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Agricultural Mulch Film & Fumigants

27
May
posted by Mike               filed under Health & Fitness, Shopping

Agricultural mulch film, made of polyethylene film, is used in the agricultural industry to cover the soil used for crops, which modifies soil temperature, prevents moisture loss, reduces weed growth, and improves crop yield and precocity. Crops are able to grow through slits or holes in the film, which come in a variety of colors due to the different affects of crop growth with each film color. Drip irrigation is generally used in conjunction with mulch film to water the crop.

There are many benefits to using agricultural mulch film. Agricultural film changes soil temperature allowing earlier planting dates and encouraging faster growth early in the growing season. The film reduces moisture loss from the soil due to evaporation and prevents leaching of fertilizers. Since the agricultural mulch film covers the soil, contact between fruits or vegetables and the soil is reduced, resulting in cleaner produce and decreased fruit rot. Agricultural mulch film also reduces soil compaction, weed growth, and root damage, leading to an improvement in the overall growth of the produce.

Mulch film can also be used as a barrier to keep fumigants – including the highly toxic fumigant, methyl bromide – in the soil, in order to control weeds, fungi and nematodes. Methyl bromide, also known as bromomethane, was a widely used fumigant up until the early 2000s. Although methyl bromide is very effective (mainly used in strawberry, nursery/greenhouse, grape, carrot and almond crops), production and use of methyl bromide is now restricted by the Montreal Protocol due to its ozone-depleting properties.

Not only does methyl bromide cause ozone depletion, but studies have shown that the chemical compound also has serious health risks. Exposure to methyl bromide has been linked to respiratory, kidney, and neurological effects, even death in humans. As of January 1, 2005, methyl bromide was phased out except for critical use exemptions agreed to by the Montreal Protocol Parties. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explains these critical exemptions include “lack of availability of methyl bromide for that use would result in a significant market disruption” and “there are no technically and economically feasible alternatives or substitutes available to the user that are acceptable from the standpoint of environment and public health and are suitable to the crops and circumstances of the nomination.”

Even though some agricultural growers feel methyl bromide is expensive and unnecessary, some have urged that it is essential for their crops. In 2007, the EPA revealed about 27,000 tons of methyl bromide was used annually in North America. The United Nations Methyl Bromide Technical Options Committee agreed that alternatives to methyl bromide are available, or at an advanced stage of development, and only minimal crop losses are expected after phasing out methyl bromide completely. Some alternatives to methyl bromide include fungicides, soilless potting mixes, high density plantings, compost, steam, and dazomet, a soil pesticide.

PolyPak America manufactures agricultural mulch film made from 100% prime polyethylene. Our DURA-Soft™ (SIF semi- impermeable film)poly mulch film is standard agricultural film, while our POLY-Shield™(VIF – Virtually Impermeable film) agricultural mulch film provides a fumigation barrier – both of our specialty mulch films feature UV absorbers and stabilizers, extending durability and providing a full season of UV protection. Our high strength agricultural plastic films are available in clear, black, black/white, tinted green and multi-layered structures, with a center guide strip available for easy lay down. Our agricultural mulch films are compatible with fumigants, including methyl bromide, commonly used in the strawberry industry.  As the industry moves away from methyl bromide PolyPak America is developing new films (TIF – Totally Impermeable films) to meet the ever changing needs of the grower.


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4 Reasons to Consider Tungsten Wedding Bands

20
May
posted by Mike               filed under Shopping

Tungsten wedding bands are the hot item in the wedding ring market. This beautiful, silvery grey metal offers a lot as a wedding band. Here are four reasons you might want one:

1. Tungsten wedding bands have heft, meaning they feel solid and strong. Men tend to particularly love tungsten wedding bands because other bands feel cheap and not as substantial in comparison.

2. Tungsten weddings bands are strong. Tungsten wedding bands are practically corrosion proof. It is an extremely hard element that is practically impossible to scratch. Tungsten wedding bands stay looking new for years and you don’t have to worry about removing it to save it from nicks and scratches. With tungsten wedding bands, you can go about your daily life without worrying about damaging your wedding ring.

3. Tungsten wedding bands are beautifully designed. Jewelry designers love working with the beauty of tungsten. In its pure form, tungsten is white to steel gray in color. Once mixed with other alloys like carbon, it takes on a lustrous silver-grayish hue. Tungsten wedding bands also maintain their true color. They are biologically inert metals that don’t change, even when exposed to harsh elements like the sun, sea water and/or various cosmetics. Jewelry designers are creating amazing designs from this gorgeous metal. At over 30 steps, the process of making a tungsten carbide wedding band has been compared to the shaping and polishing of a diamond. Skilled designers take the process a step further, inlaying tungsten carbide rings with precious metals like gold, platinum and sliver. The beauty of tungsten carbide rings created in this fashion is what has excited many jewelry makers. Many say that they haven’t been as excited about a metal in along time.

4. Tungsten wedding bands are hypoallergenic. Many people are allergic to various types of jewelry. Generally speaking, tungsten is one of the safest metals around, particularly when it contains nickel. Chemically inert, nickel-binded tungsten carbide is hypoallergenic. It won’t oxidize, or cause rashes or other skin irritations. For these reasons, practically anyone can wear it without experiencing adverse side effects.

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Stay Warm with a Patio Heater

12
May
posted by Mike               filed under Shopping

A patio is one of the most relaxing parts of a house. There’s a certain comfort that you can find in a patio that isn’t available anywhere else. Kicking back in a patio seat with an ice-cold lemonade in hand and the smells of barbecue wafting over from the grill – life doesn’t get much better than that. A lot of the time, as winter and colder weather approaches, the patio is the part of the house that starts collecting dust as weather conditions and climate heavily reduce the comfort of use. If you want to open up your patio for all-weather use, consider buying a patio heater. A patio heater allows you to enjoy the outdoors by keeping the area warm and cozy when you’re enjoying the outdoors in chilly weather.

A patio heater is a heating unit designed to provide warmth to patios. There are a variety of types. You can buy a portable patio heater that can be easily moved and used in other rooms as you see fit. You can install a permanent patio heater. If your patio area isn’t too big, you can use tabletop patio heaters. Patio heaters are fueled by propane gas, natural gas or electricity, and accessibility to these fuels may be the determinant to which type of patio heater you choose.

Patio heaters need regular maintenance for effective functioning and higher efficiency. You can opt for a maintenance contract and get professional assistance for your patio heater. Make sure you buy a patio heater with required capacity depending on the size of your patio to make the best use of your money. It is important to get a heater with all the right safety features to prevent accidents. Heaters have high voltage flowing through them. Any accidental contact can cause serious injury/burning, so make sure you only purchase the patio heaters that adhere to the proper safety guidelines.

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IsoCool Accessories Optimize Your Sleep Experience

10
May
posted by Mike               filed under Health & Fitness, Shopping

IsoCool™ sleep accessories have been causing a stir amongst wellness professionals because of their innovation to the sleep process.

IsoCool™ accessories use Outlast Adaptive Comfort material designed to adjust to the body’s ever-changing temperature. The Phase Change Material (PCM) beads detect the body’s temperature and adjust to compensate, ensuring a regulated and comfortable sleep experience. All IsoCool™ accessories use the highest available concentration of PCM beads for optimal effect. The fiber pillow and mattress pad both feature a hypoallergenic spiral-spun polyester filling with full-body support. The contour memory foam pillow feature visco-elastic foam that adjusts to the contours of your head and neck to help alleviate pressure. All of the IsoCool™ products are perfectly complimented by an exquisite 300-thread count, 100% cotton removable cover.

Research has proven that sleep plays an integral role in the human body’s ability to function healthily. Consistently lacking sleep affects everything from mood, memory and concentration to the natural processes of the human body. Recent research suggests that consistently sleeping less than 7 hours a day can significantly shorten a person’s lifespan. A regular amount of “deep” sleep is necessary for proper bodily maintenance. IsoCool™ accessories help induce the most comfortable atmosphere that is key to optimizing sleep, increasing productivity and establishing a state of well-being.

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NewAir comes out with the Most Compact Portable Air Conditioner Available

30
Apr
posted by Mike               filed under Shopping, Technology

There has been a recent increase in portable air conditioners in the past few years. NewAir’s newest offering, the AC-10000E, incorporates the latest cooling technology to provide an efficient, lightweight product that is the most compact portable air conditioner available to consumers. It’s perfect for adding spot or supplemental cooling to areas like small bedrooms, office cubicles and personal spaces. It’s considered the most compact lightweight model in its cooling range. It’s designed with stylish and contemporary high-tech and modern look that blends with any sort of décor you already have established in your home.

The NewAir AC-10000E comes equipped with rolling casters so that you can move the unit easily from room to room, effectively and efficiently cooling whatever areas you spend the most time in. It is ideal for use in areas with limited floor space. The unit itself has a cooling capacity range of 10,000 BTUs per hour, which is good enough to cool most small or average sized rooms. The unit’s built-in air purification system collects airborne particles and helps to eliminate odors. An easy-to-read digital LCD display allows for monitoring, and the programmable 12-hour timer allows users to save energy by setting the portable AC unit to only operate when necessary.

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Tungsten vs. Titanium Wedding Bands

26
Apr
posted by Mike               filed under Shopping

Tungsten definitely does not have the fanfare that titanium might get but when you look at the cold, hard facts, tungsten definitely has a leg up. Consider the comparison:

Titanium occurs naturally in the earth’s crust and can be found in a lot of places, which is why it is between the sixth and ninth most abundant element on earth, depending on the source.

Titanium was positively identified in 1795, given the atomic number 22 and named after the Titans, who are Greek gods. It is used in jewelry because it resists corrosion and has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal.

Tungsten, on the other hand, has all of those positive elements of titanium and then some. Tungsten, when combined with carbon to create tungsten carbide, becomes an extremely hard and dense metal. It’s an element that has the highest melting point of all metal, topping out at just around 6100 degrees Fahrenheit. In the form of tungsten carbide, it becomes four times harder than titanium, two times harder than steel and practically impossible to scratch.

With resistance to scratching and corrosion, tungsten bands will retain that new look for an entire lifetime. Even if you work at a very hands on job that exposes your wedding band to a high amount of daily wear, your tungsten wedding band will still have that fresh store-bought look. A beautiful silver-grey metal, anyone who has seen a tungsten carbide wedding band in person will vouch for its beauty and versatility as a precious metal.

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The Sleep Better Store Now Offers Free Return Shipping

20
Apr
posted by Mike               filed under Health & Fitness, Shopping

The Sleep Better Store has just amped up their risk-free 30 day trial by additionally offering free shipping both ways. If you’ve ever shipped anything, you’ll realize that shipping an item as large as a bed can cost hundreds of dollars. This unbelievable new offer bolsters an already incredible risk free trial. The default 30 day trial, backed by a 20 year warranty and low price guarantee and now with free shipping both ways is hard to beat.

Philip Krim, CEO of The Sleep Better Store beds, says, “We want to provide our customers the best sleep number style bed at the most affordable price”. The Sleep Better Store provides the highest quality adjustable air sleep system beds with single and dual air chamber options. The beds feature a whisper quiet pump with 2 digital remotes, a 20 year warranty that prorates after 5 years, sling rails technology that keeps the edges of the bed from bowing out and cross baffled air chambers that give the beds more support.

The Sleep Better Store is so confident that their customers will be so satisfied with their mattress comparable to the sleep number beds that they now offer free return shipping.

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Properly Store Wine with a Portable Wine Cellars

13
Apr
posted by Mike               filed under Shopping

Did you know that warm temperatures cause wine to age and taste bad? University of California, Davis researchers discovered that every 18°F increase in temperature can double the rate of a wine’s chemical changes. For this reason, it is always good to store your wine at a consistent temperature of 45°F-70°F. Red wines and white wines require different storage and serving temperatures because they have different chemical attributes. Here in the states, people tend to drink their white wines too cold and their red wines too warm. If white wines are served colder than recommended, the aromas and flavors of the wine will be minimized and you don’t get full enjoyment. White wines should be stored and served at 45°F-50°F for optimal taste of your white wine. Red wines are best enjoyed between 50°F and 60°F because “room temperature” red wine can cause the alcohol to produce an unpleasant bite on the palate.

It is also important to remember to store your wine in a dark, vibration-free location where the wine bottle can be stored on its side, so that the cork stays moist. Vibrations are thought to negatively affect the evolution of wine and a dried cork can cause oxidation, which causes chemical changes and deterioration to the wine. Another factor you should avoid, is storing your wine near other food items with strong odors. Wine picks up the aromas of items stored nearby.

It is highly recommended to invest in a portable wine cellar to keep your wine at the proper temperature year round. During the summer, a portable wine cellar is crucial to keeping your wine at its peak serving condition. There are a lot of energy efficient portable wine cellars available at reasonable prices, with wine bottle capacities varying by model. Some wine cellars even have two independently controlled temperature zones, so that you can store your red and white wines in the same unit. Portable wine cellars normally come vibration-free and run silently, but it is always good to make sure that the wine cellar you choose has this feature.

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Control Humidity with a Dehumidifier

8
Apr
posted by Mike               filed under Health & Fitness, Shopping

Where you live determines your relative level of humidity. Living in Southern California now, I’ve rarely dealt with high levels of humidity as the climate of So Cal is generally dry, but growing up on the east coast in New England showed me the opposite end of the spectrum. I remember going outside to a wall of humidity that left my body feeling sticky and uncomfortable. I do not look back on my summers growing up very fondly because of that. Additionally, high levels of relative humidity (50% or more) in the air can lead to fungal or mold growth in homes that prove a significant health risk and can cause problems like asthma and allergies. High humidity is also an ideal living environment for termites, pests that can cause significant damage to your household. A good way to control the humidity in your home is with electrical appliances known as dehumidifiers.

There are two types of dehumidifiers: mechanical and desiccant. Mechanical dehumidifiers draw moist air over a coil and fan. In areas of high humidity and warmer temperatures, mechanical dehumidifiers have a more profound effect. Desiccant dehumidifiers work by exposing a desiccative substance to an air stream with high relative humidity. They are ideal for use in areas with low humidity levels and lower temperatures.

Most areas only need a desiccant dehumidifier, as large area with humidity issues require a mechanical dehumidifier that uses compressors and other technology. Dehumidifiers are the perfect appliance for you if you want to bring about a healthier and more comfortable living environment.

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Sleep Number® Beds Competitor Quickly Gaining Market Share

6
Apr
posted by Mike               filed under Health & Fitness, Shopping

Coming into the year 2010, Sleep Better Store gained market once again thanks to their focus on providing the best product with the best customer service at the highest value. The Sleep Better Store provides high quality, adjustable air beds at a fraction of the price of its main competitor, Select Comfort’s Sleep Number Bed.

Given the present economy, customers value a deal over anything else, but there many health reasons you should opt for a quality bed. Studies have shown that chronic sleep loss is linked to heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and shorter life-spans. Mattresses that are old and uncomfortable contribute to restless sleep and chronic back pain.

The Sleep Better Store has seen a double-digit percentage increase in sales from year to year because they’ve been able to provide a superior product at the most competitive price, and their new customer initiatives (including 90-day risk-free trial period and free shipping to you and back if you decide to return) make trying a Sleep Better Store bed completely hassle-free. Sleep Better Store has also introduced a new video testimonials section where satisfied customers of their sleep systems tout the self-evident virtues of the Sleep Better Store.

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