A gentle word about "Environmental Friendliness"

A new treasury! A new treasury!!! Of course, I can always rely on the wonderful gift guides and front page features to find the best of the best! And just look at how the pretty, unique, and beautifully hand-crafted each and every item is! I'm tickled pink to see more mustaches and terrariums! Nobody can ever have enough of those!

There are SOOOO many talented artists and clearly only the VERY best of the best get chosen to be featured! I had a hard time stopping with just nine!

Oh, but I do hate to be a nagging noodle, but I see a wee problem with something I found in the Environmentally Friendly Gift Guide!

Vinyl Record Bowl

This is not a very environmentally friendly item. When record vinyl is heated up it releases dreadfully dangerous fumes and toxins!

Vinyl records are made from Polyvinyl chloride, (IUPAC Polychloroethene) commonly abbreviated PVC. Polyvinyl chloride is produced by polymerization of the monomer vinyl chloride, and a significant proportion of its mass is chlorine. Heating up vinyl records may result in the outgassing of phthalate plasticizers as well as emissions of vinyl chloride and dioxins. Vinyl chloride is a known carcinogen that results in Angiosarcoma and hemangiosarcoma.

I know I know, you are thinking "Silly Betsy Etc is making a big mountain out of a wee little mole hill! It is just a few records! Not a big scary factory!" But think about it, the melted record bowl is being presented as an "environmentally friendly" way to recycle old record albums, and you know how those rad and trendy hipsters just love to jump on that big green gravy train. After a while, it won't just be one or two people doing it, it will be every other person in Etc.land doing it! Maybe it won't make as big of an environmental footprint on poor Mother Earth as a mean old industrial factory, but then again, it isn't really "Earth Friendly" either, now is it?

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