Dangers in Your Community

Property Values Fact Pack

This fact pack is full of information on the effects waste sites have on property values. We have included materials from nonprofit organizations, newspapers, journals and the internet in an effort to provide a thorough introduction to the issues surrounding property values and contaminated land. We intend for this fact pack to be a tool to assist you in educating yourself and others.
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Cement Kiln Fact Pack

A fact pack about how industry is using kilns to burn hazardous waste, a deceptive practice called “sham recycling”. This fact pack includes four types of information: business practices reports, health effects, governmental regulations, and community actions.
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PFCs Fact Sheets

Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS) and Perfluorooctonoic Acid (PFOA) are members of a group of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) or Perfluorinated Compounds (PFCs) that are man-made, fully-fluorinated compounds. These fact sheets contain two parts: PFC Toxicity and PFOS/PFOA in Blood.
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 Cancer Clusters Fact Pack

Cancer clusters are one of the most frightening, frustrating situations a community can encounter. This fact pack provides examples and case studies on why health agencies are so reluctant to acknowledge these health problems, provides numerous examples of cancer clusters and what communities have done to get answers to their questions.
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Community Health Surveys

This guidebook is intended to help you think through the many pros and cons of doing a health survey. It emphasizes the importance of organizing your neighbors first, as well as setting your goals and understanding that a health survey is only a tool to help you achieve your ultimate objective.
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Environmental Testing

You may think you are facing an environmental health threat and want the area around your home tested, but not know what you need, where to look, or what to look for. This newly revised handbook tells you where to start. Learn how to get proper testing of your water, soil, air and more.
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Deep Well Injection

60% of U.S. toxic waste is pumped in to wells where it is then free to contaminate drinking water and enter the food chain. As incinerators are closed, deepwell injection may become the next threat to your community. This guidebook explains deepwell injection and outlines strategies to use if you discover your community contains injection wells.
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Soil Burners Fact Pack

A fact pack of articles and newsclips on how local cement kilns and asphalt plants are burning contaminated soil. By using this loophole, companies avoid complying with federal regulations.
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Burning Rubber Fact Pack

With billions of discarded tires sitting in landfills, why not burn them for fuel? Articles in this collection address the pollution hazards from burning tires in cement kilns and other facilities. It also describes what some communities have done to address the problems posed by tire incineration.
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Indoor Pollution Fact Pack

This fact pack looks at the different sources of indoor air pollution. It provides articles that talk about chemicals of concern, routes of exposure, and measures that you can take to protect your health.
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Local Ordinances Fact Pack

This is a fact pack that gives specific models of local ordinances from around the country that grassroots activists drafted and used to protect their communities from pollution.
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Cell Phone Towers Fact Pack

Do cellular phone towers pose a threat from long-term exposure to electromagnetic radiation? This fact pack provides you with the latest information and related articles on the dangers posed by cell phone towers.
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Asphalt Plants Fact Pack

Asphalt plants release millions of pounds of chemicals to the air during production each year, including many cancer-causing toxic air pollutants such as arsenic, benzene, and cadmium. Other toxic chemicals are released into the air as the asphalt is loaded into trucks and hauled from the plant site, including volatile organic compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). This guidebook addresses these and other concerns raised by asphalt plants.
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Waste Transfer Stations Fact Pack

These sites are noisy, ugly and stinky! Transfer stations are a part of the polluter’s secret plan to maintain their profits from their dump and burn practices. This fact pack is a collection of news clips and articles on the essentials of waste transfer stations.
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Hazards of Dioxin

American People’s Report

This report provides a summary of the scientific research on the toxic effects caused by or associated with exposure to dioxin. The evidence from human studies provides strong confirmation of the toxicity of dioxin and its impact on the general American public. There are also policy recommendations developed by more than 50 people including activists who live near dioxin-contaminated sites that provide clear workable solutions to eliminate dioxin sources.
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American People’s Report – Technical Report

The technical support document is the third and final section of the American People’s Report on Dioxin. The Technical Support document provides the scientific basis and support for the conclusions and recommendations made in the report. This document describes where dioxin comes from, how it gets into our food, how it builds up in the body and how it affects our health and our children. There are specific chapters on how dioxin affects the immune, reproductive and developmental systems of the human body and how it causes cancer. Extensive references are included.
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Standing Our Ground

This is a book about the American people and the communities they live in. The lives of all the people and communities in this book share the common exposure to the chemical dioxin.
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Dying from Dioxin: A Citizen’s Guide to Reclaiming Our Health and Rebuilding Democracy

In Dying from Dioxin, CHEJ describes the alarming details of the public health crisis caused by dioxin and explains how citizens can organize to prevent this threat. The first half of the book explains the science of how exposures to dioxin, even doses 100 times lower than those associated with cancer, can cause infertility, hormonal imbalances, and immune system dysfunction. The second half is a guide to help citizens form coalitions and organize to stop dioxin exposure.
Contact CHEJ for a physical copy of this book.

Landfills

Landfill Failures Fact Pack

This fact pack is a collection of articles and studies on the risks to air and ground pollution, as well as human health, due to landfill failures. Addresses methane gas leaks, leachate, and liner failures. Includes community action to clean-up landfill failures.
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Construction & Demolition Landfills Fact Pack

A collection of clips uncovering hazardous waste at construction and demolition landfills and the threat they present to water supplies, wildlife and human health.
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Landfills – Trashing The Earth

Landfills contaminate the water and poison the air, yet the “need” for them continues to expand. In order to bring a halt to this garbage explosion, we must believe that zero waste is achievable – no landfills, no incinerators, just a holistic approach to the lifecycle of every item.
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Landfills – Health Studies

A collection of studies and information regarding the health impacts of landfills.
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Toxics in Schools

PCBs Fact Pack

This fact pack is a collection of research concerning the dangers of PCBs. It includes news articles and studies from our files, put together for your use.
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Safe School Siting Toolkit

Parents across the country are shocked to find school building construction crews in their communities descending on or next to landfills, toxic sites or heavily polluting industries. Siting schools on or near contaminated land poses a great risk to the health and development of students and teachers. Unfortunately, this is usually legally allowed as there are no federal laws and very few state laws or regulations to prevent this from happening. This kit provides communities with the tools to protect their children’s health by organizing for the passage of safe school siting policies.
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Building Safe Schools

A state-by-state analysis and summary of rules and regulations that apply to school siting decisions. We also further refined the model school siting guidelines to include guidance for school districts that have no available options other than to build a school on a highly contaminated site. We also provide guidance to evaluate and remediate contaminated land to the most protective standards possible.
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Green Purchasing Toolkit

This valuable toolkit is a compilation of strategies and recommendations for implementing green purchasing policies in your neighborhood, county or state.
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Guide to Green Cleaning for Home

Commonly sold cleaning products can contain harmful chemicals. This guide is meant to help you protect yourself in your home, school, or workplace. It contains simple and cost-effective non-toxic cleaning alternatives and valuable information to make your home healthy and safe.
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A Parent’s Guide to Reducing Children’s Environmental Health Risks

A must read for all parents! This booklet explains how chemical contamination travels through air, water and soils to threaten the health, and even the lives, of children. It includes action steps families may take – both individually and collectively with other parents – to reduce or avoid exposures to pesticides, dioxin and other widely prevalent chemicals.
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Poisoned Schools: Invisible Threats, Visible Action

The first publication of the Children’s Environmental Health Program (formerly CPOC) and the first installment in a series of reports addressing potential environmental health threats in schools, Poisoned Schools:  Invisible Threats, Visible Actions examines factors that pose risks to children’s environmental health in schools, including the aging and deteriorating condition of school buildings, the trend of proposing new schools on contaminated land and the lack of school siting guidelines to ensure site safety, and the use of toxic pesticides on school grounds. The report offers specific recommendations to protect children from chemical contamination in air and soil surrounding schools and exposure from toxic pesticides on school grounds.  Featured in the report are case studies, recommendations for school site selection and for developing integrated pest management programs, sample school siting and pest management surveys, and resources for reducing chemical exposures in the school environment.
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Creating Safe Learning Zones: Invisible Threats, Visible Action

The follow-up publication to Poisoned Schools:  Invisible Threats, Visible Actions, and the second installment in a series of reports addressing potential environmental health threats in schools, Creating Safe Learning Zones:  Invisible Threats, Visible Actions focuses on the need for protective laws concerning the site selection and construction of new school buildings.  The report presents data from five states (California, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York) on the number of schools located on or near hazardous chemical waste sites or other contaminated sites, such as landfill, waste treatment plants, military sites, and others that may pose environmental and health risks.  It describes children’s special vulnerabilities, the school siting process, and examples of schools built on or near contaminated land.  It provides model school siting legislation to help local communities promote local and state laws and policies that protect children’s health, and outlines action steps that parents can take to ensure that their children are not placed in harm’s way.
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Creating Safe Learning Zones: The ABC’s of Healthy Schools

Creating Safe Learning Zones:  The ABC’s of Healthy Schools is a comprehensive primer of children’s special vulnerabilities and the toxic threats to their health in the school environment.  The report examines toxins commonly found in schools and building materials, and provides action steps school communities can take to reduce toxic chemical exposures and switch to safer alternatives.  The report contains detailed descriptions of how to design a healthy school and get your community involved in the decision making process, as highlighted in over a dozen case studies.
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