September, 10 2012, 12:08pm EDT
EWG's Online Guide to Healthy Cleaning
Many Cleaners Contain Toxics, Some “Green” Cleaners Hide Ingredients
WASHINGTON
Some household cleaning products can expose unsuspecting users to toxic substances linked to short- and long-term health problems, including asthma, allergic reactions and even cancer.
In an effort to help consumers find safer products, the Environmental Working Group has created the first online guide that rates more than 2,000 household cleaners with grades A through F for safety of ingredients and disclosure of contents.
"Keeping your home clean shouldn't put you and your family at risk, and with EWG's new online guide you won't have to," EWG senior scientist Rebecca Sutton, Ph.D, said. "Quite a few cleaning products that line store shelves are packed with toxic chemicals that can wreak havoc with your health, including many that harm the lungs. The good news is, there are plenty of cleaning products that will get the job done without exposing you to hazardous substances."
Just 7 percent of cleaning products adequately disclosed their contents. To uncover what's in common household cleaners, EWG's staff scientists spent 14 months scouring product labels and digging through company websites and technical documents. EWG staff reviewed each ingredient against 15 U.S. and international toxicity databases and numerous scientific and medical journals.
Ingredient labels are mandatory for food, cosmetics and drugs sold in the U.S. - but not for cleaning products. Bowing to pressure from customers and the threat of federal regulation, most companies list at least some ingredients on their labels and websites. A few companies disclose nothing, while others list just one or a few of their ingredients or describe them in vague terms such as "surfactant" and "solvent."
Key findings:
* Some 53 percent of cleaning products assessed by EWG contain ingredients known to harm the lungs. About 22 percent contain chemicals reported to cause asthma to develop in otherwise healthy individuals.
* Formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen, is sometimes used as a preservative or may be released by other preservatives in cleaning products. It may form when terpenes, found in citrus and pine oil cleaners and in some essential oils used as scents, react with ozone in the air.
* The chemical 1,4-dioxane, a suspected human carcinogen, is a common contaminant of widely-used detergent chemicals.
* Chloroform, a suspected human carcinogen, sometimes escapes in fumes released by products containing chlorine bleach.
* Quaternary ammonium compounds ("quats") like benzalkonium chloride, found in antibacterial spray cleaners and fabric softeners, can cause asthma.
* Sodium borate, also known as borax, and boric acid are added to many products as cleaning agents, enzyme stabilizers or for other functions. They can disrupt the hormone system.
* Many leading "green" brands sell superior products, among them Green Shield Organic and Whole Foods' Green Mission brand. But not all cleaners marketed as environmentally conscious score high. Some "green" brands, including Earth Friendly Products and BabyGanics, do not disclose ingredients adequately.
EWG recommends avoiding a few types of products altogether, since they're unnecessary - or there are no safer alternatives. Among them:
* Air fresheners contain secret fragrance mixtures that can trigger allergies and asthma. Open windows or use fans.
* Antibacterial products can spur development of drug-resistant superbugs.
* Fabric softener and dryer sheet ingredients can cause allergies or asthma and can irritate the lungs. Try a little vinegar in the rinse cycle.
* Caustic drain cleaners and oven cleaners can burn eyes and skin. Use a drain snake or plunger in drains. Try a do-it-yourself paste of baking soda and water in the oven.
The Environmental Working Group has worked with other organizations devoted to protecting consumers from hazardous ingredients in common household cleaning products. Among them: Women's Voice for the Earth.
"Women's Voice for the Earth has been a terrific partner in our efforts to eliminate toxic chemicals from cleaning products, and we applaud its research and advocacy on behalf of human health," Sutton said.
"There is simply no excuse for companies who hide ingredients and make toxic products," said Erin Switalski, Executive Director of Women's Voices for the Earth. "That's why we are so pleased that EWG is releasing this new database. This tool will give women the information they need to vote with their pocketbooks until we have regulations in place that assure all products are safe."
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
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Green Groups Vow Fight After Biden Climate 'Betrayal'
"We will consider every appropriate tool in our continuing fight to stop the Willow climate bomb," said one advocate.
Mar 13, 2023
Following his administration's Monday morning approval of the Willow oil drilling project, environmental justice advocates slammed U.S. President Joe Biden for betraying the voters who sent him to the White House and vowed to do everything in their power to stop ConocoPhillips from proceeding with its climate-wrecking venture on federal land in Alaska's North Slope.
"President Biden's decision to move forward with the Willow project abandons the millions of young people who overwhelmingly came together to demand he stop the project and protect our futures," Sunrise Movement executive director Varshini Prakash said in a statement. Young voters, overwhelmingly opposed to expanding fossil fuel extraction, played a key role in securing Biden's 2020 victory and in minimizing the Democratic Party's losses in the 2022 midterms.
On the campaign trail in 2020, then-candidate Biden "committed to end new oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters," said Prakash. "Today's announcement flies in the face of that promise. Instead of sticking to his own goals and listening to the millions of young people who carried the party for the last three cycles, President Biden is letting the fossil fuel industry have their way."
Dorothy Slater, director of climate research at the Revolving Door Project, also condemned Biden for once again reneging on his unfulfilled pledge to halt drilling on federal lands.
"The Willow project in Alaska is the largest oil extraction project ever proposed on federal lands," Slater pointed out. "Biden's green light for this drilling project, which his own Interior Department had 'substantial concerns' about, is political and cowardly. And last-minute half-measures to conserve other areas of Alaska and the Arctic Ocean are insulting in the face of a betrayal of this magnitude."
"Biden and the fossil fuel-friendly advisers who have his ear are choosing to actively perpetuate massive harm to Alaska ecosystems and our shared atmosphere," said Slater. "ConocoPhillips, faced with the reality of melting permafrost, plans to artificially cool the ground so it can drill for oil that will further heat the planet. The infrastructure needed for the project will fragment delicate Alaska Arctic ecosystems. People living nearby will be made victims of the inevitable human health hazards associated with leaks and transportation emissions."
Noting that residents of the Alaska Native village of Nuiqsut "suffered from headaches, breathing problems, and nausea... in the wake of last year's North Slope gas leak," Allie Rosenbluth, U.S. program manager at Oil Change International, called the White House's move "a tremendous strike against President Biden's legacy on both climate and environmental justice."
"Biden has again broken his campaign promise to stop oil and gas drilling on federal lands and is approving new drilling at a faster rate than the Trump administration," said Rosenbluth. "The Willow project would be a colossal source of climate pollution, emitting a whopping 278 million metric tons over the next three decades—equivalent to the annual emissions of one-third of all remaining U.S. coal plants."
"The United States has no claim to international climate leadership if it's approving deadly new fossil fuel projects that could operate for decades," Rosenbluth asserted. "It's time for the Biden administration to stop investing in disaster and instead invest in a just transition to reliable, affordable, and renewable energy for all."
As Slater observed, "News media has repeatedly cited support from Alaska Natives... who have expressed that the jobs and revenue from the project are necessary to fund basic services for residents."
"But there is serious resistance from at least 38 Indigenous-led organizations and the neighboring Native village of Nuiqsut, who say the process for public input has been inadequate and that the project threatens their way of life," she noted. "A functioning country with a visionary president would realize alternative paths to fund basic services that didn't rely on a poisonous fossil fuel project with huge anticipated costs to people and planet."
"While the administration sides with Big Oil and exploitation of our public lands, we will keep fighting until this project is stopped dead in its tracks."
Sonia Ahkivgak, social outreach coordinator for Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic—which organized a letter of opposition to the Willow project signed by more than three dozen Indigenous-led groups—said in a statement that "the Biden administration's approval makes it clear that its call for climate action and the protection of biodiversity is talk, not action."
"The only reasonable solution to the climate emergency is to deny new fossil fuel projects like Willow," said Ahkivgak. "Our fight has been long and also it has only begun. We will continue to call for a stop to Willow because the lives of local people and future generations depend on it."
Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic was not alone in declaring that the struggle against the Willow project is far from over.
"President Biden's approval of the Willow project is a colossal and reprehensible stain on his environmental legacy," said Friends of the Earth campaigner Raena Garcia. "Forcing a massive climate disaster project onto a region already plagued by climate change is nothing short of tragic for the planet and Alaska's communities."
"While the administration sides with Big Oil and exploitation of our public lands, we will keep fighting until this project is stopped dead in its tracks," Garcia added.
350.org's North America director, Jeff Ordower, echoed that message.
"President Biden claims to prioritize climate justice, yet today's decision reveals that he is quick to cater to pressure from Big Oil over the needs of the people," said Ordower. "Biden absolutely has the power to reject ALL new fossil fuel projects, declare a climate emergency, and truly fight for both our people and our planet. Frontline communities and scientists have been clear that that is the only way forward unless we want to exacerbate climate harm and drive our world further into climate chaos."
Rubber-stamping more oil extraction in the fragile, rapidly warming Arctic "betrays Biden's own climate promises," Ordower continued. "The fight to halt all new fossil fuel projects, including Willow, isn't over. Our movement is only growing—and we'll continue to fight for people and planet over profit."
Christy Goldfuss, chief policy impact officer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, described the Biden administration's decision as "a grievous mistake," stressing that "it greenlights a carbon bomb, sets back the climate fight, and emboldens an industry hell-bent on destroying the planet."
"Willow is a project out of time," Goldfuss continued. "With science demanding an end to fossil fuels, this locks in decades more dependence on oil. With the climate crisis worsening by the day, this has the same yearly carbon footprint of roughly 1.1 million homes—more than are in Chicago. With clean energy investment driving a heartland manufacturing renaissance, this stakes our future on the fuels of the past."
"We will consider every appropriate tool in our continuing fight to stop the Willow climate bomb," she added.
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'Save the Books': Outcry Grows Over Digital Plan for Vermont College Libraries
"How can you defend a higher education institution without books?" said a biology professor at Castleton University. "It's an embarrassing decision."
Mar 13, 2023
Students, staff, alumni, and bibliophiles remain outraged that libraries at Vermont's public college are set to lose vast portions of their book collections, despite a new "refined plan" to potentially retain volumes that "have been deemed academically valuable."
Faced with intense backlash to the all-digital plan unveiled last month, the Vermont State Colleges System (VSCS) said Thursday that academic department chairs and the provost may now be allowed to decide which books survive the purge.
Along with the selection of works that are determined to be academically vital to students, schools may maintain a "collection of popular, casual, reading books, as well as children's books in the library with a 'take-a-book, leave a book' honor system."
The plan to make the libraries mostly digital for the upcoming fall semester is part of a broader transition underway: With the help and support of the state Legislature, Castleton University, Northern Vermont University, and Vermont Technical College will soon become Vermont State University (VTSU) and share a chancellor and board of trustees with the Community College of Vermont.
As VTDiggerreported:
The system plans to keep roughly 30,000 books across five campus libraries, according to Sylvia Plumb, a spokesperson for Vermont State University. That figure is roughly 10% of the approximately 300,000 items in the current collections.
"The refined plan expands upon the original concepts to address the concerns identified by faculty, staff, and students," Plumb said. "This is a natural and expected part of the input and operational process."
[...]
The campuses will also keep a part-time library assistant at Castleton, Johnson, Lyndon, and Randolph, and will hire student workers. The move would still eliminate seven full-time positions, as administrators said earlier, but "several new part-time jobs will be available," Plumb said.
It's unclear how much the "refined plan" differs from the original plan. Plumb said in an email that the savings from the updated plan would be an estimated $500,000, "consistent with the original plan."
Speaking to a crowd that gathered at the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier last month—before the refined plan was announced—Devon Harding declared that as a Castleton student with learning disabilities, "the physical library is not a privilege, it's my right."
"My disabilities cannot be accommodated digitally. Eye strain, difficulty tracking lines, blue light effects on ocular health, struggles to focus. These are not problems a screen can help with," she said. "Furthermore, I can't afford all my textbooks without the library."
"How can you defend a higher education institution without books?" Preston Garcia, a Castleton biology professor who serves as the faculty assembly president, toldThe Boston Globe. "It's an embarrassing decision. Once you get rid of materials, they are gone."
The newspaper noted Monday that on one recent weekday at Castleton, signs at the library entrance read: "Save the books," "Books save lives," and "Books are history." Garcia said that despite the revised plan, "people are as upset as they have been."
While "the Vermont systemmay be one of the first in the nation to take such a dramatic step, higher education watchers say campus libraries are increasingly being targeted for dramatic changes," the Globe highlighted, pointing to similar moves by decision-makers at the University of California, Berkeley in 2017 and Florida Polytechnic University in 2014.
Although the changes in Vermont are ostensibly informed by usage and intended to save money, the developments come amid efforts by right-wing politicians and activists to restrict books and lessons available at educational institutions and libraries nationwide.
Those book-banning campaigns and other censorship efforts are opposed by many students, parents, educators, and librarians as well as groups including the American Library Association, American Federation of Teachers, and PEN America.
Battles to outlaw certain books and lessons in the U.S. are part of a worldwide trend documented in "not only autocracies but even liberal democracies,"
according to an annual report published earlier this month by the Varieties of Democracy Institute in Sweden. "The global retreat in academic freedom affects more than 50% of the world's population or 4 billion people."
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'Economic Crime': Cost of Canada's Trans Mountain Pipeline Soars by Billions, Again
"Everybody warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau if he bought this white elephant pipeline it would turn into a financial and political boondoggle," said one climate campaigner.
Mar 13, 2023
Climate, environmental, and Indigenous advocates in recent days condemned the skyrocketing cost of expanding the Canadian government-owned Trans Mountain oil pipeline, which is now expected to carry a CA$30.9 billion price tag—44% higher than last year's estimate and nearly a six-fold increase from the original appraisal.
Trans Mountain Corporation said Friday that the project—which will add more than 600 miles of new pipeline and will nearly triple existing capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day—is currently close to 80% finished and should be completed by the end of the year. The company blamed the project's soaring cost on numerous factors, including floods in British Columbia, supply chain difficulties, inflation, and the discovery of major Indigenous archaeological sites along the pipeline route.
"Everybody warned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau if he bought this white elephant pipeline it would turn into a financial and political boondoggle," Peter McCartney, a climate campaigner at the Wilderness Committee, said in a statement Friday.
"I don't want to hear from any federal official that bold, transformative climate action is too expensive ever again."
In what critics called a betrayal of his purported commitment to tackling the climate emergency, Trudeau's government bought the pipeline from Houston-based Kinder Morgan in 2018 for $4.5 billion.
"Honestly, I really hate to say we told them so because there are far better things we should be doing with over $30 billion than exporting a polluting product the world has agreed to abandon as fast as possible," said McCartney.
"In the last year alone, the price tag for this pipeline—already the most expensive industrial project in Canadian history—has gone up almost $10 billion," McCartney added. "If the Liberal government doesn't abandon this pointless albatross now, how do we know taxpayers won't be looking at even more cost overruns and further delays a year from now?"
Keith Stewart, a senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada, toldReuters that the pipeline was "always a disaster from a climate change perspective."
"But this is now an economic crime that has stolen $30 billion of public funds from real climate solutions," he added.
According to the Wilderness Committee:
When Trans Mountain first proposed its expansion in 2012, American company Kinder Morgan estimated the construction costs at $5.4 billion. In 2018, when the federal government bought the pipeline it had a forecast price tag of $9.6 billion, on top of the $4.5 billion purchase. Last year, the company announced costs had risen to $21.4 billion, and now it predicts it will cost $30.9 billion in total to finish the project with about a year left to go. That means the price of this pipeline has ballooned almost six times.
"How deeply ironic it is for this fossil fuel company that climate disasters have led construction costs to spiral out of control," McCartney said. "I don't want to hear from any federal official that bold, transformative climate action is too expensive ever again."
According to the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, at least 58 Indigenous sites—including former villages and burial grounds—were destroyed during the pipeline's construction in the early 1950s.
Completed in 1953, the Trans Mountain Pipeline carries crude tar sands oil, often called the world's dirtiest, over 700 miles from Alberta to the British Columbian coast. Activists have urged the Canadian government to cancel the expansion, arguing that it will further fuel the climate emergency, threaten the environment, and desecrate sacred Indigenous lands. Additionally, pipeline workers sometimes murder, rape, traffic, and perpetrate other crimes against First Nations women, girls, and two-spirit people.
On the same day Trans Mountain Corporation announced the revised estimate for the pipeline's cost, Calí Tzay, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, ended a 10-day visit to Canada and published a report linking the project to human rights abuses.
"A large number of megaprojects in Indigenous territories proceed without good faith consultation and in the absence of obtaining Indigenous peoples' free, prior, and informed consent as, in the case of Trans Mountain Pipeline," Tzay wrote. "I am also concerned about the ongoing militarization of Indigenous lands and the criminalization of Indigenous human rights defenders resisting the Trans Mountain and Coastal GasLink pipelines in British Columbia."
"I urge the government of Canada to end these violations," Tzay added, "and to adopt adequate measures to guarantee Indigenous peoples' right to consultation and free, prior, and informed consent, and their rights to lands, territories, and resources."
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