Eco Answers From the Eco-Expert

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Safe antifreeze is easy. At my local auto supply store, which is part of a national chain, I found two brands of antifreeze/coolant made from propylene glycol—safe enough to be used as a food additive—and not from the more toxic ethylene glycol, considered household hazardous waste. One antifreeze/coolant is Sierra from Old World Industries, (800) 323-5440, and the other is Prestone LowTox from Prestone, (800) 862-7737. If a major company like Prestone is making this product, others are sure to follow and you should have no trouble finding it. (My husband wants me to mention that it’s very important to use a mix of 50 percent antifreeze/ coolant to 50 percent water. You can top off your radiator with plain water, but without the coolant your radiator will rust, the car will overheat, and you’ll need a new engine.)

Less toxic engine oil is not available, to my knowledge. You can sometimes find recycled engine oil, but while it saves resources, it isn’t less toxic. As for engine oil made from hemp, experiments are underway, but there is not yet a commercially available product. If you are interested in products made from hemp, log on to the Hemp Industries Association website at http://thehia.org/membersites. cfm, which lists over a hundred member businesses that make hemp products. When hemp engine oil be­comes available, it will probably be listed here.

I don’t know of any commercial product for windshield wiper fluid, but it is fairly easy to make your own using plain water plus an additive to keep the water from freezing. In Better Basics for the Home (Three Rivers Press, 1997), Annie Berthold-Bond suggests adding glycerin and/or denatured rubbing alcohol to water in the following amounts.

Water Softeners

Our water here is fine as far as drinking goes, but it is “hard.” There is a lot of residue when the water drips from our faucets, and our skin is very dry. My husband would like to invest in a water softener. What kind of effect would a softener have on our health and our vegetation?
—Mara Beardmore, Sunnyvale, CA

Water softeners work by exchanging molecules of the “hardness mineral” (usually limestone) for sodium or potassium molecules. The result is softer water, but—because sodium is usually the first choice—it also contains more salt. If you drink a lot of water (and you should for good health) softened water can add a lot of unwanted refined salt to your diet. Use potassium instead of sodium or install a reverse osmosis water filter to remove the sodium and practically anything else in the water.

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