Smart Energy

Plastic Planet - have you had your Bisphenol A today?

Review by Brian Charles Clark
4 out of 5 stars
Directed by Werner Boote

Originally published on Curled Up with a Good DVD

At the rate we’re going, we’re all going to need to isolate ourselves from the toxins we’ve dumped into our environment by diving into HazMat bubble suits. We’ll have to invent filters that keep the nano-sized particles of cancer-dealing crap out – but, hey, we’ve got the technology for that. And plastics.

On second thought, no: plastics are one of the biggest sources of toxins. Bisphenol A, for instance, is a plasticizer that makes plastic, well, plasticy, and has been a known estrogenic since the 1930s. Estrogenics are those wonderful chemicals that are the secret culprits behind the bitching and moaning of the Iron John crew. Chief among them, Robert Bly has long complained that men have become too feminized, and clearly plastics are to blame, not doting mothers. I mean, look at the amphibians: scientists have been observing them changing sex, male to female, mid-stream for years, so why not humans, too? Is there a problem? Read the rest of this entry »

Do household cleaners contain ingredients linked to asthma, nerve damage and other health effects? Manufacturers aren’t telling, but Earthjustice attorney Keri Powell may have uncovered the key to their pursed lips.

While investigating a potential legal strategy, Keri found buried in the pages of a book of New York State statutes a long-forgotten law authorizing the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to require household cleaning product manufacturers to disclose their chemical ingredients and information about the health risks they pose. In other words, pay dirt.

State regulations issued in 1976 made these disclosures mandatory. Such laws are practically nonexistent in the United States, and the New York law has been altogether overlooked.

via Getting the Dirt on Household Cleaners | unEARTHED, the Earthjustice blog.

Just based on the fact that the Earthjustice attorney uncovered the law, some manufacturers have come clean and ponied up info about what’s in their products. But

Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Church and Dwight, and Reckitt-Bensicker stonewalled, and thus found themselves a few weeks ago across from Keri and her colleagues in a Manhattan courtroom as defendants in this first-of-its-kind lawsuit. They made it clear that their lips are sealed until authorities pry them open. As Health Campaigner Kathleen Sutcliffe wryly remarked last week, Mr. Clean went to court and pled the fifth.

What we need is a database of chemicals in products associated with health concerns, much like the open source database of chemicals in building materials published recently by Perkins + Will.

It’s amazing that professional cleaning services haven’t been clamoring for this information. I suspect the reason why not may have to do with issues of race and class: employees of such companies are hired on a piece-work basis and are poorly paid.