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Senator Chuck Schumer: Get Toxic Phthalates Out of Children’s School Supplies

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Senator Chuck Schumer speaking at news conference on phthalates in children's school supplies. CHEJ's Mike Schade standing to the left. Photo: Kacey Anisa Stamats

Yesterday was a proud day for me.

You see, I had the privilege and honor to stand shoulder to shoulder with U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, one of the most powerful Senators in America, to shine the light on hidden toxic chemicals lurking in children’s vinyl back-to-school supplies.

CHEJ and Senator Schumer partnered together to release the new report I authored, Hidden Hazards: Toxic Chemicals Inside Children’s Vinyl Back-to-School Supplies.

Our new report, co-sponsored by the Empire State Consumer Project, found children’s vinyl school supplies are chock full of toxic phthalates, chemicals banned in toys that have been linked to birth defects and asthma, chemicals that have no place in our school supplies. Chemicals manufactured by corporations like Exxon Mobil and Eastman Chemical.

“School supplies are supposed to help our children with their education, they shouldn’t be harming their health.  We don’t allow high levels of these toxic chemicals in children’s toys and we certainly shouldn’t allow them in back-to-school products. When kids take their lunch to school this fall, they shouldn’t be carrying it in a lunchbox laden with toxic chemicals.” — US Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY)

You can read the Senator’s press release he issued here, and watch this great TV story on Channel 7 Eyewitness News.

Our new investigation shows for the first time that popular vinyl school supplies contain levels of toxic phthalates as high as 69 times over the federal ban on toys.  80% of children’s back to school supplies we sampled contained phthalates, and 75% of them contained levels so high, it would be illegal for companies to sell them if they were toys.

Why are these chemicals banned in toys, but allowed in our school supplies?

It’s enough to make any parent furious.

“As a mom, I am horrified to know that Spider-Man and Dora could be associated with highly toxic chemicals,” said Penelope Jagessar Chaffer, Director of the film Toxic Baby. “As a filmmaker who has worked on this issue for years, I know what the effects of these toxic chemicals are on the bodies of children.  As more and more American moms become aware of this issue, it’s clear that we are going to be using our considerable clout as consumers to buy products that are safe for kids.  These products are not.”

These phthalates were found in Spiderman, Dora, and Disney vinyl back-to-school products sold at Kmart, Duane Reade, Payless and other retailers.  All of the products were purchased during the 2012 “back to school” shopping season, and tested by Paradigm Environmental Services in Rochester, NY.

Check out this slideshow of the products we tested:

Coverage of our new Hidden Hazards report is spreading across the country like wildfire.

Check out just some of these stories from:

We coupled the release of this new report with our 2012 Back-to-School Guide to PVC-free School Supplies, to provide tips on how parents can find safer school supplies free of phthalate-laden vinyl.

The awareness we’ve raised so far has been tremendous, but is not enough.

You see, we need YOUR help.

Can you help get the word out about this issue?  Can you share this on Facebook and with parents and teachers you know?  Can you talk about it at your next PTA meeting?

Perhaps more importantly, we need Congress to ACT.  Senator Schumer has co-sponsored the Safe Chemicals Act, which will help protect American families from hidden toxic chemicals in our children’s products.

Can you write to your Senator today, and ask him or her to join Senator Schumer in co-sponsoring the Safe Chemicals Act?

We can’t do it without you!

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Nuclear Reactor Shut Down Because Sea Water Can't Cool?

Why isn’t this front page news! Are people really still questioning Climate Change’s impacts? I’m in shock! The sea water . . . the ocean is too warm to cool the reactors, it’s not even believable. I only believe it because the huge energy corporations would never shut a reactor down unless they had too. Waterford, CT is not alone, a number of reactors across the country have been temporarily shut down in the past few days for safety reasons.

In Waterford, Conn., a reactor at the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant was shut down because the water in Long Island Sound was too warm to cool it. According to the reactor’s safety rules, the cooling water can be no higher than 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The plant has three reactors. The first began operation in 1970 and is now retired. The third was still running yesterday, but engineers have been monitoring the temperature in case that one also needs to be shut down. Temperatures this summer are the warmest we’ve had since operations began here at Millstone,” Dominion spokesman Ken Holt said (Matthew Wald, New York Times, Aug. 13).

At the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in southern Maryland, operators shut down one of the site’s two reactors because a control rod unexpectedly dropped into the reactor core on Sunday.

The plant’s staff is fixing the malfunction, said Kory Raftery, spokesman for operator Constellation Energy Nuclear Group.

Control rods are used to limit the fission taking place among a reactor’s fuel rods. An unplanned insertion of a control rod into a reactor core can “create an imbalance in the fissioning and pose challenges for reactor operators,” Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said. It happens infrequently at U.S. nuclear plants, he said (Timothy Wheeler, Baltimore Sun, Aug. 13).

The Palisades Nuclear Generating Station in Covert Township, Mich., was taken offline after officials discovered a “very small, very minor” cooling water leak. The leak, which has been monitored by officials for a month, is being repaired inside a containment building at the plant. No radioactive materials were released, spokesman Mark Savage said Sunday. “Palisades is taking this conservative measure at this time because of our unrelenting commitment and focus on nuclear safety,” he said in a release. “Palisades will be returned to service when repairs are completed.”

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Backyard Talk

The NEJAC Meeting – Important issues facing Environmental Justice Communities

The National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) had its bi-yearly face-to-face meeting in Arlington, VA this past July. Meeting at the EPA Potomac Yard Conference Center on July 24 & 25, the conference was a public forum where council members as well as other experts and community leaders brought up pressing environmental justice (EJ) issues for review by the council. In addition, workgroups within the council and even the EPA presented reports on their activities involving EJ issues.
NEJAC takes on issues that really matter to environmental justice communities. One of the issues discussed during the meeting was the use of computer softwares for EJ screening. This entails the use of computer programs to aid in the determination of what areas need help. However, it was made clear from the proponents of this technology that it would not present clear-cut distinctions between what was considered an “EJ community “ and what was not. The effectiveness of these softwares to analyze the EJ burden within a community is still questionable at best because EJ factors are examined individually and independently of each other. This means that the cumulative effect of multiple exposures is not acknowledged. For this reason, the picture they create is still not representative of the real EJ burden of a particular community.
Another pressing issue brought up to the NEJAC was the safety of nail salon workers. Many nail salon workers are immigrants who have limited English proficiency and earn small salaries. These workers are exposed to the chemicals in hair and nail products, 89% of which are have not been tested to assess their health effects. In addition to this, several products that claim to be formaldehyde-free or phthalate-free contain significant quantities of these chemicals. The NEJAC was asked to urge the EPA to address this issue in some way in the near future.
A major highlight of the Meeting was a report on EPA’s stance on fracking as an EJ issue. EPA emphasized their stance on exploiting the country’s natural gas reserves responsibly, which is rhetoric and not real action. The presentation explained that fracking wells that do not use diesel fuels as their injection fluids are exempt from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), but did little to justify this exclusion . Furthermore, the EPA representative in charge of giving the report seemed not knowledgeable on the subject and ill equipped to deal with questions because she answered most of them vaguely and by referring those who asked the questions to other people within the EPA.
All in all, that the NEJAC meeting handled topics of great importance to the EJ communities around the US is undisputed. Whether the EPA listens to what the council has t say is still up in the air.
Copies of the documents made available at the meeting can be obtained at http://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/nejac/

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Backyard Talk

Cancer-Free Product Labeling – What Do You Think?

It’s no secret that market campaigns have been very effective in changing corporate behavior when in comes to using toxic chemicals. Some of the world’s largest retailers, corporations and major institutional purchasers like schools have changed their purchasing and chemicals policy to avoid harmful chemicals, like PVC, phthalates, dioxin and bisphenol A (BPA). Consumers have helped move Wal-Mart, Target and K-Mart away from products and packaging with PVC the poison plastic.

The idea is to use consumer purchasing power to change corporate behavior to protection public health in lieu of traditional government regulations. Last week, a Florida Democrat took this philosophy to a new dimension when he introduced federal legislation that would require companies to label their products “cancer- free” if they do not contain any known or suspected carcinogens.

Rep. Ted Deutch described this legislation as a common sense measure that would provide clarity for consumers. “We all know that using sunscreen, quitting smoking and steering clear of asbestos can reduce our risk to cancer,” Deutch said when he introduced the bill, “but when it comes to limiting exposure to carcinogens that may be found in everyday food and products, consumers are largely kept in the dark.”

The Cancer Labeling Act of 2012 will enable consumers to reduce their exposure to carcinogens by allowing manufacturers to affix a Cancer-Free label to products that do not contain known or probable carcinogens through a voluntary process that does not require public disclosure of trade secrets. The issued label would state that the product “does not contain known or likely carcinogens that increase your risk of cancer.”

Companies would apply to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) seeking approval to label a product under the jurisdiction of the agency. The application must include a list all substances in the product; a statement that the product does not contain any known or suspected carcinogens; and a statement that the product does not contain any substances that display carcinogenicity upon degradation, upon interaction with other substances contained in the product or exposed to the product during storage or transportation, or during intended use. Use of the label would be voluntary and the process would not require “disclosure of trade secrets.”

Deutch said the bill will allow consumers to make informed choices about the products they purchase. “Just as consumers who refused to buy baby products laden with BPA nearly wiped this chemical off the shelves,” Deutch said, “the Cancer Free Label Act will harness market forces to drive change and ultimately reduce Americans’ everyday exposure to known carcinogens.” If only it were that easy. What do you think? Is this a good idea or not?

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Scientists find vinyl plastic chemicals linked to diabetes

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Photo: http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topicsobjectives2020/overview.aspx?topicid=8

Two new peer-reviewed studies published over the past few months are calling attention to the potential link between exposure to phthalates and diabetes, a disease that affects 25.8 million Americans or 8.3% of the US population.  Over 90% of all phthalates are used to soften vinyl, such as vinyl school supplies and flooring.

The most recent study, led by researchers at Harvard, found phthalates linked to higher rates of diabetes in women. This comes at a time when the prevalence of diagnosed diabetes doubled from 1980 to 2010 in women.

They found that the diabetes rate was double for women with the highest levels of phthalates in their bodies, even after accounting for sociodemographic, behavioral, and dietary factors.  Phthalates were also linked to higher blood glucose levels and insulin resistance, two common precursors of type 2 diabetes.    In a story published by Environmental Health News, Richard Stahlhut, an environmental health researcher at the University of Rochester Medical Center who co-authored the study, noted:

“These findings are important clues, but it’s only a first step…It’s extremely likely that phthalates and other chemical contaminants will turn out to be a big part of the obesity and diabetes epidemic, but at this point we really don’t know how these chemicals are interacting with each other, or with the human body.”

The story notes that African Americans have a 19 percent chance of developing diabetes – a rate 77 percent higher than that of whites –  and Hispanics have a 66 percent higher rate than whites.  The story also notes that, “Poor women had up to 78 percent higher levels of BBP – the phthalate in vinyl flooring that was associated with a double rate of diabetes –  than women living above poverty level.”

Another study published in April by the American Diabetes Association found that people with higher phthalates in their bodies had about twice the risk of diabetes as those with lower levels.  Another study published last year also found a link between phthalate exposure and diabetes.

Dioxin and Diabetes

Phthalates aren’t the only vinyl chemicals that may be associated with diabetes.

The production and disposal of vinyl plastic, like the roofing and flooring in our children’s schools, is a major source of dioxin. A number of studies published over the years have linked dioxin exposure to diabetes.

For instance, author and scientist Pete Myers published a synopsis of a study a few years ago and stated that,

“A large new epidemiological study in Japan finds that even at background levels of exposure, people with higher levels of dioxin and dioxin-like PCBs are a significantly greater risk to metabolic syndrome, which includes high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes… Using a method to assess total exposure to this family of chemicals, they found that the people most exposed were over five times more likely to suffer from the health condition.  Looking at some of the chemicals one-at-a-time, they found that some, by themselves, had an even stronger relationship, as high as 8 to 9 times more likely.”

This is of great cause for concern given how widespread this disease is.  Diabetes is a major cause of heart disease and stroke, and is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S.  It is also the leading cause of kidney failure, nontraumatic lower- limb amputations, and new cases of blindness among adults in the United States.

Over time, I expect the evidence will only continue to mount linking dioxin and phthalates to these and numerous other health problems.

The question is: how much more do we need to know before we act?

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Over 5,000 March On D.C. To Stop Fracking


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Photo by Hendrik Voss


Over 5,000 people traveled from all over the country this past Saturday July 28th to be part of a rally and powerful voice against fracking on the West lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Their goal: to end dirty and dangerous fracking; closure of the seven legal loopholes that let frackers in the oil and gas industry ignore the Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act; and full enforcement of existing laws to protect families and communities from the effects of fracking. Not unreasonable demands given that hydro fracturing for gas or “Fracking” has already destroyed people’s land, water, air, property and health. Asking congress to stop this destructive practice is a no brainer but then some in congress don’t act on intellect but only focused on greed and/or how they can get reelected.

Congress has the power to stop the fracking of our country and the destruction of the American Dream for so many people. The fracking industry, astonishingly, doesn’t even have to adhere to the laws that other industries are held to like the safe drinking water act — a critical law — because when there is no safe water people die.

If you were at the rally you would have experienced people’s feelings of fear and frustration among many who were gathered to speak to the issue and talk with congressional representatives. So many of the participants expressed how they have experienced or fear their lives being destroyed, their families left helpless and frustrated because they cannot stop the frackers. “Our land has been in our family for generations and now it’s poisoned, polluted and unusable. We received no benefits, no money from the frackers and today we have nothing but poisoned land not fit for livestock or crops. This is so wrong,” said a grassroots farmer from Pennsylvania.

“I support any legislation that we can get passed that will cost the companies money,” said another activist who attended the demonstration. “I don’t think that there can be a safe form of fracking.”

If you were at the rally you would have also been swept up in the enthusiasm, energy and sense of power people felt. Together we are strong . . . together we can make a difference, said many of the participants. There were all kinds of people there, young, old, farmers, businessmen and women, rich, poor, black, white, brown a reflection of the diverse American populace.

Rally speakers included, Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org; Josh Fox, producer of Gasland; Calvin Tillman, former mayor of Dish, Texas; Allison Chin, board president of the Sierra Club, and community members from swing states affected by fracking. After the rally people marched for more than one hour, stopping at the headquarters of the America’s Natural Gas Alliance and American Petroleum Institute.

“As the increasingly bizarre weather across the planet and melting ice on Greenland makes clear, at this point we’ve got no choice but to keep fossil fuels underground. Fracking to find more is the worst possible idea,” said McKibben.

This was an impressive rally with grassroots people impacted by fracking in their communities joined together with 136 local and national organizations to call on Congress to Stop the Frack Attack and protect Americans from the dangerous impacts of fracking. CHEJ was proud to play a small role in the event.

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"The Story of Change," Climate Change, and PVC-Free Schools

Two great new pieces of activist reporting came out last week, and both dovetail perfectly with our work to get PVC, the poison plastic (a k a vinyl), out of NYC schools. Check them out!

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More than half of the United States is currently in drought

“Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” a feature article in Rolling Stone by Bill McKibben, lays out three numbers that may well define the future of our planet: how much warmer we can “safely” allow the climate to get; how much carbon we can burn without going over; and how much carbon is currently planning to be burned by the oil and gas industry. (Hint: that last one is about five times larger than the second one.)

McKibben’s frightening conclusion is that unless the international community (i.e. we) demands that Exxon, Chesapeake, and the other oil, gas, and coal giants keep about 80% of their current reserves in the ground, unused, uncontrollable climate destabilization is inevitable. Problem is, that would mean about $20 trillion in losses for these companies, giving them roughly unlimited financial (if not human) incentive to block legislation forcing them to do it.

In short, we have our work cut out for us. Enter the latest installment from Story of Stuff Project:

 

Story of Change

The animated web-comic “The Story of Change” by Annie Leonard and her team takes viewers through a six-and-a-half minute tour of how citizens can bring about the environmentally sustainable, people-centered, non-toxic, socially equitable economy that we want.

Her prescription? [/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Big idea] + [people] + [action] = CHANGE. It’s a convincing argument, and one that we’ll need to take to heart if we’re going to keep the fossil fuel industry’s equation from stealing the future.

 

So what’s the connection to PVC-free schools for New York City?

Dow Chemicals Vinyl Plant in Freeport, TX.Photo: Greenpeace USA 2011

First, it can save energy.

The vinyl 3-ring binders, floor tiles, and examination gloves found throughout the NYC school system don’t just release harmful toxins into the air. They also take enormous amounts of energy to produce. PVC plastic is made up of about 40% chlorine, and chlorine production is one of the most energy intensive (not to mention dangerous) industrial processes in the world. According to Joe Thornton, PhD, of the Healthy Building Network, “Chlorine production for PVC consumes an estimated 47 billion kilowatt hours per year — equivalent to the annual total output of eight medium-sized nuclear power plants.”

By spending its multi-million dollar purchasing budget on safer, cost-effective alternatives to PVC, the NYC school system can better protect its students, teachers, and staff, and help drive producers away from this costly, energy-intensive material.

Second, we’re using a big idea, building people power, and taking action!

We’re bringing together parents, teachers, students, doctors, environmental justice activists, labor unions, and more to stand behind a clear message: PVC is the wrong choice for NYC school supplies and construction materials. Click here to join the effort!

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NC Legislator Fracked It Up

Governor Bev Perdue vetoed the controversial fracking bill Sunday, July 1st the last day she had to act before it would have become law.

The governor said she supports hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” but believes additional safeguards are needed in the bill. Without those safeguards in place to protect drinking water and the health of North Carolina families, Perdue said she was forced to veto the bill. “If they improve the bill to strengthen the protections for North Carolina families, I will sign it into law.”

Then two days later, Representative Becky Carney solved the problem for the Governor when she accidentally voted to override her veto.  That’s right accidentally pushed the wrong button.  Unbelievable.

The most important job of an elected representative is the power of their vote based upon their constituencies needs.  We elect people who Americans feel will pay attention and support their issues. Rep. Carney said she felt rotten but when you are responsible for the future of the states well being you don’t have the right to feel bad or rotten as she said.  It is your job to pay attention no matter what time of day or night it is and responsibly vote.

She said it was late after 11 o’clock and she was tired.  “I pushed the wrong button – the green one.”  Even if you’re tired doesn’t green mean go?  Oh she tried as best she could to change her vote but couldn’t – house rules.  I certainly wonder about what really happened, despite her drama on the floor after her green not red voting exercise.

In any case this is the second time the Governor vetoed the bill from the legislators and sent them back to make a change.  And today Carney’s vote has created the opportunity for the fracking industry to exploit North Carolina just as they have in PA, OH and so many western states.

Maybe voters in NC should ask tired Carney to take a break and let someone else take on the tiring effort of working past 11 o’clock in the evening and voting responsibly.

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Climate Change: Wilderness's Greatest Challenge


Last week I had the good fortune to visit the Big Sky state of Montana. I stayed at a cabin at Georgetown Lake in the western part of the state with family who live in nearby Deer Lodge. Not surprisingly, we spent a lot of our time outdoors, fishing, hiking, biking and sitting on the porch. The wilderness in western Montana is beautiful, but it is suffering a shocking loss of its signature tree – the lodgeple pine. Everywhere you travel, you see huge tracks of the tress cut as though the area had just been clear cut. It is stunning.

The culprit is not an aggressive logging effort, but an insect, an infestation of beetles – lodgepole beetles and it’s changing the landscape of this beautiful countryside, serving another lesson in the impacts of climate change.

A popular tree throughout the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, the lodgepole pine is long, straight and lightweight and was a favorite for making log cabins and tee pees in earlier times. Now these trees are being devastated by a tiny beetle which according to the National Science Foundation, has infected more than six billion trees in the western United States and British Columbia since the 1990s.

The mountain pine beetle is a native insect that plays a natural role in regenerating pine forests in Western North America. This role is now in jeopardy because of changing weather patterns in Montana and other areas of the Pacific Northwest.

In the past, populations of this beetle were controlled naturally by the harsh winter weather in this rugged mountain area. Typically it takes 7 to 10 days of intense cold weather – 20 degree below zero or more – to kill the beetles. In past years, this was never an issue. Some beetles would survive, but many were killed off by the bitter cold winter weather.

Now the weather is changing. Winter is not as harsh in this part of the country as it used to be. It does not get as cold for as long as it had typically in past years. As a result, the beetles are thriving and continuing to wipe out huge tracks of lodgepole pine trees.

A study published in 2009 by a research group from several western universities found that the death rate of trees in western U.S. forests had doubled over the several decades driven in large part by higher temperatures and water scarcity brought on by climate change. One of the lead authors commented that longer and hotter summers in the west were subjecting trees to greater stress from droughts and insect infestation.

It’s hard to predict how these changes will transform the western landscape, but it’s not likely to be a pretty picture. I had no idea how climate change was impacting the western forests and I‘m glad I visited when I did. It It‘s not likely these forest will be regenerated in my lifetime.

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Power Plants Impacting Native Americans

Associated Press reports that many Native American communities are being negatively impacted by power plants.   In a July 4th article, they reported serious health problems in  Native American communities from coal plants.

A “coal-powered plant blamed for polluting the southern Nevada reservation’s air and water is visible from nearly every home. “Everybody is sick,” said Vicki Simmons, whose brother worked at the Reid Gardner Generating Station for 10 years before dying at age 31 with heart problems. Across the country, a disproportionate number of power plants operate near or on tribal lands. NV Energy maintains its plant near the Moapa Paiute reservation is safe and has been upgraded with the required clean emissions technologies.

Meanwhile, local, state and federal health agencies say they cannot conduct accurate health studies to verify the tribe’s complaints because the sample size would be too small. In all, about 10 percent of all power plants operate within 20 miles of reservation land, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Many of those 51 energy production centers are more than a half-century old and affect roughly 48 tribes living on 50 reservations. Fewer than 2 percent of all people in the United States identify as Native American and only a small portion live on tribal land.

In many cases, Native American leaders have long embraced energy development as an economic opportunity for communities battling widespread unemployment. But a growing backlash has some tribal leaders questioning whether the health and environmental risks associated with energy production has put their people in harm’s way. While it’s not conclusive that coal operations pose a direct danger to reservation residents, the Moapa Paiutes are one of several tribes demanding the closure of their neighborhood power plants.

Sherry Smith, a history professor who co-edited the book “Indians and Energy: Exploitation and Opportunity in the American Southwest,” said hardly anyone paid attention or were aware of potential environmental consequences when the power plants were built decades ago. “These are not simply people who have been duped by the government or the energy corporations,” said Smith, director of the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University in Texas. “They are simply 21st century people who are coping with the same issues the rest of us are about economic development and the environmental consequences and having to weigh these things.”

When coal is burned, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury compounds are released into the air, according to the EPA. Research has shown those fine particles can be linked to serious health problems, including premature death. Children, who breathe more often, and senior citizens, who tend to have health problems agitated by pollution, are particularly vulnerable, said Colleen McKaughan, an associate director in the EPA’s air division.