Is that laundry soap truly "environmentally friendly"? Was that mattress treated with toxic chemicals? Is that sweatsuit fashioned from organic cotton? Is that lipstick "natural"? California officials launched a sweeping green initiative on Tuesday to inform consumers exactly how hundreds of thousands of products sold in the state are manufactured and transported and how safe their ingredients are.
Is that laundry soap
truly "environmentally friendly"? Was that mattress treated with toxic
chemicals? Is that sweatsuit fashioned from organic cotton? Is that
lipstick "natural"? California officials launched a sweeping
green initiative on Tuesday to inform consumers exactly how hundreds of
thousands of products sold in the state are manufactured and
transported and how safe their ingredients are. !ADVERTISEMENT! The plan, which
would require every product to reveal its "environmental footprint,"
envisions the most comprehensive regulations ever adopted for consumer
goods. "These recommendations usher in a new era of how we look at
household products -- from our children's toys to the plastic we use to
make shampoo bottles, to the varnish on our wood furniture," said Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger. Until now, most of the state's regulation
of toxic chemicals, which can cause cancer, birth defects and
neurological damage, has been focused on how to control exposure to
factory workers and how to clean up hazardous waste. But after an
18-month effort to revamp that approach, "instead of paying attention
to the toxic substances in our everyday products only when it comes
time to throw them away in the landfill," Schwarzenegger said, "we will
now pay attention . . . when the product is designed, manufactured,
used and recycled." Maureen F. Gorsen, director of the California
Department of Toxic Substances Control, said the administration would
propose a law setting up a public database that could eventually allow
consumers to scan a bar code on every product to determine how green it
is -- or isn't. With scanners at stores, or eventually on
cellphones, purchasers could compare brands to figure out which one was
manufactured, for instance, with coal-fired electricity in China and
which one with solar power in California. They could also
determine how much greenhouse gas was emitted through its
transportation by boat, plane or truck and whether its ingredients were
the safest available and could be easily recycled. A more limited
regulation by the California Air Resources Board requires stickers on
new automobiles rating them on how much smog-forming pollution and how
much carbon dioxide, a gas that contributes to global warming, they
emit. The proposed "Green Chemistry" initiative comes at a time
of growing concern that the federal Toxic Substances Control Act,
passed three decades ago, has failed to control an explosion of
hazardous materials. Europe recently enacted tougher toxics rules than
the United States, forcing many American companies to revamp products
sold for export, but the California program would go further in its
disclosure requirements. "We don't know what is really in
'artificial flavors' or 'fragrances,' " said Dan Jacobson, legislative
director of Environment California, a nonprofit that issued a recent
report on the lack of testing on chemicals. Environmentalists
want to curb the current practice of "risk assessment," which requires
a complex calculation of exposure and harm before a chemical is
restricted. Chemicals should be proven safe before marketed, in their
view. "Industry fights for risk assessment because it is easier
to hide the dangers of their chemicals," Jacobson said. "This issue is
not fully addressed in the report." Gorsen responded that the
plan would mean "a big move away from traditional risk assessment. . .
. We create a system that accelerates our move to safer choices --
rather than argue and equivocate about how bad is bad." Meanwhile,
companies, latching on to consumer fears, are trying to outdo one
another in advertising their products' eco-virtues -- a phenomenon
sometimes disparaged as "greenwashing." "Most of the green stuff
that is marketed is not really green," Gorsen said. "With this plan, we
are moving from 'claims of green' to 'metrics of green.' Maybe a
company did one thing to make their product green, but their overall
footprint is not good. We'll look at how green is green. And how to
compare this bottle of shampoo to that bottle of shampoo." Approximately
100,000 known chemicals are used in production today, but safety data
is available on only a few thousand. In California, 644 million pounds
of chemical products are sold each day. "The federal government
has not required ingredients disclosure for all products," Gorsen said.
"Now for the first time, we will know what is in products -- and not
just those made in California but anything sold in California." Two
California laws passed last fall have jump-started the program. AB
1879, sponsored by Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), requires the
state to identify "chemicals of concern" and to evaluate safer
alternatives. SB 509, sponsored by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto),
creates a scientific clearinghouse for information on chemicals'
effects. Automakers and electronics manufacturers lobbied against
the bills, saying that, given the new European standards, they could be
subjected to a patchwork of warning labels. Car manufacturers use flame
retardants that have been linked to neurodevelopmental effects.
Computers and other electronics contain contaminants that endanger
health if they escape into factory workplaces, landfills and water
supplies. Representatives of the electronics and auto industries
in Sacramento declined to comment on the new plan, but John Ulrich,
executive director of the Chemistry Industry Council of California,
called the initiative "balanced. Our industry has been promoting
sustainable development since the 1980s," he said. The initiative
takes a scientific approach to regulation, he added, instead of the
"earlier chemical-by-chemical approach conducted in the Legislature by
people who didn't have a background in the field." He noted,
however, that consumer products associations, such as detergent
manufacturers, have not endorsed the disclosure of their ingredients
because of concerns over trade secrets. Gorsen said industry
leaders such as Patagonia, Levi Strauss and Wal-Mart that are already
using environmental score cards to rate products are enthusiastic about
a footprint database. "It will give a competitive advantage to
companies that are ahead of the curve." It could also favor
California-made products, she suggested. "With globalization, a lot of
them are at a price disadvantage. But if a California manufacturing
facility is cleaner than a facility in China, then California will not
be at such a competitive disadvantage." Gorsen said her agency
"held workshops up and down the state. We talked to the manufacturers,
to Dow, DuPont and Procter & Gamble, to the grocery chains and the
retailers. We sifted through 57,000 comments." The 57-page plan
will require both regulations and new legislation. And, given the
hundreds of thousands of products sold in the state, it could take as
long as 10 years to gather all the information on their manufacture,
toxicity and environmental footprints, Gorsen acknowledged. -- m This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.