faces and license plates.”

Image via birdsource.org

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Gadget guzzle energy even when you’re not using them — if you leave them plugged in. Called vampire power, this useless waste of energy runs up your power bill and keeps plans for more coal burning power plants alive. That’s why smart strips — tech-savvy power strips that cut off power to gadgets when they’re not in use — have been getting a lot of attention from environmentalists who want to slay vampire power without bothering to unplug their gadgets.

I actually already have a vampire-slaying habit worked out, but I decided to give one of these smart strips a try. Honestly, I’m not all that enamored by this eco-smart gadget, but for the forgetful, smart strips may be the way to go. Here’s why one may work for you, even though they haven’t proved particularly convenient for me.

I tried out an iGo Power Smart Tower to see a smart strip in action. This tool has two types of outlets — “green” ones for those you want turned on and off, and regular ones for gadgets you need on all the time, like an electric clock. Plus, a couple USB ports at the bottom lets you charge mobile devices.

What I found the iGo Power Smart Tower most useful for was charging up gadgets with batteries. Plug in your cell phone, laptop, or iPod into a green outlet and the Smart Tower will recharge it — then cut off the power once the gadget’s juiced up, which saves both energy and your gadgets’ battery life. Every half hour, the Smart Tower boots up to check if anything requires energy, then turns back off if nothing does — thereby reducing vampire power by over 85 percent, according to iGo.

iGo also recommends the Smart Tower for gadgets like TVs and computer monitors, but I just don’t see myself using the Smart Tower for those items. Why? As I mentioned, the Smart Tower boots up just once every 30 minutes. That means that if I want to watch a DVD on my TV NOW, I have to press the Smart Tower’s “Instant On” button. And if I’m going to have to press a button anyway, I feel I may as well flick the switch on a simple, cheap, regular power strip than a bulkier though admittedly sleeker-looking Smart Tower that costs $79.99.

Of course, the Smart Tower does automatically turns OFF the power to the DVD player once it senses I’m not using it anymore — so if you’re the forgetful type, this smart meter might save you some money in the long run.

As I’m already in the habit of switching off my power strip once I’m done watching a DVD, this isn’t an issue for me. That, combined with my habit of charging all gadgets during the day when I’ll remember to unplug them once juiced up (I work from home), my slight annoyance with the small clicking sound the iGo makes when it boots up every half hour, and my reluctance to add yet another gadget to my life for extremely limited purposes, makes me think I’m not a smart strip kind of gal.

Still, for people who need to charge devices overnight, or who forget to flick off power strips despite their best intentions, the iGo could be quite useful.

Do you use a smart strip? What gadgets do you find are most convenient to use with these high-tech devices?

Update, 2/8/10: How I vanquished vampire power: 3 steps to home energy efficiency

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I used to drool over the Vegan Lunch Box blog every lunch break. Each weekday, a new photo of a scrumptious-looking packed lunch would go up — made by food blogger Jennifer McCann for her son. Every mostly-homemade meal would be packed in the kid’s reusable Laptop Lunchbox too!

Now, there’s a counterpart blog of sorts: A somewhat terrifying photoblog of school lunches.

Dubbed Fed Up, this blog’s written by one Mrs. Q — an anonymous teacher at an Illinois school who’s planning to eat the same food her students eat for all of 2010. We’re talking highly processed peanut butter and jelly graham sandwiches individually packaged in non-recyclable pouches, “100% fruit punch juice” with a label noting ingredients could come from 7 different countries, and “cherry icee” with no cherries on the ingredient list.

“Oftentimes what is served barely passes muster as something edible,” writes Mrs. Q — but her reviews of the meals are often quite forgiving. “It smelled terrific and it actually tasted really good,” she says of “rib-a-cue” — a mysterious hunk of probably-factory-farmed meat jailed in a single-serving container with a plastic film top. This makes me wonder if Mrs. Q’s taste buds are quickly lowering their standards to adapt to the overprocessed, overpackaged fare. Among the pleasant lunch surprises she exults about: “The fruit cup was not frozen!”

Read an interview with Mrs. Q at MNN — and follow Fed Up to read and learn.

Earlier: Another beef recall and a closer look at school kitchens

Photos via Jennifer McCann/Vegan Lunch Box and Mrs. Q/Fed Up

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>> First, for alt fuel newbies unclear as to what’s wrong with corn ethanol exactly: Catch up by reading an oldie but a goodie — Rolling Stone’s “The Ethanol Scam: One of America’s Biggest Political Boondoggles.” You can also watch Fuel – or read my review.

>> Now that you know the environmental and farming-related problems behind ethanol, you might understand why a Cali regional panel doesn’t want more ethanol fueling stations. The Southern California Association of Governments “turned down nearly $11 million in federal stimulus dollars targeted to build 55 ethanol fueling stations across Southern California.” This issue’s still a somewhat controversial one among environmentalists though.

>> The current debate over fuels in California has a lot to do with our tough global warming mitigation law, a.k.a. AB 32, and how best to meet its requirements. That law is under attack, by the way — by a group that wants to block it from being implemented until California’s unemployment drops below 5.5% for four consecutive quarters. Despite the fact that such a move would block efforts to create new green jobs, the anti AB 32-ers wanted to put it on the ballot as “California Jobs Initiative.” California Attorney General Jerry Brown renamed it “Suspends air pollution control laws requiring major polluters to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.” Yay Jerry!

>> Unfortunately, the U.S. EPA’s embraced ethanol — as well as “clean coal” and nuclear power. Writes Tom Philpott at Grist: “The Obama EPA has signed off on the absurd, abysmal Renewable Fuel Standard established under Bush a couple of years ago—ensuring that farmers will continue to devote vast swaths of land to GHG-intensive corn, of which huge portion of will ultimately be set aflame to power cars—but not before being transformed into liquid fuel in an energy-intensive process.”

Image via thefuelfilm.com

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Regular green LA girl readers already know to avoid products with “fragrance” on its ingredient list, since that innocuous-sounding word often serves as a mask for all sorts of questionable chemicals. The perfume and beauty product industry has long hidden chemicals like phthalates — linked to birth defects, asthma, early puberty and decreased sperm counts — under the “fragrance” label, claiming industry secrets.

Now, in an about turn of sorts, the industry group International Fragrance Association’s suddenly published a long list of ingredients that go into many consumer products. Anyone can go on the Association’s site to peruse the list — though with complicated-sounding items like “2-Hepten-4-one, 5-methyl-, (E)-” and “4-Methyl-8-methylenetricyclo[3.3.1.(3,7)]decan-2-yl acetate,” the average perfume wearer will be hard-pressed to figure out how safe or dangerous the ingredients are.

While the move towards transparency’s to be commended, the list brings up some troubling concerns. For one, the sheer number of ingredients that are allowed to hide behind the word fragrance — 3,163 by nonprofit Environmental Working Group’s count — is rather appalling. Not all of those ingredients are dangerous, but many are. According to EWG:

1 in 20 earned a “high” hazard score (7-10 of 10), and a full 1 in 6 rated at least a “moderate” hazard score (3-10 of 10). 26 of them scored a 10, the highest score.

Of most concern are phthalates, octoxynols and nonoxynols, and musk ambrette. According to EWG, musk ambrette is toxic to the brain, testes, and skin, banned in the European Union, and fingered by the IFRA itself as a chemical that shouldn’t be used in products applied to the skin — though the stuff’s still used in some fragrances by IFRA’s own admission.

How can you avoid these scary chemicals? Avoid products with “fragrance” in the ingredients. While the average drugstore’s still chock full of products with fragrance, greener personal care product options have greatly expanded. If you’re looking for a better-for-you perfume, Strange Invisible Perfumes and Honore des Pres are two of a growing number of eco-minded perfume companies making green scents.

Photo by Alastair Dunning

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>> The Alliance for Bicycling and Walking’s Bicycling and Walking in the United States: The 2010 Benchmarking Report finds that “10 percent of trips are by bicycle or foot, yet bicyclists and pedestrians make up over 13% of traffic fatalities and receive just 1.2% of federal transportation dollars.”

Damien Newton at Streetsblog LA looks at the implications for L.A. County:

In Los Angeles, twelve percent of all trips, not just commuter trips, but all trips, are done by either walking or cycling. That’s well above the national average of 9.6%. However, thirty six percent of all crashes involve pedestrians or cyclists which is well above the national average. One reason for this? Los Angeles spends only 1.2% of its federal transportation dollars on bicycle or pedestrian infrastructure.

The City Fix also looks at the report and points out that more bike and ped funding could save lives. Relatedly — Did you know a sculptor wants to build a 100-foot-high fountain by the 10-110 freeway interchange that constantly reminds drivers of auto accident fatalities?

>> The Union of Concerned Scientists’ first Hybrid Scorecard found that fuel-efficient cars are unnecessarily expensive because they’re loaded up with costly “forced features” like 19-speaker surround-sound audio systems and intuitive parking assists: “The worst offender is the Lexus LS 600h L, which comes with more than $17,000 of extra features on top of an already luxury-laden base model.” Use the scorecard to make sure you’re getting the best value — both environmentally and economically. (via Autopia)

>> Obama’s 2011 FY budget proposal seeks to eliminate “more than $2.7 billion in tax subsidies for oil, coal and gas industries,” according to TriplePundit. As a result, more than $38.8 billion dollars in tax revenue could be generated for the federal government over the course of the next ten years.”

>> GreenBiz.com’s annual State of Green Business Report is available for your perusal. The basic summary: Despite the recession, the green economy’s surviving — but no one really knows what’s gonna happen next.

Image via peoplepoweredmovement.org

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>> Environmental pollution’s the suspected cause of birth defects in the San Joaquin Valley. Both the U.S. EPA and the state are now looking into the scary number of birth defects in babies born in Kettleman City, which is near a huge Waste Management dump.

Community members say that five babies out of 20 live births in a recent 14-month period had facial deformities. A review by the Kings County Public Health Department found that six of 63 babies born over the same period to mothers living in the town had various birth defects…. The community of 1,500 sits in a region heavily polluted by pesticides and fumes from diesel-powered trucks.

The EPA’s regional director’s already paid the city and dump a visit.

>> You know how California set stricter standards for greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles? As you may have expected, oil, chemical and trucking industries have sued to void Cali’s tougher car emissions standards, claiming they interfere with interstate commerce.

>> Somewhat relatedly: California’s putting together a greenhouse gases monitoring network. We currently rely on estimates based on the amount of gas sold in the state, but new greenhouse gas measurement devices — made by a company called Picarro — are going to be installed to measure the actual amount of methane in the air.

>> You know how California sets high efficiency standards for electronics and appliances? Jaymi Heimbuch at Treehugger says Cali’s tough electronics energy regulations are spreading to other states.

Photo by teresia

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