What Instead? Essay

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By Stephenie Hendricks

This is a subjective, Environmental Humanities post-secondary curriculum about Environmental Health (EH) and Environmental Justice (EJ) presenting research using a Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) methodology, meaning the stories are used as data. These stories (including my own) are from some of those who discover and hold the emerging science and knowledge about hazards to environmental health and environmental justice, who are innovating the solutions toward making a healthier world. With SPN, the research is subjective; stories are anchored to larger themes and other scholarly research. In this module we ask, what do we use instead of making and using manmade harmful toxic chemicals? 

These are my perceptions, with acknowledgement that former colleagues may recollect something that might be quite different. I encourage any former colleagues to contact me if you feel that what I am remembering differs from your memory and could in any way cause harm to you or your work.

This is a companion to the What Instead? podcast and Explorations. Check out the Instructor’s Guide and Ideas for Independent Learners for more ways to share knowledge.

The Problem

There are more than 350,000 manmade toxic chemicals in the marketplace that have not been adequately tested for impacts on human health and the environment (Cohen and Jefferies 1, Judson et al. 685). A study of newborns’ cord blood revealed more than 230 toxic man-made chemicals (Body Burden). Obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, learning disabilities, brain tumors, and other health impacts linked to manmade chemical exposures are on the rise and preventable ( The Public Health Impact of Chemicals 4). More about the health problems in the “Brief and Recent History,” “Health Care Professionals on the Front Lines,” and “On the Fenceline” modules in this curriculum. In “On the Fenceline” we see how BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) folks are disproportionately impacted, making this an environmental justice issue. 

There are many approaches to this question. In What Instead? we meet people who are identifying and designing safer chemicals and products, those who are figuring out how to achieve chemical functions in a different way, and those helping communities, consumers, workers, business, and financial systems to do things in new ways that lead to everyone becoming safer from toxic exposures.

The Good News

Manmade toxic chemicals that are linked to health and environmental hazards serve important functions; they are used to make cars, in construction, consumer goods, electronics, and plastics (“Chemistry in America,” Zuin et al. 1594). How can we continue to enjoy the luxuries we’ve grown accustomed to without making ourselves and other life forms sick? As awareness grows about the huge and complex issues of manmade toxic exposures, there have been significant efforts toward increasing legislation and regulations for making safer chemicals. Canada (“Chemical Substances”), the European Union (“Chemicals Strategy”), the United States (“Safer Chemical Ingredient List”), and other countries are implementing programs that look for and assess safer chemicals that can be alternatives to hazardous manmade toxic chemicals. Legislative and regulatory pushes spur company innovation (Slunge 4-5). 

The marketplace is central to mitigating hazards from toxic chemicals. As of this writing, the annual market for sustainable businesses and technology as valued by Fortune Magazine is expected to grow to $61.92 billion/year by 2030 (Negron). The American Sustainable Business Network (ASBN) boasts more than 240,000 businesses focused on providing safer and more sustainable goods and services (“The Legacy”). ASBN co-founder David Levine shares more about this in the podcast for this module. David and his colleagues have been instrumental in gaining access to policymakers for more protective environmental health laws and regulations. Before there was the ASBN, there was the American Sustainable Business Council, or ASBC.

2008

“Hi! What’s up?” I am always excited when an Associated Press reporter calls me. Usually, I am the one badgering them.

“Well, I was wondering if your group has any principles for chemical regulation reform for President elect Obama.”

“Er, ah, well,” I stammer. My mind races through all the many meetings and conversations I’ve recently had with the many individuals from the more than 200 groups in the collaborative where I am communications coordinator.  Nothing.

“Well, I think so, let me check on this and get back to you,” I fib.

“OK, don’t take too long.”

I dial the two coordinators of the collaborative.

“Hi, do we have any Principles for Chemical Regulation Reform for president elect Obama? An AP reporter is asking me for some.”

“Ah, no we don’t,” responds one of the co-directors, “Go ahead and write some up.”

After we hang up, I think, OK, we can do this. I make a list of key scientists, policy wonks, environmental justice advocates and others in the collaborative. I draft a document with “Principles” repeating back as many points as I can remember hearing from the many meetings I’ve attended. Then the crazy vetting process begins with dozens of participants in the collaborative from different professions – scientists, physicians, nurses, advocates, businesspeople – each with a different focus on the issue. Keeping track of versions is a nightmare as Word documents zing back and forth. Some involved don’t agree with each other and I try and work out a solution for wording that works for everyone. This is hard! Finally, in a few days’ time, it is done. We draft it in the form of a letter. David Levine, representing what was known then as the American Sustainable Business Council, uses it along with his contacts and influence to gain a meeting with Obama’s transition team. This is a first!

This story illustrates how a lot of people from many different disciplines can work together to make change. Thanks to the efforts of all those people, they helped pave a way for environmental health advocates to have seats at the table for reforming the U.S.  Toxics Substances Control Act (TSCA). And it happened because making us all safer from toxic exposures is good for business. It was also a promotable news pitch. 

Later, I was lucky enough to co-host an internet radio show with Richard Eidlen, from the ASBC. Every week we interviewed ASBC participants doing remarkable things.  For example, the owner of a bookstore cafe in Washington, DC, paid a living wage to his workers, gave them ample vacation time and sick leave, and nurtured them as a team providing an important space for the community to gather and have significant discussions. If you are ever in Washington, DC, check out Busboys and Poets, it is an exciting place to grab a meal and meet new people doing interesting things.  Our radio guests provided safer goods or services; they innovated; they treated their workers well and were involved in helping their communities; and they were making money. That was a fun show. 

What happens when regulatory and legislative reform takes too long and polluting companies aren’t reined in by official rules? In our economic system, shareholders have a lot of power. Shareholders within larger companies are realizing that toxic exposure presents liability threats for their investments (“Shareholder Advocacy”). A relatively new field of financial advising called ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) has evolved that helps investors put the money into companies focused on sustainable practices (“Kiplinger’s Ranks”). Harvard Law School reports that there is widespread support for ESG in Europe (Smith, Timothy “Attacks on ESG”), while in the U.S. some politicians, reportedly linked to polluting companies such as oil and gas corporations, are attempting to make ESG financial advising illegal (Tellez). NGOs like As You Sow pioneered ESG and work on shareholder actions to hold companies accountable to reduce health and environment hazards. As You Sow’s CEO Andy Behar and ASBN founder David Levine discuss how companies who are doing the right thing are attracting investors in the podcast for this module. Andy and his colleagues have coaxed big corporations into making changes. For example, I supported their work on identifying cadmium and lead in chocolate by helping to garner media attention. It is taking years, but the big chocolate producers are finally working to make the changes necessary to make safer chocolate.  It’s no easy feat; the cadmium and lead get into the cocoa beans via contamination from toxic incinerators placed in developing countries where the cocoa is grown (Toxic Chocolate). This shows that pollution from afar can make its way into products we love. 

Making Safer Chemicals

Making fewer toxic chemicals itself can be big business. The Green Chemistry industry is valued at more than $100 billion a year (Bernick). While I was attending a conference at UC Berkeley put on by chemist Arlene Blum, founder of the Green Science Policy Institute, I, who had never taken a chemistry course, was fascinated as one of the one of the participant scientists showed us the molecular structure of a carcinogenic toxic chemical, and then showed us the structure of a human cell and talked about how toxic molecules can disrupt  human cell walls and trigger cancer and other health impacts (Narayanan et al. S1103). Safer molecules do not cause as much disruption, and don’t necessarily have reduced function. Andrew Jordan et al. examined some of the most used solvents, which are notoriously toxic, and demonstrated that safer solutions exist, and in fact can be “just as good or better than the status quo” (Jordan, Andrew, et al. 6782). Some examples of innovations with Green Chemistry include creating safer chemicals for use in cleaning products, in making microchips, pharmaceutical products, biodegradable plastics and more (“Examples of Green Chemistry”). Chemists, chemical engineers, and others are stepping up to find safer molecular structures within chemical formulations. 

The late environmental health journalist Lizzie Grossman described Green Chemistry best in her book Chasing Molecules: Poisonous Products, Human Health, and the Promise of Green Chemistry (UBC Press): “What successful Green Chemistry promises is the prevention of chemical pollution by designing materials that are inherently environmentally benign” (76-77). Lizzie introduces us to John Warner, considered by many to be one of the founders of the Green Chemistry concept (Grossman Kindle  Location 85). He co-founded the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry, where he assists the private sector with Green Chemistry innovations. He and Paul Anastas, considered by many to be the “Father of Green Chemistry,” is now Professor of Epidemiology (“Paul Anastas”) and the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Professor in the Practice of Chemistry for the Environment and Chemical & Environmental Engineering at Yale. Together, Warner and Anastas wrote what many believe to be the first foundational book on Green Chemistry, Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice, published in 2000. In this seminal text, they identified “12 Principles of Green Chemistry:”

Prevention
It is better to prevent waste than to treat or clean up waste after it has been created.

Atom Economy
Synthetic methods should be designed to maximize the incorporation of all materials used in the process into the final product.

Less Hazardous Chemical Syntheses
Wherever practicable, synthetic methods should be designed to use and generate substances that possess little or no toxicity to human health and the environment.

Designing Safer Chemicals
Chemical products should be designed to effect their desired function while minimizing their toxicity.

Safer Solvents and Auxiliaries
The use of auxiliary substances (e.g., solvents, separation agents, etc.) should be made unnecessary wherever possible and innocuous when used.

Design for Energy Efficiency
Energy requirements of chemical processes should be recognized for their environmental and economic impacts and should be minimized. If possible, synthetic methods should be conducted at ambient temperature and pressure.

Use of Renewable Feedstocks
A raw material or feedstock should be renewable rather than depleting whenever technically and economically practicable.

Reduce Derivatives
Unnecessary derivatization (use of blocking groups, protection/ deprotection, temporary modification of physical/chemical processes) should be minimized or avoided, if possible, because such steps require additional reagents and can generate waste.

Catalysis
Catalytic reagents (as selective as possible) are superior to stoichiometric reagents.

Design for Degradation
Chemical products should be designed so that at the end of their function they break down into innocuous degradation products and do not persist in the environment.

Real-time analysis for Pollution Prevention
Analytical methodologies need to be further developed to allow for real-time, in-process monitoring and control prior to the formation of hazardous substances.

Inherently Safer Chemistry for Accident Prevention
Substances and the form of a substance used in a chemical process should be chosen to minimize the potential for chemical accidents, including releases, explosions, and fires. (“12 Principles”)

           In their paper “Green Chemistry as Social Movement,” Woodhouse and Breyman give this interesting comparison of conventional chemistry and Green Chemistry:

Conventional Chemistry

*Start with a petroleum-based feedstock;  dissolve it;  add a reagent; 

* React the compounds to produce intermediate chemicals; 

*Put these through a long series of additional reactions to yield megaton quantities of potentially dangerous final products; 

*Release these into ecosystems and human environments without knowledge of long-term effects, without going through gradual scale-up to learn from experience; …

*Create millions of tons of hazardous wastes as by-products. 

 In contrast, Green Chemistry would do the following: 

 * Design each new molecule so as to accelerate both excretion from living organisms and biodegradation in ecosystems; 

 *Create the chemical from a carbohydrate (sugar/starch/cellulose) or oleic (oily/fatty) feedstock; 

  *Rely on a catalyst, often biological, in a small-scale process that uses no solvents or benign ones and requires only a few steps, creating little or no hazardous waste as by-products; 

*Yield(ing) small quantities of the new chemical for exhaustive toxicology and other testing, 

 * Followed by very gradual scale-up and learning by doing. (201)

Woodhouse and Breyman may have stated too broadly that conventional chemistry uses only fossil fuel-based feedstock; sugars and other kinds of plant-based materials are used as well (“Chemical Feedstocks”). 

Hear excerpts from a compelling lecture by Paul Anastas on shifting from conventional chemistry to Green Chemistry, “Green Chemistry: The Future,” made to the Purdue Engineering department in this module’s podcast. 

The German Chemistry Council developed a similar paradigm to Green Chemistry they call Sustainable Chemistry, which identifies beneficial qualities that include:

• Avoiding the use of persistent, bio-accumulative, toxic, and otherwise, hazardous materials.
• Using renewable resources and decreasing consumption of non-renewable resources.
• Minimizing negative environmental impacts of chemical processing and manufacturing.
• Providing technologies that are economically competitive for and advantageous to industry. (Zuin et al. 1596)

Green Chemistry entails not only changing the molecular structures of chemicals, but also engaging applied science and technology in determining practical applications. Since Warner’s and Anastas’ work in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Joel Tickner at the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, has helped develop an estimable research hub that includes the Sustainable Chemistry Catalyst, an independent research and strategy initiative. The Catalyst aims to:

Understand barriers and opportunities to commercialization, identifies model solutions and strategies, develops methods to evaluate safer alternatives, and builds a community of expertise to support the transition to safer, more sustainable chemistries and technologies. (“Green Chemistry”)

While at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Dr. Ticker also founded the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council (GC3), comprised of 120 companies (“Introduction”). Global interconnections are “adding momentum” to mainstreaming Green Chemistry (Zuin et al. 1599).

Evaluating Hazards

For companies to make or for consumers to buy safer products, there must be a way of identifying the hazards. More and more NGOs are creating evaluation tools and databases where consumers and businesses can look up products and determine a hazard rating to choose a safer alternative. This is often called alternatives assessment. This way, consumers and manufacturers can make an informed choice. Several of the main repositories for information are listed in the table below. You can hear Lauren Heine talk about the Green Screen and Chemforward platforms conducting alternatives assessments in the podcast for this module. How do governments handle information for the public? The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) relies on what are known as Material Safety Datasheets (MSDS) submitted by companies. Some find MSDS lacking in important information (Bernstein 35). The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety has a similar process system, called a Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) that uses Safety Data Sheets (SDS) (“WHMIS Program”). With both these systems, the focus is occupational exposures to single substances. See Table 3 for a partial list with other databases.

Confidential Business Information (CBI) and Right to Know

Some chemical companies and manufacturers do not want to reveal information about their products, claiming what is known as Confidential Business Information (CBI) (McFadden 406). This claim assumes that how the products are made and what they are made of is proprietary and that disclosing the information will harm their business (Ibid. 412). However, this claim blocks the public’s right to know what is in products, what might contaminate the environments where they are made and what hazards might remain where the products are disposed. Thus, CBI is in direct conflict with a growing movement aimed at transparency for the public being able to know what substances are in products called Right to Know (Bergeson 65). 

One of the most determined groups working on Right to Know, labeling, and raising awareness throughout the public, is a group called U.S. Right to Know (USRTK). Their work, along with others, raised awareness about a weed killer called glyphosate, linked to neurological problems and cancer (“IARC”). Due in part to the research of USRTK, a school groundskeeper won the first ever lawsuit ($290 million) against the makers of the product that contained glyphosate; he asserted that his cancer came from repeated use of the herbicide. There are some formulations of Roundup that do not contain glyphosate, but the groundskeeper’s formation did contain glyphosate. There have been multiple claims from people who say that their non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma resulted from their use of Roundup (Novotny 10). When Bayer (yes, the same company that makes children’s aspirin) bought the company that made Roundup, Bayer also inherited $20 billion in other lawsuits from people who believed they became ill from the product (Cohen, Patricia). You can hear Stacy Malkan, co-founder of USRTK, talk more about this in the podcast for this module. 

I worked with Stacy at Campaign for Safe Cosmetics when they discovered a preservative that turned into formaldehyde in Johnson & Johnson’s baby shampoo. 

2011

Flashback.  It’s 1990 and my one-year-old daughter is crying. “But it’s ‘No More Tears’” shampoo” I say, “It shouldn’t be hurting your eyes!” She keeps crying and rubbing her eyes. Decades later, now I know. There was formaldehyde in that baby shampoo. 

“Damn!” I say on the conference call with members of Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. I’ve just gotten the news of their testing of the iconic baby shampoo. 

“What?” Stacy Malkan responds.

“Oh, nothing. I just realized that years ago I was exasperated with my daughter for complaining about me using this shampoo, that it was stinging her eyes, and even at one year old, she was right!”

Later, “Oh Goody!” the Associated Press reporter says over the phone. I’ve called her to see if she will do a story on the baby shampoo testing. “I’ve been covering this company for years, and, believe me, I might be shocked, but, truly, I am not surprised.”  This is my first encounter with the company’s behind the scenes information, like what’s in its products, so I am a bit taken aback by this response from a reporter whose job it is to cover their every move. She is enthusiastic about reporting our test results. At first the company denies it, then they announce they are making a safer product line, while still keeping the original offending shampoo in the marketplace.  More stories hit. Some countries take the product out of the marketplace entirely. I hear on another conference call later that their stocks tumble that year.

We were able to alert the public about the baby shampoo and sales were impacted. It ultimately drove them to reformulate the product. Stacy also teamed up with Black Women for Wellness and other groups when it was discovered that the same company that allowed formaldehyde in its baby shampoo was selling baby talcum powder with asbestos in it. Studies demonstrated a link between the use of this baby powder, marketed to women of color for personal hygiene, and ovarian cancer (Cramer, Daniel W. et al. .345). When the U.S. and Canada restricted the baby powder, the company focused on selling it to women in Africa and South Asia.

           How can consumers know if the personal care products they use are safe? Environmental Working Group’s Skin-Deep is a database that assigns a hazard rating for personal care products, including shampoo and talcum powder, so customers can choose safer products.

Being the Change

Several scientists involved in a company called SUDOC are currently making more sustainable and less toxic cleaning products. Co-founded by biologist Pete Myers (see “A Brief and Recent History” module for more on Myers’ early EH history involvement in identifying endocrine disrupting chemicals), the brain trust in this company reads like a Who’s Who of scientists working on the front lines of safer chemicals and products. See the SUDOC website in the Assignments and Explorations section of this module to read more about these extraordinary scientists. Each one of them has impressive stories of courage when discovering health impacts from toxic chemicals and then moving forward with innovations for working on safer substitutions (“Advisors”).

Scientists need support for their research to change regulations and policies that allow harmful manmade chemicals in the workplace. For example, a broad coalition of groups worked to raise awareness on bisphenol A (BPA), which was largely led by the research of Dr. Fred vom Saal and others identified as an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC) (Vandenberg et a;. “Hormones” 382). I worked with a collaborative team to help get the emerging science on BPA into the public sphere and, eventually, BPA was removed from baby bottles, most water bottles, and some can linings. “BPA-Free” is now a promotable marketing label as companies innovate. It takes a tremendous amount of pressure to gain public notice, a market shift (when the public refuses to buy the offending product) and then public support to restrict a chemical. Read more about the BPA campaign in the “Health Professionals on the Front Lines” essay. 

Worker and Community Safety 

Consumers are winning in marketplace campaigns and through court cases to rid the public sphere of manmade toxic exposures. But what about workers? When we transition from making harmful products, how can we be sure that the new substitutions and the way they are made are safer for those doing the actual work of making them? This is the focus of a group called the Just Transition Alliance. Founder Jose Bravo works with communities, companies, and policy makers in the U.S., while Ananda Lee Tan is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Bravo, along with worker advocates Pam Tau Lee and William Campbell explained the recent evolution of the phrase “Just Transition” in a GreenBiz article:

Throughout the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, just transition evolved through dialogue between     communities of color and labor organizers on the frontlines of extractive industries       threatening community and worker health, our ecological life-support systems, and                       Indigenous land defense. Where Black, brown, Indigenous, migrant, and poor White   communities were fighting polluting energy, petrochemical and waste corporations,   industrial workers, and their unions were often pitted against our communities by corporations using the false binary debate of jobs versus environment (Lee, Pam Tau et al.). 

For more about communities impacted by petrochemical plants, check out the “On the Fenceline” module. 

How can communities know how to organize and insist on protections for their workers and residents? It was Jose Bravo who told me about a framework called the Jemez Principles for Democratic Organizing. The Just Transition Alliance came up with their own Just Transition Principles:

Workers, community residents, and Indigenous Peoples around the world have a fundamental human right to clean air, water, land, and food in their workplaces, homes, and environment.

There is no contradiction between simultaneously creating sustainable development, having a healthy economy, and maintaining a clean and safe environment.

Liberalization of environmental, health and labor laws and corporate globalization – know no borders. Therefore, solutions call for local, regional, national, and global solidarity.

The development of fair economic, trade, health and safety and environmental policies must include both the frontline workers and fence-line communities most affected by pollution, ecological damage, and economic restructuring.

The costs of achieving sustainable development, a healthy economy and clean environment should not be borne by current or future victims of environmental and economic injustices and unfair free trade policies.

Workers and community residents have the right to challenge any entity that commits economic and/or environmental injustices. These entities include governments, the military, corporations, international bodies, and mechanisms for securing corporate accountability. (“Just Transition”)

            Jose Bravo shares more about this important aspect of sustainability in the podcast for this module. When designing a sustainable future, with a “What Instead” scenario with environmental health and environmental justice protections, successful companies, and protective governments, I believe that the designers, if they are prudent and want to be profitable and, well, sustainable, might consider the Just Transition Principles to help insure healthy workers and healthy communities. 

Don’t Ignore Mother Nature

Another exciting avenue for making safer products lies in what is called Biomimicry. Biologist Janine Benyus had been researching and writing about how flora and fauna adapt for survival without destroying their habitats. Through this work she learned that one strategy for reducing toxic exposures might be to mimic functions that occur in nature. While others have been studying this concept, this is her definition of biomimicry:

1. Nature as model. Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature’s models and then imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to solve human problems (e.g., a solar cell inspired by a leaf). 

2. Nature as measure. Biomimicry uses an ecological standard to judge the “rightness” of our innovations. After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has learned: What works. What is appropriate. What lasts. 

3. Nature as mentor. Biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but on what we can learn from it. (Benyus Kindle 45)

Here are excerpts from Janine’s four steps for paying attention to Nature for figuring out less toxic functions and a more sustainable future that helps to ensure survival for all living things – including us:

Four Steps to a Biometric Future

Quieting: Immerse ourselves in nature. 

Listening: Interview the flora and fauna of our own planet. I say “interview” because it is not enough to simply name the species on Earth (though this is a monumental task, and nowhere near complete). We must also get to know these species as best we can and discover their talents and survival tips, their role in the great web of things. 

Echoing: Encourage biologists and engineers to collaborate, using nature as model and measure. The only way to ensure that nature’s designs will be considered is to put biologists and engineers on the same working teams. … we must put what is good for life first, and trust that it will also be good for us. The new questions should be “Will it fit in?” “Will it last?” and “Is there a precedent for this in nature?” If so, the answers to the following questions will be yes: Does it run on sunlight? Does it use only the energy it needs? Does it fit form to function? Does it recycle everything? Does it reward cooperation? Does it bank on diversity? Does it utilize local expertise? Does it curb excess from within? Does it tap the power of limits? Is it beautiful? Assuming our bio-inspired innovation passes those tests, our next design decision will have to do with scale. Since scale is one of the main things that separates our technologies from nature’s, it is important to consider what is appropriate, that is, what is receptive to and acceptive of our habitat. 

Stewarding: Preserve life’s diversity and genius. … Restraint is not a popular notion in a society addicted to “growing” the economy, but it is one of the most powerful practices we can adopt at this point in history. Native peoples’ response to this abiding mystery was to set aside sacred sites – a valley that would not be hunted, a stream that would not be fished, a grove of trees that would never be cut. These spiritual sites turned out to be lasting conservation legacies. In some parts of the world, they are the only examples of a certain kind of habitat that are left. (Biomimicry 287-295)

            The full text of these steps can be found in Chapter Eight of Janine’s book, Biomimicry. Hear more about Biomimicry from Janine Beynus in the podcast for this module. The Carnegie Museum of Natural history explains many examples of applied Biomimicry, including how hairy toes on geckos led to ways to “close wounds without stitches;” how burrs sticking to dog hair inspired the idea for Velcro; and why we have cozy down jackets and sleeping bags, thanks to mimicking down feathers from geese; and other nature inspired functions (“Biomimicry is Real World Inspiration”)

Bottom Line

For those interested in creating safer chemicals, less toxic products, and/or a profitable sustainable business, there are ample organizations, companies, and government regulatory and policy avenues from which to gain knowledge and support. Some are listed in the Assignments and Explorations section of this module. 

If we look back on history, there were those who recognized that having clean water could avert disease and save money, so entire industries evolved to create systems for providing cleaner water. Scientists prevailed to get lead removed from paint and fuel, and to get most of the public to stop smoking cigarettes. Other businesses emerged from these shifts toward protecting environmental health. Now, with the growing awareness and urgency of social justice enmeshed with the environment, we see that it is crucial to consider workers’ and communities’ well-being along with consumers as we transition from toxic practices. When there is degradation of the environment, there are “economic and social consequences” (Nagla 39).

When companies strive to do the right thing, the consequences can be quite beneficial. A worldwide study of more than 80,000 private companies and a further 20,000 listed companies, reported that the majority believe that they are benefitting from sustainable business practices (“More Sustainable”). The National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market, otherwise known as NASDAQ, recently published an article by sustainable businessman, George Negron, who has a compelling argument for investing in less toxic product production. Among other reasons, he cites:

The non-toxic product market has shown remarkable growth in recent years, with the green cleaning category alone expected to reach nearly $400B by 2027, and this upward trend is continuing to rise. As more consumers shift towards healthier and environmentally conscious choices, companies specializing in non-toxic products are experiencing increased sales and profitability. In addition, existing brands have continued to innovate to capitalize on this consumer demand by launching sustainable products. By investing in this growing sector, you position yourself to capitalize on this market expansion, potentially yielding substantial financial returns. (Negron)

With so many scientists, health and environment advocates, and businesses creating so much momentum, the “What Instead?” phenomena of shifting to less toxic manmadechemicals and products may well be headed to becoming the “New Normal.” For those of us interested in exploring new ways to do things that make our world – and our lives – healthier, we just might want to view our paths, in a hopeful fashion, as in, “What’s Next?” 

Table 3. Partial List of Organizations Rating Products for Toxic Hazards 

Database Name	NGO/ Company	Product Type	Subscription	Notes
ChemForward	ChemForward	Chemicals	Fees for chemical evaluations	Science based, collaborates with industry, findings can be shared by companies
ChemSec	ChemSec Business Group	Chemicals	Evaluates chemicals used in manufacturing	Various evaluations for regulatory and manufacturing, EU based
Consumer Product Information Database	DeLima Associates	Various consumer products	Reports on consumer products	Info based on voluntary company MSDS reporting. Formerly managed by US National Institutes of Health
Green Screen	Clean Production Action	Chemicals	Rates chemical hazards for use in manufacturing	Also has a certification for medical devices
MadeSafe	NonToxic Certified	Consumer Products	Reports on consumer products	Certification for products, top scientists evaluating
Non-Toxic Black Beauty Database	Campaign for Safe Cosmetics	Personal Care Products	Reports on consumer products	TestsDownloadable PDF
PesticideInfo	Pesticide Action Network North America	Pesticides	Reports on hazards of pesticides	Aggregated info from government sources, also has assessment of potential pesticide contamination on fruits and vegetables
PHAROS	Healthy Building Network	Building Materials	Gives hazard rating to materials used in building	For contractors, architects
Products of Concern	Campaign for Safe Cosmetics	Personal Care Products	Reports on consumer products	Compilations from various reports. Testing
Safer       Choice	U.S. EPA	Various consumer products	Reports on consumer products	Relies on voluntary company reporting MSDS
Safer      Products	U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission	Various Consumer products	Reports on consumer products	Info based on voluntary company MSDS reporting
Skin Deep	Environmental Working Group	Personal Care Products	Hazard rating on consumer products	Also has drinking water ratings and other assessments
Sudoc	Sudoc	Makes safer cleansing products	Designs safer chemicals	Has top chemists working on making safer products

                    

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