Going Green Has Never Been Easier!
Aug 25, 2009 10:13 pm US/Eastern
EcoZone: EcoChamber Empowers "Green" Biz
MIAMI (CBS4) ―
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Tia Diaz-Balart launched EcoChamber to empower eco-friendly companies.
Roldan Torress/CBS
The wife of U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart is inspired to work toward a greener future because of something that happened to her as a girl, which almost claimed her life.
Tia Diaz-Balart says when she was young doctors didn't think she would live past the age of 13-years-old after an accidental poisoning. That experience not only had a direct influence on how he lives today, but it has also inspired her to create a new company that is working toward an eco-friendly tomorrow.
Diaz-Balart admits she looks at the environment in a completely different way since the birth of the couple's son Christian.
"I think of his future and think of what kind of world can we leave for him and for his children and all the children around the world," said Diaz-Balart.
Tia recalls when she was just two years old she inhaled some chemical fertilizer fumes as she followed her grandfather around while he attended to the family's lawn. Some of the chemicals used in the fertilizer became embedded in her lung tissue and began to make her very, very sick. Tia said a couple of hours after she started feeling the effects, her mother found her gasping for air in her room.
"She came in and I was rocking in my bed and I was blue, couldn't breathe. She rushed me to the hospital."
That was just the beginning of a long recovery process.
"Anything that was not normal, my lungs would inflame and shut down," said Diaz-Balart. "They would create mucus and collapse and get pneumonia. I was in several comas. Literally every other week I was in the hospital."
Tia said some of the medicine she was given to help her badly stained her teeth so she rarely smiled. She said the doctors knew it was the chemicals in the fertilizer that was making her sick, but they didn't know how to cure her.
"They had literally given up. The told my parents I would not live past 13 and there was nothing else could do for me," said Diaz-Balart.
Desperate for anything that may help their daughter, Tia said her parents sent her to the National Jewish Hospital in Denver, where she lived for a year with other children with similar conditions. Although she still required daily heavy medication and hospitalization at least twice a year, it was a big improvement. In college she became a vegetarian, which changed her life.
"I went from being in the hospital two times a year every year to being a vegetarian, and a healthy vegetarian, and not going in the hospital for 15 years," said Diaz-Balart.
Tia said over the years she learned about organic foods, recycling and other things that are good for the environment. Last year she launched the first ever EcoChamber; a Chamber of Commerce which not only supports companies already doing 'green' things but helps them network with other eco-friendly companies across the globe.
"If we can encourage through the EcoChamber more and more businesses to start taking simple steps that will be better for environment but better for bottom line, that can have a huge impact globally," said Diaz-Balart.
Nearly three dozen business are members of the EcoChamber.
CBS4 anchor Shannon Hori contributed to this report
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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