The Story of Stuff Project

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.

WHEN:  Thursday, July 22nd, 2010, 11:30 am-12:30pm

WHERE:  In front of Toys R US-Times Square, NYC (44th and Broadway)

PARTICIPATE IN: Live Toy Testing; Leafleting; Return Toxic Toys to TOYS R US

RSVP:  Mike Schade – mike@chej.org or 212.964.3680

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.

Brought to you by the Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ), The Teamsters, Clean New York and other health and environmental leaders.

***If you aren’t in NY and want to start a local campaign against PVC producers or vendors, check out; www.chej.org/BESAFE/pvc

US Social Forum – 2nd Edition of Hoodwinked in the Hothouse available in Detroit!

Rising Tide North America and Carbon Trade Watch are pleased to announce the release of the 2nd edition of Hoodwinked in the Hothouse: False Solutions to Climate Change.

The publication is a close-to-comprehensive guidebook to bogus climate change solutions, covering more than 20 technologies and policy approaches pushed by corporations and industry. It includes contributions from the Energy Justice Network, The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, ETC Group, the Indigenous Environmental Network, Movement Generation, and International Rivers.

A more formal announcement and press release, along with details for ordering the booklet by mail, and a link to the online version of the booklet in both English and Spanish will be forthcoming in July, but for now we wanted to send a special announcement to everyone attending the US Social Forum that you can pick up a copy of the booklet here in Detroit.

Here’s how you can get the booklet in Detroit:

Stopping by our table at the USSF in the Cobo Hall.
At the “Direct Action Strategies for Climate Justice and Community Resilience” workshop we are co-sponsoring with Movement Generation, the Ruckus Society, Zero Waste Detroit, and the Mobilization for Climate Justice West (Thursday, Jun 24, 10:00am Cobo Hall DO-7A).
At the EcoJustice PMA (Friday, June 25, 1-5:30pm in Cobo Hall D3-28).
At the Tar Sands PMA (Wednesday, Jun 23 2010, 1:00pm  Cobo Hall: W2-70)

We’ll probably have them at many other climate justice oriented workshops as well.

We are actively seeking individuals who would be able to take several hundred copies or more for distribution outside the US and Canada; please let me know if you might be able to help.

We also intend to have a limited number of the Spanish language version of Hoodwinked available; please contact me for more details.

Lastly, if you are interested in taking a bunch of booklets (ie, more than 25) please let me know in advance if possible (or visit our table in Cobo Hall) so we can make arrangements.

Many thanks!
~Brian, on behalf of Rising Tide North America
–

Rising Tide North America
Confronting the root causes of climate change
www.risingtidenorthamerica.org

“If we hold up banners saying climate change kills and we want more government action, the very power groups driving the destruction will cheer and might give us even more carbon finance or agrofuels. Instead, we need to mobilise against the false solutions and for real, meaningful actions that will actually cut emissions and deliver climate justice.”

Dear Friends,

Tomorrow night, June 2^nd, 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.

Four Northeastern states have set aside or spent between $228,874 and $527,107 a year for bottled water, according to a new report released today by Corporate Accountability International. Getting States Off the Bottle surveys bottled water spending in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Pennsylvania – all known for their high quality tap water.

The findings come as public water systems face a $24 billion annual shortfall and during financial times in which states can ill afford to spend public dollars on a non-essential product like bottled water.

Watch The Story of Bottled Water and then visit our partner Corporate Accountability International’s site to tell your Governor: no more bottled water on my dime.

From the Huffington Post:

“In honor of World Water Day, this Wednesday, March 24th at 8pm EST, HuffPost Blogger Kerry Trueman will be holding a live Vokle chat with Story Of Stuff creator Annie Leonard and Elizabeth Royte, author of Bottlemania: How Water Went On Sale and Why We Bought It.

They will be talking all about the bottled water craze, the importance of water and how our most precious resource is being threatened — and they will be taking YOUR questions.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out Annie Leonard’s blog post and newest video, The Story Of Bottled Water.”

Check back HERE to watch the live webcast at 8PM EST on Wednesday, March 24th

Remember in The Story of Stuff film, I talked about dioxin, a compound which is among the most toxic manmade chemicals known to science?

Dioxin is really nasty stuff. It causes a range of health problems, including cancer.  Dioxin is not created intentionally; no one sets up to actually make this super toxic poison. Instead, it is created as a byproduct and then released from a number of industrial processes including  burning garbage in incinerators, bleaching paper pulp with chlorine and the production of products as diverse as PVC plastic, pesticides, and Agent Orange. Because dioxin is connected to so many of today’s industrial processes, it is widely distributed in our communities where it builds up the food chain and eventually reaches each of our bodies.

Right now, those of us in the U.S. have a unique opportunity to  protect our communities from dioxin. (Of course, we also need to protect communities everywhere from dioxin and a good place to start on that front is IPEN, which is working on a global treaty to ban the most toxic chemicals, including dioxin.)

While preventing new dioxin is a better long term solution than cleaning it up after it has been produced and released, we still do need to clean up the stuff that is already contaminating our communities. The sooner, the better. This week, the U.S. EPA is seeking comments on its proposed cleanup guidelines for dioxin and the public comment period ends on Friday February 26th.

The EPA’s guidelines are a step in the right direction, but dioxin can be toxic at even very low levels of exposure, and that’s why we’re asking for your help to press EPA to develop stronger cleanup guidelines. We’re up against some of the biggest chemical polluters in the world – corporations like Dow Chemical.  We don’t have their big bucks but we have one thing they don’t — people power, people like you.

Please send a quick email, urging EPA to strengthen its proposed dioxin clean up guidelines, here.   Public comments are due Friday, February 26th, so please act this week.

There are many organizations working on stopping dioxin at source. In the U.S.  contact the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. Internationally contact IPEN. And if, like me, burning garbage in incinerators – which destroys resources and releases dioxin – makes you especially furious, contact GAIA to get involved in promoting safe and fair alternatives.

But first, send a quick message to EPA to ask them to make the strongest possible clean up standards for dioxin. Remember, public comment period ends on Friday, February 26th. While dioxin contamination may last forever, the public comment period doesn’t.

Thanks!
Annie