The New York State Parents Teachers Association (PTA) voted last week at their annual meeting in Saratoga Springs, NY to pass a resolution calling for a phase out of the plastic PVC in schools. The resolution, called “Reducing & Phasing Out the Purchase of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Plastic in New York Schools,” acknowledgedthe serious harm posed by PVC throughout its lifecycle, releasing toxic chemicals such as phthalates during use in products such as school supplies and building materials; releasing toxic chemicals such as vinyl chloride and ethylene dichloride during manufacture; and generating toxic chemicals such as dioxins during disposal when burned.
The PTA’s resolution recognized that chronic health problems and conditions in children linked to environmental exposures are on the rise, including learning and developmental disorders; that children are uniquely vulnerable to harm from toxic chemicals such as those released by PVC; that PVC materials and products contain toxic additives, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and phthalates, that may be released into the indoor environment, posing hazards to human health including asthma and developmental problems and that children are at greatest risk of exposure; that PVC is commonly found in office supplies and building materials used in schools; that safer, cost-effective alternatives to PVC products are readily available for schools; and that the U.S. Green Building Council provides incentives for schools to avoid PVC and phthalates in “green schools.”
The NYS PTA resolution calls for the following actions:
Resolved that the New York State Congress of Parents and Teachers, Inc. seek and support legislation that would reduce and phase out the use of PVC products at all New York State school facilities; and be it further
Resolved that the New York State PTA urge school districts and the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to develop green procurement policies to reduce and phase out the use and purchase of PVC building materials and office and education supplies in school facilities where safer cost effective alternatives are available; and be it further
Resolved that the New York State PTA and its constituent units educate parents and community members about the potential health effects of PVC and work to eliminate PVC products at all PTA-sponsored events; and be it further
Resolved that the New York State PTA forward this resolution to the National PTA for its consideration.
This resolution adds to the growing movement for PVC-free schools and follows similar resolutions enacted by the American Public Health Association (APHA), the “oldest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world,” last year and by the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) union that represents more than 600,000 employees and retirees from New York State schools, colleges, and healthcare facilities, this past summer. The full PTA resolution can be read at the following link: http://chej.org/wp-content/uploads/NYS-PTA-PVC-Resolution.pdf.
Mr. Mouton was an inspiration to me as a fighter for environmental justice.
A lifelong resident of Mossville, Louisiana, Mr. Mouton fought passionately and diligently against the PVC plastics and petrochemical industry in his community, which has been spewing poisonous chemicals into the air and water of his community. Cancer-causing chemicals like dioxin and vinyl chloride.
Words of an environmental justice hero.
Mr. Mouton was humble yet extremely persistent. He fought for his community for many, many years. He was outraged by the dioxin and vinyl chloride pollution that was getting into residents’ yards, chickens, homes, and their bodies. Portions of the community were relocated and demolished due to groundwater contamination from a nearby PVC plant.
He wouldn’t let them get away with this.
In 2000, Mr. Mouton and other leaders from Mossville traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to testify at a US EPA National Environmental Justice Advisory Council (NEJAC) meeting. At that meeting, he said:
“As I grew up in Mossville, I remember when the plants were built as a child. My father helped build a lot of those plants. It is terrible. We had beautiful green woods around us and we did all the fishing that we ever wanted. But they did not care anything about that. And that is the same thing today.
“People are sick and dying in our community because of the high levels of dioxins found in our blood…We have a lot of people sick. There’s a lot of people with some type of illness, lungs, or some with cancer that I know of. There’s a lot of sick people there that thedoctors don’t know what’s wrong with them.”
“They seem continually to stall, for some reason or another. They give us the impression that we do not know what our needs and wants are. They want to run the show; they want to take control.”
[/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”]Mr. Mouton leading us on a toxic tour. Photo: Jay Burney
I met Mr. Mouton back in 2004 when PVC manufacturer CertainTeed was proposing to build a PVC plant on the Lake Erie waterfront in Buffalo, NY where I lived. We knew CertainTeed’s primary PVC plant was just outside Mossville, and that’s how I had the pleasure of working with and meeting Mr. Mouton.
I led a delegation of environmental health activists to travel from Buffalo to Mossville, to bear witness to the pollution the PVC plastics industry was leveling on this historic African American community. Mr. Mouton and other leaders of MEAN welcomed us into their community with open arms, introducing us to families, taking us on toxic tours, holding a joint press conference, and even throwing down with us at a crawfish boil. You can read about the trip in this newsletter article I wrote back in 2004 (see page 8).
I’ll never forget that trip visiting Mr. Mouton, Mossville and the Lake Charles area. It stays with me every day.
Broken promises, and the struggle continues.
“Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living.” – Mother Jones
I’ve always been inspired by these words of Mother Jones. And I like to think that Mr. Mouton would agree. He’d want to see the struggle continue, until justice is served.
“We’re being hit from the north, south, east, and west. Every time the wind changes, we get a lungful of pollution from some other plant. These chemicals end up in our water, our gardens, our children’s bodies. Each day we hear about someone in our community being diagnosed with cancer or another illness. We’re taking legal action so that we might live to see some improvements for ourselves and our community.” – Mr. Mouton, former President of Mossville Environmental Action Now (MEAN)
Over the past decade, MEAN, Earthjustice and other groups have taken EPA to court numerous times, and won! As a result of their work, the EPA agreed and promised to clamp down on pollution from PVC chemical plants like CertainTeed in Mossville.
Unfortunately, the EPA has now broken their promises to this community, which flies in the face of the EPA’s commitment to environmental justice. The EPA has set stronger emission standards for PVC plants in other communities, but weaker ones in Mossville, home to more than PVC plants than anywhere else in the country!
That’s why this week, MEAN, Earthjustice, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network and other groups are fighting back once again. They’ve filed a petition and lawsuit demanding EPA reduce toxic pollution from the CertainTeed plant.
“After years of work to obtain the stronger air protection we need in Mossville, Louisiana, it was a shock to our community when EPA suddenly changed course and singled us out for weaker standards as compared to the rest of the nation. EPA should stay true to its commitment to environmental justice and correct this unfairness by setting stronger air pollution limits that will protect our health as we and all Americans deserve.”- Dorothy Felix, President of Mossville Environmental Action Now (MEAN)
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson owes this community justice. She owes it to Mr. Mouton’s family.
RIP Mr. Mouton. We will miss and never forget you. The struggle continues.
I can’t help but wonder if President Obama is posturing for re-elections trying to appease the all powerful oil, gas and chemical industries. It’s been over two years since the USEPA released their preliminary clean up goals for dioxin. These are clean up goals or levels that can be left in soil, and were based upon scientific studies that looked at non cancer effects. Health effects like birth defects, learning disabilities, miscarriages and more.
After EPA published the clean up goals they went to the Office of Budget and Management (OMB) where they sat for nearly two years. I had the opportunity to meet with OMB staff working on the dioxin goals and walked away angry and frustrated. I rename the agency the Office of Mannequin Bodies because no one would say anything–literally.
Today, EPA announced that they have withdrawn the clean up goals from OMB and will essentially abandoning them. This means that every state will use the scientific report, released in February of non-cancer dioxin effects to set their own guideline. Unbelievable, since today EPA has the scientific report (released in February) to support their proposed clean up goals. What this means is in each state the corporations will come to the table ready to play Monty Hall’s “Let’s Make A Deal!”
So states with big corporations ruling the governance will deal a whole lot different than those with stricter regulations and public support. Some sites could be cleaned up to protective levels, and others well . . . who knows.
In the simplest format of Let’s Make A Deal, a trader is given a prize of medium value (such as a television set or in this case a almost good clean up), and the host offers them the opportunity to trade for another prize. But a poorer state with little money and political influence could get “Zonked” an unwanted booby prizes, which could be anything, fake money, fake trips or something outlandish like a fake clean up.
Communities deserve equal protection from dioxin, one of the most toxic chemicals on the planet. We know the chemical industry has invested significant resources lobbying against EPA’s proposed cleanup levels. Is EPA caving into the chemical industry during an election year? What is going on here? All of a sudden EPA has withdrawn them from OMB review, without any public notice or participation.
We call on EPA Administrator Jackson to move swiftly to finalize and release final dioxin cleanup guidelines once and for all, especially now that the non-cancer health assessment is complete. Infants and young children are already being exposed to dioxin levels higher than what EPA considers acceptable.
The American people will panic if they find out there is dangerous levels of dioxin in their food. That’s the argument the chemical and food industries are using to stop the release of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) scientific report on dioxin. Really. . . do they really think people will panic rather than take steps to protect their families? The American people didn’t panic and not place their children in vehicles when they learned that more kids are injured in auto collisions than in any other type of accident. Parents installed safety seats.
The EPA’s dioxin report has been meticulously peer reviewed and is scientifically sound. Yet, the power of the corporations that are responsible for dioxin in our environment and food has kept this critical scientific information (over 20 years of study) from reaching the public. Consequently, the public is unable to make personal decisions about what foods they’ll eat and how best to reduce their families’ risks.
Dioxin, a known cancer causing and endocrine-disruptor chemical, is a byproduct of combustion and various industrial processes and is found everywhere in the environment. Chlorinated dioxins are released into the air and travel great distances landing on fields, pastures and waterways from waste incineration, burning household waste and a variety of industrial processes, including smelting, chlorine paper bleaching, PVC plastics and pesticide manufacturing. When animals graze in the pastures or eat feed that has animal byproducts, they ingest dioxin which is then stored in their fat. So when little Joey drinks his whole milk, he also ingests dioxin contained in the milk’s fat.
Ninety percent of the public’s body burden of dioxin comes primarily from animal fat in the food supply. The Environmental Working Group has found that the amount of dioxin a nursing infant ingests daily is up to 77 times higher than the level EPA has proposed to protect the endocrine and immune systems. The fact that both breast milk and infant formula are contaminated with dioxin highlights the urgent need for EPA to release its report. For cancer risk, the situation is also concerning because the general public is exposed to up to 1,200 times more dioxin than regulatory agencies typically consider safe.
Parents place bike helmets on their children, fasten their seat belts, and take their babies for regular checkups because they understand the risks of not taking these steps. However, everyone is being kept in the dark when it comes to dioxin in our food. For example, breast milk contains fairly high levels of dioxin. Nevertheless breast milk is still the healthiest food for baby. EPA must release this information to new mothers so they know that nursing is the healthiest option.
Whose protection is our public agencies’ priority?
Recently, there has been an increased lobbying effort by various industries to stop the release of the EPA’s dioxin report. The International Dairy Foods Association, for example, wrote EPA a letter stating, “Animal products, such as milk and dairy foods, have the highest concentrations of dioxins, albeit at levels that are only in the parts-per-million and clearly below levels that have been determined to be unsafe. However, EPA’s proposed values for evaluating dioxin, if translated publicly to a “reference dose,” would scare consumers away from our products, and this would be contrary to the government’s own dietary guidance to consume three servings of low-fat or fat-free dairy each day in order to get essential nutrients found in milk and dairy.”
Releasing the EPA’s dioxin report will help consumers make choices in food products that are low in fat content (as recommended by government’s dietary guidance) and could educate the dairy lobbyists as well since they got it wrong in their letter. Low fat and fat free products are not the big problem, because dioxin is carried into food products through the fat content.
Consumers should call their federal representatives and urge them to support the release of the EPA’s dioxin report so they can make their own decisions about what is safe. It is time to stop assuming the American people will not understand and give them the scientific information.
The New York State Parents Teachers Association (PTA) voted last week at their annual meeting in Saratoga Springs, NY to pass a resolution calling for a phase out of the plastic PVC in schools. The resolution, called “Reducing & Phasing Out the Purchase of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) Plastic in New York Schools,” acknowledged the serious harm posed by PVC throughout its lifecycle, releasing toxic chemicals such as phthalates during use in products such as school supplies and building materials; releasing toxic chemicals such as vinyl chloride and ethylene dichloride during manufacture; and generating toxic chemicals such as dioxins during disposal when burned.
