Check the ingredients list of your personal care products, and it’s usually a long list of polysyllabic chemicals you’ve never heard of that are usually petroleum derived. (When in doubt, don’t buy, or check the Cosmetic Safety Database first. And start shopping organic!) Another thing to watch for: products claiming flame-retardant or crease-resistant properties, as these are usually treated with phthalates and other environmental pollutants. The pollutants don’t just go away, they affect human and animal health, get introduced into the food chain, and their concentrations get compounded the higher up the food chain you eat. (Yet another good reason to adopt a vegetarian diet.) Dioxins and contaminants from industrialized countries have already been found in polar bears… meaning the damage is spreading.

Silicone contaminants could drift north: researchers