European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 11, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Batteries go Green by getting the Mercury out by Joy Aschenbach National geographic of is the season to buy batteries not to figure out How to get rid of them. After the holidays Gadget crazy americans grab up the largest percentage of the 2.5 billion household batteries sold in the United states each year.  s not just the need to provide Power for Al the new Holiday gifts that boosts sales of these Small technological wonders that inevitably wind up As toxic trash. Dark Winter weather demands fresh batteries for flashlights and helps put the annual charge into the dry cell Battery Market. More than 90 percent of household batteries Are non rechargeable and most will end up in municipal dumps or incinerators. As the casings decay their potentially toxic contents particularly Mercury and cadmium could leak from landfills and thence sink into underground water supplies. Or the Poison could fall to the ground from incinerator stacks. But batteries by nature capsules of chemicals Are now Greener than they be Ever been. Manufacturers Are taking the heavy metals out of Many of them. To promote environmentally Correct batteries a number of states have banned the use of Mercury. A handful of cities and counties Are encouraging Safe disposal by collecting dead batteries by the bucketful. Eve ready s Energizer alkaline Battery boasts Mercury not  Duracell too has re engineered its alkaline batteries to eliminate the substance. The world s two biggest Battery manufacturers say that Means that their most popular types of household batteries contain no added Mercury apart from Trace elements that naturally occur in any Battery. We believe it s smarter to avoid harmful materials in the first place rather than worry about disposal later says eve ready s Keith m. Schopp. Button cell batteries like those used in calculators contain the most Mercury. More and More camera batteries Are being made of longer lasting less toxic Lithium. It s better for the environment that the Mercury is out but that does t tuesday january 11, 1994 National geographic Latex gloves protect a worker from potentially corrosive used batteries at a Center in suburban Washington that extracts metals from the batteries. Mean batteries Are innocuous says Juliet Rogers of the new York based natural resources defense Council. There Are still metals in there that Are going to be leached  like the disposable batteries the rechargeable varieties used in camcorders Power tools and portable vacuum cleaners now contain less than .025 percent Mercury. T s better for the environment that the Mercury is out but that does t mean batteries Are innocuous Juliet Rogers natural resources defense Council but the cadmium in the rechargeable has increased Rogers says except for a new Type made by Radovac that is alkaline instead of Nickel cadmium. Batteries that can be recharged 300 to 1,000 times have reduced Landfill waste. But when eventually discarded Many still sealed within the product they put hundreds of tons of highly toxic cadmium into the environment every year. V some environmentalists say that no Battery of any Type should enter the waste Stream. But because of the expense and logistical problems very few batteries Are recycled nationwide Federal hazardous waste regulations exempt household trash which is governed at the municipal solid waste level you and i can throw out the exact same Battery at Home that businesses can to says Tracy Bone a scientist at the environmental Protection Agency. Recycling used alkaline batteries is not yet a viable economic alternative says Duracell s Jim Donahue. Collecting them and burying them in quantities of thousands is worse than throwing them out in the everyday household waste  some local jurisdictions such As Montgomery county md., a Washington suburb collect discarded batteries at several drop off centers and Send them to a contractor who extracts the dangerous metals and trashes the casings. The county s collection Campaign covers All toxic corrosive flammable or reactive substances and materials including Lead heavy automobile batteries. To your health cholesterol in kids the peril of raw eggs q by Simeon Margolis the Baltimore Sun i am taking medication for High cholesterol and wonder whether my 7-year-old son should have his cholesterol checked. Many paediatricians include a measurement of cholesterol As one of their Standard blood tests. If the paediatrician has t already done so have your son s cholesterol checked soon. There is about a 50 percent Chance that he also has High cholesterol which can be inherited by half the offspring of an affected father or Mother. You should be aware that the cholesterol value is considered abnormal at lower Levels in children than in adults. While a cholesterol below 200 is desirable in an adult the expert panel on blood cholesterol Levels in children and adolescents says that a level of less than 170 is desirable for children and teens. High cholesterol Levels increase the risk for premature thickening and narrowing of Large arteries. Although the consequences of atherosclerosis usually do not begin before Middle age the accumulation of cholesterol in arteries begins in childhood. If your child s level is More than 170, he should eat a cholesterol lowering diet. You Are probably already following a diet Low in saturated fat and cholesterol to reduce your own cholesterol put him on a similar one. Should i pay attention to my wife when she says that we should not order Caesar salads in restaurants the easy answer is to Tell you that you should always listen to what your wife says. She May not be right on every occasion but it is True that Caesar salad dressing made with raw eggs has been responsible for Many outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness due to contamination of eggs with Salmonella bacteria. These bacteria pose no threat when eggs Are properly cooked but Salmonella May infect the intestine if you eat foods containing raw or undercooked eggs. Such foods include not Only Caesar salad dressing but also Hollan Daise sauce and homemade ice Cream and eggnog. Commercial eggnog is Safe because it is made with pasteurized eggs the risk of infection is not great since it is estimated that Only one in 10,000 eggs contains Salmonella. Simeon Margolis is a professor at Johns Hopkins school of Medicine in Baltimore. Eggs can carry Salmonella bacteria. The stars and stripes 15