Toxic Nation

My daughter and I like to play a game we call “Toxicles” where we see who can come up with the most disgusting popsicle flavors. You know, snot-sicles, sludge-sicles; it deteriorates from there. But the level of unregulated toxic chemical use in the United States is no joke.

Of the mind-boggling 80,000 chemicals used in the U.S., only 200 have been tested for safety. Think about that. Many of these live under our sinks, in our showers, even in our beds, but we don’t know it, because in most cases companies aren’t required to divulge this information. Environmental Defense Fund scientists Richard Denison and Caroline Baier-Anderson weigh in on the need to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act in this interview: Toxic America: Time for Reform.

Baier-Anderson and Denison also talk about what, if anything, we as consumers can do to limit our exposure to chemicals. Here’s an excerpt:

Baier-Anderson: [T]here are products like shampoo and dish soap and laundry detergent that market themselves as being made with safer chemical ingredients, and a variety of eco logos are on products that have been certified as being made with safer chemical ingredients. It becomes a little more challenging when we talk about the big-ticket items such as carpeting and furniture and mattresses and things like that—these are products that we live with for many years. Companies like IKEA, which is based in Sweden, have made an effort to remove many known chemicals of concern from their products. So safer products are out there, they are available, but they are hard to find and often it can be really confusing to the average consumer. Ultimately the solution is regulatory reform so that we have standards in place that protect all citizens.

Denison: Even the most informed and motivated individual consumers are limited in what they can do to protect themselves, in part because most products are not required to disclose their ingredients. Some companies have taken voluntary efforts to label their products. But what we really need is a more uniform system that requires companies to disclose which chemicals are in their products. Ultimately though, it should not be up to individual consumers to take steps to protect themselves. We need government to provide the policies and regulations needed to ensure that chemicals in products and in widespread use are safe.

Read more at the Environmental Defense Fund  website.