Tag: clean

  • Four Reasons to Celebrate the California Cleaning Product Right to Know Act

    At long last, the veil of secrecy over chemicals in cleaning products is lifting. In October, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the Cleaning Product Right to Know Act of 2017, which will require known hazardous chemicals in home and commercial cleaning products to be listed on labels and online.

    Manufacturers of cleaning products have until 2020 to disclose ingredients online and until 2021 to list them on labels. But the impact of the new rules could be felt sooner, and well beyond California. The nation’s most populous state is also the biggest market for consumer products, and it’s likely that the new disclosure rules will trickle down to products manufactured, distributed and sold nationwide. (New York also has a cleaners ingredient disclosure law, but its specific rules are still being worked out.)

    EWG was a co-sponsor of the bill, authored by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens. Here are four reasons we’re celebrating the fact that Californians will soon have unprecedented access to detailed chemical information for cleaning and disinfecting products used in the home and workplace.

    1. Rather than disclosing chemicals of concern, manufacturers may decide to take them out of products.

    Transparency often begets reformulation. In 2009, the California Safe Cosmetics Program began requiring companies to report carcinogens and reproductive toxicants in their products. By 2015, more than 150 companies reported removing a total of 2,193 ingredients. Cleaning product makers may take the same path, knowing that once ingredients are known, consumers can make educated decisions to avoid them and choose better options.

    2. Disclosure is mandatory for ingredients linked to chronic diseases and conditions, not simply immediate dangers.

    Previously, only some ingredients, such as those associated with acute hazards like skin or eye burns, physical hazards like flammability, or active ingredients in disinfectants or sanitizers, were required to be listed on package labels. Now, substances linked to longer-term problems like DNA damage, birth defects, endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity and respiratory impacts will have to be disclosed.

    3. For the first time ever in the U.S., manufacturers will have to disclose more of their fragrance ingredients.

    The vague term “fragrance” may hide the identity of dozens of chemicals in a complex mixture in a single product. But fragrance chemicals can trigger asthma and allergic reactions. Some are linked to cancer, like acetaldehyde, or can form carcinogenic secondary pollutants, like formaldehyde, when they mix with air. Some manufacturers have begun voluntarily disclosing fragrance ingredients, but many more have not. Under the new law, companies will have to list more of their fragrance ingredients, including the 26 allergenic components required in Europe.

    4. Impurities will be under greater scrutiny.

    The new law identifies 34 “non-functional constituents” that must be revealed online. These are substances present in small amounts that are not intentionally added, serve no technical purpose in the finished product or are not stripped out. They could be contaminants introduced from raw materials or processing equipment, breakdown products of an ingredient or a byproduct of the manufacturing process. The list includes hormone-disrupting phthalates, carcinogens such as benzene and nitrosamines, and the likely carcinogen 1,4-dioxane.

    While we wait for the bill to start taking effect, EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning highlights products that help reduce exposure to known fragrance allergens and other hazardous ingredients and impurities.

  • ‘Dirt Is Good’: Why Kids Need Exposure To Germs

    I was told that Grandma use to say “little dirt never hurt anybody.” It seems the more we try to sterilize our world infection,virus and bacteria the worse off our kids get. While we claim that health care is better and more advanced our children are sicker and suffering debilitating illnesses at an alarming rate. Has our fear of illness and bacteria actually weaken our kids immune systems? 
    ‘Dirt Is Good’: Why Kids Need Exposure To Germs

    As a new parent, Jack Gilbert got a lot of different advice on how to properly look after his child: when to give him antibiotics or how often he should sterilize his pacifier, for example.

    After the birth of his second child, Gilbert, a scientist who studies microbial ecosystems at the University of Chicago, decided to find out what’s actually known about the risks involved when modern-day children come in contact with germs.

    “It turned out that most of the exposures were actually beneficial,” Gilbert says. “So that dirty pacifier that fell on the floor — if you just stick it in your mouth and lick it, and then pop it back in little Tommy’s mouth, it’s actually going to stimulate their immune system. Their immune system’s going to become stronger because of it.”

    Gilbert is now the co-author of a new book called Dirt is Good: The Advantage of Germs for Your Child’s Developing Immune System. Presented in a Q&A format, the book seeks to answer many of the questions Gilbert has fielded from parents over the years.

    This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    • Transcript

    • Interview Highlights

      What are some things that parents get wrong?
      Some of the main things are over-sterilizing their environment, keeping their children from ever getting dirty. So going out into the backyard and playing in the mud, and then as soon as they’re filthy, bringing them in and sterilizing their hands with antiseptic wipes, and then making sure that none of the dirt gets near their faces. Also, keeping them away from animals. The dogs and cats, sure, but also, other animals. It’s fine to wash their hands if there’s a cold or a flu virus around, but if they’re interacting with a dog, and the dog licks their face, that’s not a bad thing. In fact that could be extremely beneficial for the child’s health.

      What about hand sanitizer? Good or bad?
      Usually bad. Hot, soapy water is fine. Even mildly warm, soapy water is fine, and it’s probably less damaging to the child’s overall health.

      How about the five-second rule? The idea that if something falls on the ground and is there for under five seconds, it’s clean.
      The five-second rule doesn’t exist. It takes milliseconds for microbes to attach themselves to a sticky piece of jammy toast, for example. But it makes no difference. Unless you dropped it in an area where you think they could be a high risk of extremely dangerous pathogens, which in every modern American home is virtually impossible, then there’s no risk to your child.

      Wash a pacifier or lick it if it falls on the ground?
      Lick it. A study of over 300,000 children showed that parents who licked the pacifier and put it back in — their kids developed less allergies, less asthma, less eczema. Overall, their health was stronger and more robust.

      Are things like allergies an unintended consequence of trying to protect our kids too much?From Birth, Our Microbes Become As Personal As A Fingerprint

      Absolutely. In the past, we would have eaten a lot more fermented foods, which contain bacteria. We would have allowed our children to be exposed to animals and plants and soil on a much more regular basis. Now we live indoors. We sterilize our surfaces. Their immune systems then become hyper-sensitized. You have these little soldier cells in your body called neutrophils, and when they spend too long going around looking for something to do, they become grumpy and pro-inflammatory. And so when they finally see something that’s foreign, like a piece of pollen, they become explosively inflammatory. They go crazy. That’s what triggers asthma and eczema and often times, food allergies.

      Give us some advice. What should I allow my child to do?
      Oftentimes, it’s hard to get your kid to eat a healthy diet. I would strongly try to encourage the consumption of more colorful vegetables, more leafy vegetables, a diet more rich in fiber as well as reducing the sugar intake. But just generally, allow your kid to experience the world.

      Read an excerpt of Dirt Is Good
      Disclosure: While this author holds that bacteria is good – he is also pro vaccines.