Surprise, surprise: the big cosmetics companies aren’t such big fans of the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010—legislation introduced yesterday to more strictly regulate their business—or of our new movie. The Personal Care Products Council went so far as to issue a statement calling The Story of Cosmetics a “repugnant and absurd…shockumentary.” Whoa!
There’s a good reason the cosmetics industry doesn’t like all the attention it’s getting: for years, they’ve been largely left alone to decide what’s safe to put in their products. You know, things like lead in lipstick. Neurotoxins in body spray. Carcinogens in baby wash.
Now that’s repugnant!
Yesterday, the industry front group released their own plan for “reforming” cosmetics industry regulation—basically a lame, watered-down version of the kinds of changes that would really help to make our products safer and healthier.
To learn more about the Safe Cosmetics Act of 2010, click here, or check out Stacy’s blog to learn more about the industry press conference.
Now is a critical time to really turn up the volume on personal care product safety and to demand that Congress forces cosmetics companies to get the neurotoxins and carcinogens out of our personal care products.
We got a great start yesterday: thanks to you, more than 50,000 people have watched The Story of Cosmetics over the last 24 hours and thousands more have taken action to make sure we get these nasty toxics out of our products. Yay!
In the next week, we want at least 100,000 more people to watch the film and add their voices to the call to clean up the cosmetics industry.
Will you help us get there?
Just keep doing what you’re doing—posting the video on your Facebook or Twitter, forwarding it to friends, family and colleagues, writing about it on your blog, shouting the url from the rooftops! It also really helps when you comment on blog posts that mention the film.
And of course, make sure that you visit the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics website to sign a letter to your Member of Congress. Make your voice count!
For folks in the greater NYC area, join CHEJ, the Teamsters, Clean New York, and other health and environmental leaders at a press event this coming Thursday at Toys R Us’ flagship store in Times Square, NYC…
TOXIC TOYS R US?: JOIN PARENTS, WORKERS, OTHER HEALTH AND JUSTICE ACTIVISTS IN HOLDING THE TOY RETAILER ACCOUNTABLE.
HELP US TAKE ACTION!!! TELL TOYS R US:
End the toxic toy story. Label PVC presence on all toys. Agree to a complete phase-out of PVC.
WHY? In 2008, under pressure from parents and other people concerned about toxic toys, Toys R’ US, the largest specialized toy retailer in America, announced a new policy to reduce polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic, phthalates, and lead in children’s and infant toys.
The company says it is reducing PVC use and is moving towards a goal of offering PVC-free products. They also announced that by the end of 2008, juvenile products must be produced without the addition of phthalates.
Unfortunately, independent testing this June 2010 has revealed that Toys R’ US continues to sell brand new toys laced with PVC, the poison plastic, while not providing information to the parents and the public at large as to the types of plastic used.
Chemicals released in PVC’s lifecycle have been found to cause impaired child development and birth defects, cancer, disruption of the endocrine system, reproductive impairment, neurotoxicity and immune system suppression.
It’s no surprise that Toys R’ Us is selling unsafe products. After all, Kohlberg Kravitz and Roberts (KKR), the private equity firm that owns Toys R’ Us is out to make a profit at anybody’s expense. They even abuse workers’ rights at their food service company, US Foodservice.
What we’ve learned is that we can’t rely on hazy promises for self-regulation by Toys R US top managers.
The Center for Environmental Health & Justice and the Teamsters Union are therefore commissioning a Report, to be delivered to Congress before Christmas, on Toys’ R US Toys Safety Policy and Practices, with a special focus on its failure to phase out-PVC.
Toys R’ US, with its unique brand recognition and massive operations carries a great deal of responsibility, it is unconscionable that it should continue to peddle toys made with toxic plastic, while keeping parents, caregivers and communities in the dark.
HELP US TAKE ACTION!!! TELL TOYS R US
End the toxic toy story. Label PVC presence on all toys. Agree to a complete phase-out of PVC.
It’s probably one of the most common questions that we get asked at the Story of Stuff Project: “How do you all stay so positive in the face of (insert horrifying ecological or social problem here)?”
In Annie’s case, we think it might be chemical, but for the rest of the Story of Stuff crew, a huge reason we keep coming to the office everyday is the opportunity to connect with people around the world who are inventing Another Way. Let’s face it; it’s hard to be Debbie Downer when the folks around you are so inspiring.
My most recent brush with solutions has me all a flutter (in addition to confirming that I am an absolute and total geek).
This July I spent the better part of a week in Lowell, Massachusetts at the Lowell Center’s Sustainability Action Summer Institute. The training was a gathering of a special kind of nerd (myself included) who is fascinated by the toxicity of various chemical compounds in cleaning products and thinks that brominated flame retardants in cell phones makes for stimulating dinner conversation. Needless to say, I had a great time.
I think I found the week so nourishing mainly because the entire meeting was solutions oriented. Here was a room full of policy wonks, academics, scientists, foundation representatives, and sustainability advocates who really understand the disastrous consequences of our super toxic, chemical-laden culture for people and the planet. If ever there was a group of people who could tell you how x-chemical causes cancer and y-chemical is killing off all the fish and z-chemical results in birth defects this was it.
Yet for the five days that I was in Lowell, the conversation was almost exclusively about what was being done to change the landscape and bring us closer to the kind of future we want: debriefs on state and national policies—like the Safer Chemicals Act—to regulate the use of toxic chemicals; an orientation on the Pharos database that helps activists study up on toxic chemicals and helps green builders make safer and more sustainable materials choices; talking through frameworks for sustainable products and alternatives assessments; and exploring the groundbreaking work being done to green the electronics industry.
One real highlight was a dinner with John Warner, one of the fathers of green chemistry. Warner inspired me with the incredible possibility that creativity and innovation hold for transforming entire industries to be safer and more sustainable. Even if less geeky sectors of the population may not be as enthralled as I am by the possibility of dry chemicals reactions or a database comparing the most sustainable, least toxic resilient flooring options, I think that we can all agree that creativity and innovation are captivating.
To borrow from one of the Lowell Center’s slogans “Natural resources are finite, ideas are not.” And that is a very good thing.
CONCORD, Mass. — Henry David Thoreau was jailed here 164 years ago for refusing to pay taxes while living at Walden Pond. Now the town has Jean Hill to contend with.
Jean Hill has proposed a ban on the sale of bottled water in Concord, which will be reviewed by the state attorney general and could go into effect next January.
Mrs. Hill, an octogenarian previously best known for her blueberry jam, proposed banning the sale of bottled water here at a town meeting this spring. Voters approved, with the intent of making Concord the first town in the nation to strip Aquafina, Poland Spring and the like from its stores.
In orchestrating an outright ban, Mrs. Hill, 82, has achieved something that powerful environmental groups have not even tried. The bottled water industry is not pleased; it has threatened to sue if the ban takes effect as planned on Jan. 1. Officials here have hinted that they might not strictly enforce it, but Mrs. Hill, who described herself as obsessed, said that would only deepen her resolve.
“I’m going to work until I drop on this,” she said. “If you believe in something, you have to persist and you have to have a thick skin.”
Tomorrow night, June 2nd, CNN is airing part one of a two-night special, “Toxic America”, with Dr. Sanjay Gupta at 8 PM. This special investigation highlights Mossville, Louisiana, which is home to more PVC chemical plants than anywhere else in the country.
Below is an excerpt from my book discussing PVC and sample letter you can adapt to send to PVC producers, stores who sell products containing PVC or the PVC industry’s lobby group in Washington, DC. You can also learn more about PVC and get more ideas for taking action from the Center for Health, Environment & Justice’s campaign, PVC: The Poison Plastic.
“Even with the best of intentions, I find that PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic still sneaks its way into my house occasionally. Whether it is in kids’ toys received as gifts from well-meaning relatives to that horrible child-sized Barbie pink raincoat that was left at our home to products in which I didn’t recognize the PVC until I opened the package and smelled that telltale smell, there it is. Sometimes PVC is in the product and sometimes it is the packaging. The problem with PVC is that once we have it, we’re stuck. We can’t give it to a thrift store, where someone who may be unaware of its hazards would bring it home, potentially exposing her family. We can’t throw it away, since PVC releases toxics when landfilled or, worse, incinerated. So what to do? I stick this junk in an envelope or box and send it back to the retailer, the producer, or, in cases in which I can’t identify either, the Vinyl Institute, which is the PVC industry’s lobby group in Washington, D.C., along with an explanation and a request to stop selling, making, and advocating for the poison plastic. If I am returning a product I purchased, I always ask for a refund and donate the money to an organization working to ban PVC. If you want more information on identifying PVC in consumer products and joining campaigns to get rid of this poison plastic, please visit www.besafenet.com/pvc.
Here’s a letter that you’re welcome to adapt for your own use. Share it with friends. Perhaps if stores get enough of this back in the mail, they’ll join the many retailers and producers who have agreed to stop using and selling PVC.”
Click HERE for the PVC sample letter that you can send along.
If you live in the Inner Sunset in San Francisco, here’s an event you might want to check out this Saturday.
FREE Book Blast, Saturday, April 10th
NW Corner of 6th & Irving
12p – 5p
FREE books, magazines, and even books-on-tape.
From the community organizers:
All items at this first-ever Inner Sunset event will be FREE to all. You are welcome to take away any books, magazines, or books-on-tape that you want!
This is NOT a charity event. This is NOT a swap. There are NO funds raised by this. NO money will be exchanged… It is our neighborhood’s effort to recycle books. It is simply books FROM those who donate, TO those who wish to take them. It is a completely free event, supported by volunteers with our particular Inner Sunset community spirit!
We will be offering kids’ books, encyclopedias, magazines, travel books, paperbacks, cookbooks, books-on-tape, coffee-table books, puzzle books, dictionaries, foreign-language and maps.
Books may be left in a sheltered area AT ANY TIME at 1297 6th Ave/Irving.
Leftover books will be donated to the SF Public Library for their annual fundraiser.
Today is the official Martin Luther King Day in the United States, chosen to commemorate Dr. King’s birthday, which is actually January 15th. In the U.S., it’s a real federal holiday, with banks and post offices and schools closed to honor this outspoken advocate for social justice.
Last Friday, the final school day before Martin Luther King Day, I passed a multi-ethnic group of school children, holding signs with King’s face in one hand and holding another child’s hand in the other. Led by their teacher, they were sweetly marching down Martin Luther King Way in downtown Berkeley. Last Wednesday, I went to an event at Martin Luther King Middle School, a beautiful school with top notch facilities and programs led by racially diverse staff for its racially diverse student body. At my daughter’s school, a visiting 7 year old student from Italy, whose English was not quite fluent, stood up and recited the some lines from King’s “I have a dream” speech which, he said, is studied in Italian grade schools. Wow, “I have a dream” in Italian grade schools? Black and white kids holding hands and walking down a major street named after Martin Luther King? An excellent public school, even named after Dr. King, for kids of all colors? A visitor to parts of this planet, if staying only briefly, might think we’ve overcome racism and social injustices since the time of Martin Luther King.
I wish it were so. Sadly, on so many fronts – including the environment – we have far to go.
When it comes to the distribution of environmental goods and harm, huge disparities still exist between communities of people with white skin and those with skin that isn’t white.
This reality, often called environmental racism, was first brought to national attention in the U.S. though the groundbreaking report, “Toxic Waste and Race in the United States,” published by the United Church of Christ in 1987. This was the first study to solidly document that race is the most significant factor when siting hazardous waste facilities nationwide. Race. Not geological stability or proximity to groundwater or any number of other criteria we might think would top the list when figuring out where to put a toxic waste site. The data in this report – for example, evidence that showed that three out of every five African-Americans and Hispanic Americans lived in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites – was shocking.
But you know what is even more shocking? In the past twenty years, the problem hasn’t been solved and, in some cases, is getting worse!
In 2007, twenty years after the release of the first report, the UCC released Toxic Waste and Race at Twenty, 1987 – 2007, which said: “Race continues to be an independent predictor of where hazardous wastes are located, and it is a stronger predictor than income, education and other socioeconomic indicators. People of color now comprise a majority in neighborhoods with
commercial hazardous waste facilities.”
The fact that 20 years later, environmental racism persists and, in fact, has increased is shameful. Of course, the answer to environmental racism is not some sort of “equitable pollution” in which we all share the toxic burden equally; the answer is to clean up our production processes and environmental governance so that no one-regardless of age or race or income, regardless of if they are living now or in generations to come-has to subsidize toxic processes and products. Period.
Martin Luther King said, “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. “
I’d like to suggest that today not be a day off, but a day on . A day on which we devote extra time to ending the silence about environmental racism and join the growing global movement for environmental justice. Read the United Church of Christ’s Toxic Waste and Race reports and tell your friends, your neighbors, write to your local paper and elected officials. Let’s make sure that another twenty years doesn’t pass with this injustice unstopped.
Dr King also said “We must work unceasingly to uplift this nation that we love to a higher destiny, to a higher plateau of compassion, to a more noble expression of humanness.” That higher destiny must include a healthy and safe environment for all people, regardless of their income, race, religion, or really anything.
There are many organizations in the United States, as well as around the world, working to promote environmental justice and to transform production process away from toxic chemicals. To find some organizations near you, check out the list at Story of Stuff and call one to find out how you can get involved.
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