Not so local

While most grocery stores across the nation now have “local produce” sections for a wide variety of fresh items, I have become increasingly aware that “local produce” doesn’t always mean just that. Grocery stores, such as the well-known Publix, Safeway, Haris Teeter, and Trader Joe's, use the concept of “local foods” to mean foods that are picked “locally” at different reference locations, and then shipped into the store over wide distances. For example, a grocery store may ship in “local produce” from independent farms from at least 200 miles away. With local produce labeled as cherries “from the USA” and pineapples “from Costa Rica”, costs of wasted fuel make up for the difference in non-local products. Simply put, this technique helps grocers bring in discounted items, while also paying discounted percent profit to those local farmers—no need to pay a middle-man for brand-name products. Studies show that “farmers receive just 10% to 21% of the retail price of their produce at supermarkets...not enough for a small family farm to survive on, while at farmers markets they get to keep an average 84%."

Although shopping at farmer markets is not always conducive to a hectic schedule, studies also show that shopping at farmers market increases social interaction by over 300 times. A big plus for people who want to learn more about what they’re eating from some of the people who know it best-- "92% of farmers market shoppers said it was important to them to be able to buy food directly from a local farmer [while] 62% said it was extremely important."

So while it is encouraging to our environment for individuals to include local produce on their grocery lists, be aware of what you are buying, as well as try your best to support the small-business farmers in your area be more sustainable. 

On defying tradition

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2010/05/12/sidner.iyw.india.pathfinder.cnn

Net Neutrality

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

The spilling truth

Coal ash, the waste that remains after coal is combusted, contains some of the most dangerous toxics on the planet -- and it's leaching, leaking and spilling out of disposal sites across the nation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now considering two possible alternatives for regulation of coal ash. We need you to tell the EPA that to protect public health, states must be required to use effective coal ash disposal technology.

Coal ash toxins can cause cancer, damage the nervous system, and contaminate surface water and drinking water. Yet coal ash disposal is not yet regulated by the federal government, and the loose patchwork of state regulation is inadequate to protect human health. The EPA is weighing two regulatory options:

• One, known as "Subtitle C," would require the states to adhere to strict new federal rules. It would also phase out dangerous wet disposal of coal ash, like the storage pond that burst in Tennessee in 2008, flooding a river valley with a billion gallons of toxic coal ash sludge.
  
  
• The second, "Subtitle D," would set guidelines for coal ash disposal, but allow states to opt out of them. Storage sites not following the optional guidelines could be labeled as "open dumps" -- and then citizens would have to file suit against utility companies in order to enforce the legal prohibitions against open dumps.

Talk about getting it backwards!

Please email the EPA with a clear message: Protection from toxic coal ash requires Subtitle C's strong regulations and mandatory compliance. When it comes to the arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium and other toxic substances in coal ash, we must prevent toxic contamination -- not try to mop it up after it happens.

For background information, see Physicians for Social Responsibility's fact sheets on the health impacts of coal ash toxins,FAQ's on coal ash, and suggestions for filing effective comments with the EPA.

Ain't No Reason

Brett Dennen put it best in his song "Ain't No Reason" when he said that slavery was stitched to the fabric of his clothes. And with such truth in his words, an estimated 250 million textile child laborers between the ages five and fourteen worldwide, toil in farms or factories under gruesome conditions for the purpose of developing American imports with little to no monetary compensation. And while this is an understood fact, it is also a commonly overlooked one.

So although this is just a start, with the help of groups like Maggie's Organics, there is still hope. Maggie's Organics plan to be the first and only clothing company that is independently certified with stricter standards in fair labor practices. And Maggie's Organics makes it affordable too. With most items, from dresses to scarves, priced between 10 and 35 dollars, this company stays fiscally manageable. Maggie's Organics will be upon stringent watch by SCS, the scientific certification system.

" [The] independent monitor inspected every stage of Maggie's production chain, from the growing of organic cotton and ginning and spinning the crop fabric into fabric in Nicaragua, to cutting and sewing garments in Costa Rica, to screen printing, office and warehouse operations in Michigan. Criteria investigated by SCS (scientific certification system) include: hiring, wages, working conditions, hours of work, freedom of association and freedom to organize, and access to housing, health care and transportation."

So gear up for winter and support Maggie's Organics=) and tell your friends too.

Return of the TSCA

Following Senator Lautenberg’s introduction of the Safe Chemicals Act in April, House Representatives Bobby L. Rush (D-IL) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) introduced the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act 2010, H.R. 5820, a bill discussing reformation methods for the federal Toxic Substances Control Act. Over thirty years since Congress first opened discussion of protection from toxic chemicals, TSCA was first brought into the legal spotlight in 1976. However, following TSCA’s initial introduction, little success has been proved by a bill which lacked safety review, maintained unregulated public chemical exposure, and created disruptive communication amongst the EPA, FDA, and the act itself.

This most recent bill would overhaul the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, which has done little to regulate chemicals in consumer products, including those linked to cancer and other health problems. The House legislation would heavily increase public health protections from toxic chemicals.

Some aspects of the bill include:

• Requiring the chemical industry to demonstrate that a chemical is safe, as opposed to relying on the EPA to prove a chemical is unsafe.
• Requiring chemicals to meet a health standard before they are allowed on the market.
• Requiring chemical manufacturers to provide basic health and safety information for all chemicals, as a condition for being allowed to remain on the market.
• Requiring the EPA to rely on the National Academy of Sciences’ recommendations to incorporate the latest science in chemical safety determinations.
• Requiring the EPA to identify and restrict persistent, bioaccumulative toxins.

The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection recently held a hearing discussing the legislation’s next steps in amending the Toxic Substances Control Act. Notably, Steven Owens, Administrator at the EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, opened discussion by admitting to EPA’s need in developing more cooperation from the chemical industry in regulating global safety from toxics. Owens stated that “implementation of the law should be adequately and consistently funded, in order to meet the goal of assuring the safety of chemicals, and to maintain public confidence that EPA is meeting that goal. To that end, manufacturers of chemicals should support the costs of Agency implementation, including the review of information provided by manufacturers."

At the same hearing, Calvin Dooley, president of American Chemistry Council, noted “any approach toward updating chemical regulation should

· Ensure worker, consumer and public safety as its highest priority;

- Preserve the ability of the United States to serve as the innovation engine for the world; and

· Protect the hundreds of thousands of American jobs fueled directly and indirectly by the business of chemistry.

I am sure most can agree that it is well beyond time for measures to be taken in reforming the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, first signed into law by President Ford. Now, under the Obama administration, we are taking bigger steps to make our country safer and increasingly protected from toxins and chemicals flooding our industry. With huge concern, the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, has grandfathered over 60,000 without review into our public system



"Flaws of the Toxic Substances Control Act

EDF's Richard Denison testifies before a House subcommittee (February 2009) on the urgent need for chemical policy reform.

The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which Congress passed in September of 1976, was supposed to give Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to identify and regulate dangerous chemicals. The law was also supposed to require chemical companies to give Americans the information needed to assess the safety of their products.

The "grandfather" problem

Unfortunately, TSCA "grandfathered in" some 62,000 chemicals in use at the time it was enacted—that is, chemical companies could keep selling them without safety testing. Today, most chemicals on the market are among those original 62,000 and have never been tested.

The "unreasonable risk" problem

TSCA contained another fatal flaw. To regulate a chemical, the law places the burden of proving a chemical is causing harm on EPA, rather than requiring chemical producers to prove their chemicals are safe. In addition, the law requires that EPA prove a chemical presents an "unreasonable risk."

In practice, this standard has been impossible for EPA to meet. The only chemicals banned under TSCA are PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), which were widely used in transformers and electrical equipment and that happened only because the ban was written by Congress into the original law.

EPA couldn't even ban asbestos, a known and deadly carcinogen. In 1991, a federal Court of Appeals threw out EPA's regulation banning asbestos because, the court said, the agency had failed to show that asbestos posed an unreasonable risk. In the wake of this precedent, EPA never tried to ban a chemical under TSCA again.

The secrecy problem

Under TSCA, chemical companies can label as trade secrets virtually any of the information they submit to EPA about their products. And EPA, the law states, may not share information claimed as secret with the public, with state or local governments, or with the governments of other countries.

The chemical industry is highly competitive, and some protection for research and trade secrets is reasonable. But the chemical industry has exploited this loophole to claim that information about 95% of their new chemicals should be secret. They make the same claim even about many chemicals for which they are required to submit health and safety data.

EPA can challenge these claims. But TSCA says they must be contested on a case-by-case basis, and the agency simply hasn't the resources to examine more than a tiny percentage of the thousands of claims made each year.

The result? The identities of almost 20% of the tens of thousands of chemicals in commercial use in the United States—from flame retardants to laundry detergent additives—are kept secret from consumers, scientists and government regulators. And even health and safety information, which under TSCA is supposed to be ineligible for trade secret protection, is routinely claimed by companies to be confidential, rendering the information inaccessible to the public."