The issue of toxic substances in children’s products may not be so new but it is getting more and more attention with each holiday season. It is difficult to substantiate a claim that the problem is getting worse but transfer of more plastics fabrication to developing countries, especially in Asia, and the ready availability of recycled plastic containing toxic substances in such countries may be contributing to the problem. Low cost personal care products labeled as appropriate for children may also be formulated with low cost ingredients that may not be considered appropriate use on for children.

In any case the problem is now attracting the attention of governments which means that, unless the children’s product industries takes rapid steps to self-regulate, there will be more testing and regulation of chemicals in toys and other children’s products in the months and years ahead.

One of the posters attracting attention at the recent SETAC conference (see articles below) was from the Washington State Department of Ecology and entitled Analysis of Children’s Products for Chemicals of High Concern to Children. Under the State’s Children’s Safe Products Act, manufacturers must report to the State on any of a list of 66 chemicals that are contained in their products intended for children. The list of chemicals, along with a summary of toxicity and exposure information, can be found at http://apps.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=173-334-130

The State publishes the data in an easy to use database with appropriate caveats:

• Reports are based on data provided to [the State Department of] Ecology by manufacturers.
• The presence of a chemical in a children’s product does not necessarily mean that the product is harmful to human health or that there is any violation of existing safety standards or laws.
• The reporting triggers are not health-based values.
• The data should not be used determine the safety of an individual product.

Despite the caveats, parents and activists are almost certainly going to wonder why some of these substances are necessary at any concentration in children’s products.

The database is accessible to the public at https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/cspareporting/

We’ll be discussing toxic substances in children’s products in a future issue of Gallon Environment Letter. A free subscription, with somewhat reduced content, is available by sending your email address to subscriptions@gallonletter.ca. Details on full subscriptions are available at http://www.cialgroup.ca/subscription.htm

Of a sample of 141 items of clothing, made primarily in the “Global South” (developing countries), Greenpeace International reports finding high levels of phthalates in four, amines from the use of certain azo dyes in two, and nonylphenol ethoxylates in 89. Greenpeace considers the presence of  any NPEs, phthalates, or azo dyes that can release cancer-causing amines, all inherently hazardous substances, as unacceptable.

The survey did not constitute a representative sample of clothing brands. From these results it is not possible to know the distribution of toxic substances across clothing items or the extent to which toxic substances in clothing have an environmental or health impact. Clothing with NPEs at the highest concentrations – above 1,000 ppm – included items branded as C&A, Mango, Levi’s, Calvin Klein, Zara, Metersbonwe, Jack & Jones, and Marks & Spencer.

Greenpeace International is based in The Netherlands. Analytical chemistry for the study was carried out at Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter in the UK.

A summary and links to detailed reports can be found at http://www.greenpeace.org/international/big-fashion-stitch-up/

Both houses of Congress in the United States have now passed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act – legislation that protects all federal scientists who expose the censorship of federal information, either crucial to public health and safety or required by law or regulation.  Scientists who call out censorship and then are demoted or fired by agency managers will have the right to fight that retaliation. And the WPEA will give all federal workers, including scientists, better tools and stronger rights as whistleblowers.

The legislation, which is expected to be signed into law by President Obama, will help Americans who depend on federal agencies to protect them from unsafe drugs, defective consumer products, hazardous workplaces, and polluted air and water. But it also strongly supports the role of independent science as the foundation for federal policymaking. It sends a strong signal that federal scientists deserve respect.

Hiding or obfuscation of federal science by senior government officials has from time to time been a problem in Canada. The fact that the US is now protecting the uncensored release of science information is likely to increase pressure on the Canadian government to do the same. Even if our laws are not amended, scientific analyses showing risks to human health and the environment is now more likely to reach the Canadian public through US government channels. Public Right to Know is something that it is increasingly difficult for democratic governments to suppress.

The Union of Concerned Scientists was a major player in lobbying for passage of the WPEA. View the UCS’ take on the legislation, and a link to the legislation, at http://blog.ucsusa.org/congress-does-something-right-for-federal-scientists/ 

The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment has issued a draft discussion document proposing tougher standards for lead in soil. Lead occurs mostly in areas where industrial activities involving lead have historically taken place. With such activities involving a number of processes such as building of vehicle batteries, contamination from broken vehicle batteries, recycling of vehicle batteries, paint manufacture, and burning of coal, lead contaminated sites are not uncommon.

The proposed new soil quality guidelines are:

• for agricultural soils:  70 parts per million, a new guideline
• for residential and parkland soils: 76 parts per million, down from the current guideline of 140 ppm
• for soil on commercial sites: 110 ppm, down from the current guideline of 260 ppm
• for soil on industrial sites: 150 ppm, down from the current guideline of 600 ppm.

These figures are still draft. The guidelines have no direct legal effect but may in future influence regulations concerning contaminated sites and should therefore be of interest to industry associations and others potentially affected by lead contamination.

The discussion document and a scientific criteria document may be found at http://www.ccme.ca/ourwork/soil.html?category_id=44 and is open for public comment until March 4, 2013.

Last week the World Bank issued a powerful report with the title Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C warmer world must be avoided.

The well-referenced 70 page report is intended, according to Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, to shock the world into action. It spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.

The report states that the 4°C scenarios are devastating:

• the inundation of coastal cities;
• increasing risks for food production potentially leading to higher malnutrition rates;
• many dry regions becoming dryer, wet regions wetter;
• unprecedented heat waves in many regions, especially in the tropics;
• substantially exacerbated water scarcity in many regions;
• increased frequency of high-intensity tropical cyclones; and
• irreversible loss of  biodiversity, including coral reef systems.

The report states that a 4°C world will pose unprecedented challenges to humanity. It is clear that large regional as well as global scale damages and risks are very likely to occur well before this level of warming is reached. Although no quantification of the full scale of human damage is yet possible, the picture that emerges challenges an often-implicit assumption that climate change will not significantly undermine economic growth.

The report is available at http://climatechange.worldbank.org/

One of the scientific papers at this week’s SETAC meeting presented details of a very intensive study of endocrine disrupting chemicals in Great Lakes fish. The paper was focused on methodology: results will not be available for some time, likely into 2014. However, the level of effort and the intensity of the research suggests that measurable quantities of EDCs will be found in the fish.

EDCs mimic hormones that are important to our reproductive system. A common outcome of exposure to EDCs is feminization of the wildlife species. Researchers have expected for some time that EDCs also cause feminization in male humans.

Release of the data is likely to cause an explosion of public interest in EDCs: where do they come from, why are they allowed, and what can be done to remove them from the ecosystem (nothing, though prevention measures will eventually lead to reduction of EDC concentrations in the environment). The fact that this study is focused on the Great lakes may make the issue that much closer to home for millions of Canadians and Americans. EDCs are found in a wide range of consumer and industrial products.

Note: This is advance notice of as yet unpublished research presented at the Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry annual North American conference in Long Beach, CA, this week.  That’s why GallonDaily is not providing our usual links to published sources for this series of articles.

Over the next few days GallonDaily will highlight some of the emerging issues being discussed at the SETAC meeting in Long Beach, CA.

Plastics in the oceans received a significant amount of discussion at SETAC 2012 but not so much related to plastic bag use. It appears that a growing percentage of the microparticle plastics found in the oceans comes from our clothes. When clothes made of synthetic fibres are washed, the wash water may contain as much as 1900 microparticles of plastic fibre per litre. One estimate is that each year almost 50 tons of plastic microparticles from clothes washing are finding their way into the Pacific Ocean from cities west of the Rocky Mountains.

These particles are mostly so small that they bypass sewage treatment systems and end up in rivers and lakes. The small size means that the rate of sedimentation is very slow so they remain suspended in the water column for many years and are readily ingested by smaller organisms.

There’s no obvious solution to this problem. Filtering of wash water is probably not practical for particles of this microscopic size but the emerging research does suggest that manufacturers and brandowners of synthetic fibre clothing may be facing this issue in the years ahead.

Disclaimer: much of the work presented at SETAC is in progress and not yet peer reviewed. That’s why GallonDaily is not providing our usual links to published sources for this series of articles.

A major environmental science conference is continuing in Long Beach, California, this week. GallonDaily finds the annual North American meeting of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) particularly useful as an indicator of potential future environmental risks. The conference involves the presentation of about 800 papers on a wide range of environmental science topics and a similar number of poster presentations on emerging research.

Among the highlights this year are sessions on:

• the continuing effects of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill
• environmental implications of flame retardants
• environmental effects of nanotechnology
• ecological risks of personal care products
• persistent organic pollutants in the marine ecosystem
• pesticides in urban aquatic environments
• ecotoxicity of military materials
• contaminants of emerging concern in human tissue
• risk of rodenticides to non-target species
• environmental contaminants of emerging concern
• assessing impacts on the environment of oil sands reclamation strategies
• life cycle assessment for emerging technologies
• increasing the sustainability of plastic from cradle to grave
• alternative methods for evaluating toxicity
• endocrine disrupting substances in the environment

GallonDaily’s editor will be making a brief presentation on Application of LCA to Consumer Product Environmental Claims in the interactive poster session on Thursday afternoon.

The program and abstracts for the SETAC 2012 North America meeting are at http://longbeach.setac.org/

The NRDC Action Fund, an affiliated but separate organization from the Natural Resources Defense Council, has published post-election poll data from key battleground states showing that, despite tens of millions of advertising dollars from the oil, gas, and coal industries and the Republican party attacking Democrats on energy issues, the energy attacks failed to resonate with voters, including voters in Midwestern states where the energy attacks were most heavily focused.

The poll indicates that voters in the key states remain strongly supportive of renewable energy, and government efforts to increase renewable energy use. It also suggests that voters have flatly rejected Republicans’ continued assault on the EPA and pollution controls.

Nearly 2 in 3 US voters, 64 percent, say they have a favorable impression of renewable energy, compared to only 13 percent who say they have an unfavorable impression. This strength of support crosses demographic and partisan lines, with a wide variety of voters giving renewables high marks.

Furthermore, huge majorities favor increasing the United States’ use of wind and solar energy. Voters favor increasing wind power by a 71 – 9 percent margin, and favor increasing solar power by a 78 – 5 percent margin.

More details are available at http://www.nrdcactionfund.org/press-release/battleground-polling-memo.html/

The news regarding toxic chemicals in the Great Lakes is mixed. A recently published paper shows statistically significant decreases in the concentrations of chlorinated and persistent bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) contaminants (PCBs, DDT, dieldrin, cis-chlordane, oxychlordane, cis-nonachlor) in lake trout in Lakes Huron, Ontario, and Michigan over the period of 1999 to 2009. At current rates of decline, the levels of these chemicals in Great Lakes fish may decline to below levels of concern in about 30 years. There is no similar trend in Lakes Superior and Erie but concentrations of these toxic substances are lower in fish in these two lakes than in the other three.

Another study published earlier this year shows that concentrations of brominated flame retardants, also persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substances, are increasing in Lakes Michigan and Ontario. The concentration in sediment of one BFR is currently doubling every 3–5 years in Lake Michigan and approximately every 7 years in Lake Ontario.

The paper showing decreases in PBTs (free abstract; pay for full text)  is available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23085469

The paper showing increasing concentrations of BFRs (free abstract; pay for full text) is at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es204141p

See also a more detailed summary of the results of these two research projects at http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2012/great-lakes-legacy

GallonDaily’s editor was a participant in a team effort to promote actions reducing flows of toxic substances to the Niagara River, the Great Lakes system connection between Lakes Erie and Ontario, in the 1980’s. Progress in reducing levels of toxic contaminants in the Great Lakes is certainly slow.