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Styrofoam Ban in our Nation’s Capital

On January 1, 2016 a ban on the use of Styrofoam containers went into effect in the city of Washington, DC.  This new law will prohibit restaurants and local business from using single use Styrofoam (technically speaking, expanded polystyrene foam products) containers to package food and drinks, typically used for take-out orders or to take home leftovers. According to one estimate in a private blog, there are similar bans in effect in more than 70 cities including New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.  In New York City alone, 28,500 tons of expanded Styrofoam was collected in 2012. About 90% of this material was from food and drink related containers.

I couldn’t help but smile when I read this story as a remembered back in the late 1980s when CHEJ (then CCHW) kicked off a national campaign against McDonald’s to get the mega food giant to stop using Styrofoam clam shells for all its food packaging. We called this the “McToxics Campaign” and groups all over the country participated including grassroots environmental health activists, students, churches, annual rights activists and advocates of healthy food. These groups, individually and in coalition, picketed local restaurants, fought for local ordinances banning Styrofoam, launched boycotts and engaged in send-it-back campaigns to send the message to McDonalds that they wanted the company to be a corporate leader for positive change, rather than a symbol of our throw-away society.  And it worked!  After a little over 3 years, McDonalds caved in, marking one of the biggest victories of the grassroots environmental health movement. On November 1, 1990, McDonalds’ announced it would end nearly all Styrofoam packaging use in U.S. restaurants within 60 days.

As anticipated, when McDonalds made its announcement, other companies would follow its lead. Jack-In-the-Box followed suit almost immediately, and soon most other fast food restaurants also stopped using Styrofoam.  Although many small restaurants and local businesses continued to use Styrofoam, the message continues to grow that this toxic plastic has no place in our society. The many toxic substances generated and released during production, the formation of toxic chemicals when it is burned and the difficulties in recycling and disposal of this material is what drove this campaign and continue to be an issue today as restaurants and businesses search for options to deliver food and drinks.

Fortunately there are better options and better alternatives that don’t cause the public health and environmental risks that this plastic does. Cheers to the growing list of cities, towns and municipalities that are deciding one jurisdiction at a time, to move away from this toxic plastic.  May there be many more in the coming years.

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BILL GATES NEEDS TO INVEST IN AMERICA’S FAMILIES

Bill Gates’ net worth is estimated to be $79.7 billion and his worth just seems to grow every year. Known as the world’s richest man, Gates is also listed as the sixth most powerful person in the world. He and his wife Melinda run the Gates Foundation their goal is to reduce inequity and improve the lives of people in poorer countries.

But what about America? What about the innocent people in which his investment company, Cascade Investments, is making him even more money, at the expense of innocent children who are made sick and dying from chemical/radioactive materials?

My mother often told me that it is wonderful, honorable to support others who need help, but always remember charity begins at home.

Bill and Melinda are doing extraordinary work in poor countries, but their money to do that work is coming from their investments like, Republic Services where they have personally invested 2.9 Billion dollars. Gates Foundation has divested from Republic Services but Bill and Melinda have not.

Families with children in St. Louis have watched helplessly as their children developed cancer and some have died. Parents believe their children health problems are due to Republic Services burning and radioactive Superfund site. The Missouri health authorities found an over 300% increase in children’s brain cancer near the Republic site. This cancer is preventable.. .avoidable… by helping people move away. Today they are trapped. Families can’t live in their homes, sell their homes or afford to pay rent or mortgages somewhere else. These are working people, many not earning a living wage.

Bill could direct his investment company to use their power as shareholders to purchase the homes of innocent families that surround the burning landfill. Once the fire is put out and the radioactive materials cleaned up Republic can resell the homes and reduce their costs. It is anticipated that the fire will burn for another four years and the plan to clean up the radioactive wastes is also far into the future.

I thought at one time, that maybe Bill and Melinda just didn’t know. As parents of three children Jennifer, Phoebe, and Rory I thought they could relate to the fears the parents in St. Louis face every day to protect their most precious asset their children. Unfortunately they do know and I guess don’t care. Recently, they sold all of their Foundation’s stock in Republic Services. A good first step but far from what’s needed. Their personal stock of almost three billion is still earning dividends off the back of little children and hard working parents. We believe it was the petition drive that CHEJ did with the local group Just Moms STL in St. Louis, Missouri that brought the problem to their attention. Maybe it did, we’ll never know.

Today, it’s clear that Bill and Melinda know there is a problem in St. Louis, and they don’t want the public face of the Gates Foundation to be associated with that Superfund site. With this knowledge, they continue to profit from Republic Services, which in turn continues to place children in harm’s way. Bill and Melinda have made a decision to not take action with their personal wealth.

I can only ask, and hope others who read this ask, won’t you please reconsider your decision? Please, give a little charity at home. You are the richest man and one of the most powerful in the world and have said you want to improve the lives of people in poor countries, how about America? You can use your power in the Republic Services Board room to vote to move the innocent families or buy the properties yourself. The child, with brain cancer in the photo, is worth helping.

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Study Finds Fracking Increases Reproductive Risks

The enormous growth of unconventional natural gas fracturing (also known as fracking) in recent years has come at the expense of knowing little if anything about the health risks associated with this practice. As production as slowed due to dropping gas prices in the past year or so, several studies have come out that raise serious questions about the health impact of this process. A study published earlier this month by a group of researchers at the John Hopkin’s School of Public Health concluded that “expectant mothers who live near active natural gas wells operated by the fracking industry in Pennsylvania are at an increased risk of giving birth prematurely and for having high risk pregnancies.” This paper was published in the journal Epidemiology.

In this paper, the authors examined more than 9,000 births in 40 counties in northern and central Pennsylvania between January 2009 and January 2013. They compared electronic birth outcome data with information that estimated the cumulative exposure to fracking activity in the region. This information included how close wells were to homes where the mothers lived, what stage of drilling the wells were in, the depth of the wells, and how much gas was generated from the well during the mother’s pregnancy. This information was used to generate a cumulative index of how active each of the wells were and how close they were to the women.

They found that living in the most active area of drilling and production activity was associated with a 40 percent increase in the likelihood of a woman giving birth before 37 weeks of gestation (considered pre-term) and a 30 percent increase in “high risk” pregnancies, a designation that can include elevated blood pressure and excessive weight gain during pregnancy. In total, 11 % of the pregnancies were born preterm, with 79% born between 32 and 36 weeks.

Other research in recent years has also shown a connection between fracking wells and low birth weight. “There are now four studies that have looked at various aspects of reproductive health in relation to this industry and all have found something,” Brian Schwartz, the lead author of the Hopkins study, said in an interview. In one of these studies, researchers found an increased risk of congenital heart and neural tube defects in babies whose mothers lived within 10 miles of a natural gas well in rural Colorado.

In a media statement released with the study, the authors made clear that the study can’t pinpoint the specific reason why pregnant women living near the most active wells had the worst pregnancy outcomes. But Schwartz pointed out that every step of the drilling process has an environmental impact. “When the well pads are created, diesel equipment is used to clear acres of land, transport equipment and drill the wells themselves. Drilling down thousands of feet and then horizontally many more thousands of feet requires heavy equipment to break up the shale where the gas sits. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) then involves injecting millions of liters of water mixed with chemicals and sand to fracture the shale. The fluids are then pumped back to the surface. The gas itself also releases pollutants.” Schwartz also noted that living near fracking well results in increased noise, road traffic and other changes that can increase maternal stress levels.

“Now that we know this is happening we’d like to figure out why,” Schwartz says. “Is it air quality? Is it the stress? They’re the two leading candidates in our minds at this point.”

As with many other environmental and public health risks, the more we look, the more we find. We already know that fracking contributes to the impact of climate change because of the large amount of methane that’s released. It’s beginning to look more and more like it also has serious effects on the health of the people who live nearby.

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The End is Coming – Market for Phthalates Continues to Shrink

Last month, the nation’s third largest home improvement chain – Menards – agreed to phase out the use of phthalates in its vinyl flooring by the end of the year. In a statement in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Menards spokesperson Jeff Abbot said, “We are still aware of the phthalate concern and have been working diligently with our vendors to eliminate any flooring products that contain phthalates.” Menards, which follows the lead of Home Depot and Lowes, has roughly 285 stores in 14 states.

This announcement follows a report by the Health Building Network (HBN) that the world’s largest flooring manufacturers, Mohawk and Tarkett, are also phasing out the use of phthalate plasticizers. Rochelle Routman, VP of sustainability for Mohawk, told HBN that it “long ago” phased out the use of ortho-phthalates in all the vinyl floors that it manufacturers, and is working to eliminate them from third party manufactured floors. HBN reported in April that Tarkett, the world’s second largest flooring company, has phased out the intentional addition of phthalates to its flooring.

The decisions by these major retailers and by global manufacturing companies portends an end to the use of phthalates in consumer products. Consumers simply do not want to take risks, especially with their children, that they can avoid.

The August 2015 issue of Consumer Reports makes clear what parents should do if they have vinyl flooring in their home – regularly mop vinyl floors that contain phthalates and wash toddlers’ hands, especially if children crawl on the floors. Consumers Union tested 17 vinyl floors and found small amounts of phthalates on the surface layers – enough however to warrant action by parents. “Although phthalate levels are very low, we recommend that parents of toddlers wet-mop often and wash those little hands after they’ve been crawling on a vinyl floor,” it reports. Frequent cleaning could help remove dust particles which are known to accumulate phthalates commonly used in these floorings.

Phthalates migrate from PVC, can accumulate in people’s bodies, and can cause developmental harm. Some phthalates are carcinogens.

Rather than worry about moping the floor and washing your children’s hands, most parents want nothing to do with vinyl flooring. The risks are too great and the market forces are following this lead.

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Backyard Talk

ATSDR Fails Community Once Again

In July of 2013, an explosion occurred at the WTI/Heritage Thermal Services (HTS) hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, OH. Incinerator ash that had built up on the inside of the incinerator stack suddenly fell off causing a huge cloud of dust contaminated with heavy metals and other toxic substances to be released from the stack. An estimated 800 to 900 pounds of ash were released into the surrounding community. The plant manager advised residents to wash fruits and vegetables from their gardens and to replace food and water for pets and farm animals. Save Our County, a local group that has been fighting to shut down the incinerator for more than 20 years and other local residents were quite alarmed by what happened and asked whether this latest accident further put their health at risk.

The state regulating agency’s response was to invite the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to evaluate what risks the residents might have suffered. More than a year later, ATSDR released its report which concluded that the “trace amount of toxic metals in the surface and subsurface soils of the residential area west of the HTS facility affected by the July 2013 ash release are not expected to harm people’s health. The reason for this is that the concentration of these metals found in the soils are below levels of health concern.”

It’s not clear how ATSDR came to this conclusion when some of the data included in the report clearly show contaminant levels that exceeded levels of health concern. Two (of 13) soil samples, one on-site and one off-site, both downwind, had the highest levels of contaminants of concern (though they never disclosed what these levels were). The arsenic levels found in the surface soil of the surrounding community generally exceeded public health levels of concern, ranging from 14 to 57 parts per million (ppm), averaging 20 ppm. The public health level of concern is 15 ppm.

There is also data on two wipe samples (of 8) collected by HTS immediately after the accident that were found to contain 3,600 ppm arsenic; 13,000 ppm lead and 8,000 ppm nickel. These samples were collected from areas on-site where trucks at the facility were staged. These are all extraordinarily high and well above public health levels of concern.

Similarly, two wipe samples collected from the community had arsenic levels at 277 ppm and lead at 819 ppm, both levels well in excess of levels of public health concern. The report refers to a third sample collected from the surface of a black S10 pick-up truck with arsenic at 296 ppm and lead at 1,046 ppm also well above public health levels of concern.

Despite all of these results that exceeded public health levels of concern, ATSDR concluded that there is no cause for alarm and that the toxic metals released into the community “is not expected” to harm people’s health. It’s like someone at ATSDR wrote the conclusion without ever reading the report or looking at the data.

The ATSDR report simply ignores the data that exceeds public health levels of concern and draws its conclusions as though these high levels did not exist. How can anyone trust a government agency that operates this way?

This is what communities across the country have grown to expect from ATSDR – conclusions that are unresponsive to community concerns about potential health risks but protective of industrial pollution. Some things never change.


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Formaldehyde: A Case Study in EPA’s Failure to Protect Public Health and the Environment

According to its website, the mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is to “protect public health and the environment.” When the agency tries to do its job, it often runs into opposition led by special interests, private lobbyists, corporate apologists, and congressional representatives, all of whom have their own agenda, which has nothing to do with public health or the environment and everything to do with the millions (if not billions) of dollars made annually from their products.

The agency’s effort to regulate formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen that is commonly used in building materials found in most homes, is a classic case study in corporate influence and control of the agency’s work.

EPA began its process to regulate formaldehyde in compressed wood products in 2008, seven years ago. Its proposed rules, released for public comment on June, 2013, did not seek to ban formaldehyde, but rather to set exposure limits and establish testing standards for products sold in the U.S. Learn more about the EPA’s proposed rules for formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products.

Three times over the next two years, EPA reopened its public comment period to allow more public comment, most recently in May 2014. EPA has yet to release its final regulations with the latest timeline estimated to be sometime in the fall.

A story in the New York Times chronicled the delays in the agency’s efforts to regulate formaldehyde, a substance with clear public health risks. The article described the influence of the big furniture companies on Washington who in turn pressured EPA. It told of the actions of special interest such as the American Chemistry Council who challenged the agency’s determination that formaldehyde is a carcinogen. And it described the role of the White House Office of Management and Budget in evaluating the costs and benefits of the proposed regulation.

What gets lost in the hyperbole and grandstanding over costs and jobs is the fact that formaldehyde is a nasty chemical that is a known human carcinogen, that affects the central nervous system and that can damage the respiratory system, causing difficulty in breathing including asthma as well as eye, nose, and throat irritation. At best this proposed regulation will attempt to define an “acceptable” level of formaldehyde vapors coming off pressed-wood products, such as particleboard, plywood, and fiberboard; glues and adhesives; permanent-press fabrics; paper product coatings; and certain insulation materials.

This is EPA’s version of protecting public health and the environment, agreeing with corporate interests after a tortured “public” process to a risk assessment that defines “acceptable” levels of risk that the public has to endure while the companies continue to earn their profits. The general public that has to live with formaldehyde fumes coming off wood products is not likely to see it this way. They might prefer that the agency try to figure out how much risk it can avoid, rather than how much is “acceptable.” But then if the EPA did that, then the influence imposed by the companies who make billions every year selling formaldehyde products might not be so critical.

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Linking Adverse Health Effects and Chemical Exposures

One of the most common questions I get asked is about the health effects of toxic chemicals. Will the chemicals in the landfill harm my children? Will the emissions from the plant cause my family to get cancer? Did the chemicals off-gassing from the PVC flooring cause my son’s asthma? The questions continue every day from people across the country.

Most of what we know about the toxicity of chemicals comes from animal studies and from studies of workers who manufacture the chemicals. From this experience, we’ve learned that dusty air causes lung cancer, benzene causes leukemia, radioactive paint causes bone cancer, vinyl chloride, liver cancer, and certain pesticides cause muscle weakness and paralysis. There’s also limited evidence from studies in communities, especially among children who are highly susceptible to toxic chemicals. At Love Canal, for example, there were high rates of miscarriages and children born with birth defects; in Tucson, AZ, children whose parents drank water contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) were born with 2-1/2 times more heart defects than normal; in Toms River, NJ, high rates of childhood cancer was linked to drinking water contaminated with TCE and other solvents; and in Woburn, MA, increased rates of childhood leukemia were associated with drinking contaminated water.

There is no question that exposure to toxic chemicals causes adverse health effects. But for nearly all chemicals there is not enough information on what happens when people are exposed. At best, there’s good information on the toxicity of only about 10% of over 80,000 chemicals in use today.

This makes it very difficult to say with certainty what health effects will occur following exposure to toxic chemicals. Among the uncertainties are how an individual body responds to exposure (this varies quite a lot from person to person), how long exposures occur, how many chemicals you’re exposed to and the actual toxicity of the substance. In most instances, these factors are unknown.

Another confounding factor is that many symptoms or diseases are not specific to a particular chemical. In most instances, there can be many causes of the symptoms that people are having. And since few physicians know much about toxic chemicals, they often tend to blame the victim for his or her situation rather than looking at chemicals as a possible explanation. For example, many physicians will diagnose a person who is fatigued, moody and without appetite as “depressed,” likely to have a problem at home or at work. Seldom is exposure to toxic chemicals considered, even when raised by the patient.

Still another problem is determining the “normal” rate of an illness or disease in a community or in a group of people. Scientists simply can’t decide amongst themselves what is normal, in large part because of the many uncertainties already mentioned.

As a result, evaluating chemical exposures is largely a matter of opinion, not fact. Scientists can give you estimates of risk, or tell you what adverse effects are typically associated with exposure to a chemical, but they cannot tell you with any certainty whether your child will develop cancer because of his/her exposure to TCE or other chemicals in your drinking water. They can give you their opinion, but it’s only an opinion.

This is very frustrating for people. How can we be smart enough to put a man on the moon and bring him back, yet we don’t know much about the toxicity of the sea of chemicals that we live in every day? This speaks volumes about the power of the chemical industry to control government regulations and research agendas.

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BTEX and Endocrine Disruption

A new study has revealed the possible association between BTEX compounds (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes) and endocrine disruption at levels way below the reference concentrations used by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

BTEX chemicals are volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are used as solvents in consumer and industrial products, as gasoline additives, and as intermediates in the synthesis of organic compounds for many consumer products. As a result, they are prevalent in our environment, especially in indoor settings. The current scientific understanding of these chemicals is that they can cause skin and sensory irritation, central nervous system problems and effects on the respiratory system at acute short-term exposures; and kidney, liver and circulatory problems as well as leukemia and other forms of cancer at chronic long-term exposures.

However, this new study points to the role of BTEX chemicals in hormone disruptions, a field of study pioneered by the late Theo Colborn. In fact, Theo contributed personally to this study before her passing along with scientist from the The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX) (the international non-profit she founded) and the University of Colorado, Boulder. Although direct association can be made between endocrine disruption and BTEX exposure, this study points to the real need to examine this link more closely. Cathy Milbourn, a spokesperson for the EPA, said in an emailed response that the agency will “review the study and incorporate the findings into our work as appropriate.”

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EPA’s EJ 2020 Action Agenda

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a draft for public comment of its EJ 2020 Action Agenda (EJ 2020) Framework. This strategy document lays out its plan for continuing to address environmental justice in the context of the agency’s work. EPA is hoping to build on its EJ 2014 Action Agenda and expand that work through commitments that will continue over the next five years. EPA is seeking input on the draft EJ 2020 Action Agenda framework. The public comment period runs from April 15 to June 15. The agency is planning to conduct informational and dialogue sessions during this comment period and is encouraging the public to submit written comments. For more details, see: www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/plan-ej/.

As described in the draft framework document, “EPA’s environmental justice efforts seek to protect the health and environment of overburdened communities, support them to take action to improve their own health and environment, and build partnerships to achieve community health and sustainability.”

The agencies goal through 2020 is to make a visible difference in overburdened communities by:

  • Deepening  environmental justice practice within EPA programs to improve the health and environment of overburdened communities;
  • Collaborating with partners to expand our impact within overburdened communities; and
  • Demonstrating progress on outcomes that matter to overburdened communities

Key elements to the EJ 2020 plan include incorporating EJ in rulemaking; considering EJ in permitting; advancing EJ through compliance and enforcement; supporting community based programs; fostering administration-wide action; and developing science and legal tools for considering environmental justice in decision-making. The framework document also includes a chart that defines the agency’s status and progress in achieving these key elements. In addition, EPA has established a one-stop informational “Resource for Communities” web portal as well as a new EJSCREEN tool that quantitatively identifies areas with potential EJ concerns by using environmental, health, demographic and enforcement indicators.

Contacts on environmental justice are included for each of the 10 EPA regions and for each of 13 major divisions within the agency such as the Office of Air and Radiation, Office of Water, Office of Research and Development, etc.

EPA will make the draft document available on April 15th on its Environmental Justice website at: www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice/ej2020/. Comments can be submitted electronically to: ejstrategy@epa.gov, or via hard copy to: Charles Lee at lee.charles@epa.gov. If you have any questions, please contact Charles Lee via email or at 202-564-2597.


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Environmental Justice – Learning from Ecuador

In a previous blog by CHEJ’s Science Director, Stephen Lester, we saw that Environmental Justice (EJ) communities are not at all confined to the US. In fact, they may be even more prevalent in developing countries, and their struggles can help us better learn how to fight for justice in our own communities.

One such example is in the South American country of Ecuador, where Texaco, later annexed by oil giants Chevron, polluted massive portions of the Amazon rain forest with their oil drilling operations for nearly 40 years during the later half of the past century. Between 1954 and 1990, the amount of contamination dumped in Ecuador’s Amazon portion is estimated to be over 30 times greater than the oil spilled during the Exxon Valdez disaster.

In 2003, over 30,000 affected Ecuadorians – many of them indigenous people – filed a class-action lawsuit against Chevron, accusing the oil company of being directly responsible for more than 1,000 cancer deaths. Years of legal battles and stalling tactics by Chevron ensued, but in a recent development the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that a prior decision by an Ecuadorean court fining Chevron $9.5 billion in 2011 should be upheld.

Although it is still unclear what body would have the authority to enforce the ICJ’s ruling, this decision is a massive victory for the people of Ecuador. Their perseverance – over 10 years of struggle and activism – lead to this development. In addition, despite having severely limited monetary resources and little education as well as political influence, they found strength in numbers. More than 30,000 individuals came together and organized for the cause. They used the small connections they had to draw in NGOs and other organizations to help them in their cause.

In the end, the people from Ecuador may yet achieve retribution and justice from the multibillion company that polluted their homes and killed their loved ones. As for us, we should congratulate and learn from their hard work and determination.