Cosmetics Companies to Phase Out Phthalates

Three major cosmetics companies have announced they’ll stop using certain chemicals that have been linked to health concerns. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

Three major cosmetics companies have announced they’ll stop using certain chemicals that have been linked to liver and kidney damage, and reproductive system problems. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner reports:


L’Oréal, Revlon and Unilever say they’ll comply with a European Union policy that requires cosmetics companies to stop using chemicals that are suspected of causing cancer, birth defects or impaired fertility. Those banned chemicals include phthalates, which are used in some hair and nail products and fragrances. Bryony Schwan is with The Breast Cancer Fund, the group leading the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. She says phthalates are just the first step.


“There are a lot of chemicals in cosmetics that are potentially dangerous. We have a lot of chemicals that have not been tested. We have other chemicals that are linked to cancer and reproductive health effects. So removing phthalates is just the beginning.”


The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is asking all cosmetics companies to sign a pledge to remove all EU-banned chemicals, and replace them with safer alternatives within three years.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Erin Toner.

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City Votes to Reduce Toxic Chemicals

  • Purchases and disposal of many common office supplies can lead to toxic chemicals escaping into the environment. The City of Buffalo has found a way to curb some of this leaching.

Buffalo has become the first city in the Great Lakes region
to pass a law aimed at curbing the amount of toxic chemicals entering the environment. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports… officials hope to accomplish this goal by changing their buying habits:

Transcript

Buffalo has become the first city in the Great Lakes region to pass a law aimed at curbing the amount of toxic chemicals entering the environment. As the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports, officials hope to accomplish this goal by changing their buying habits:


Every day, cities buy tons of office supplies and other products containing toxic chemicals. When these products are discarded, they eventually break down and sometimes leach toxins into the soil and water. The City of Buffalo recently adopted a policy to reduce purchasing of products containing Persistent Bio-Accumulative Toxins, or PBTs. But the decision could put more fiscal strain on a city that’s already in crisis. University at Buffalo Chemistry Professor Joe Gardella helped push for the law. He says a university study convinced the city it could both be fiscally and environmentally responsible.


“It doesn’t create additional exprenses, and, in fact, if one takes a long-term view of the fiscal impact, especially on the issue of creating markets for the recyclables that you’re trying to sell, there can be some really solid benefits to this,” said Gardella.


Under the new law, officials can only pay ten percent more for an alternative product. They say other costs will be reduced by eliminating some unneccessary purchases.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Companies Push for Forest Certification

  • Magazine publishers and other companies are thinking ahead and getting their paper from forests that have been certified. But what does this really mean? (Photo by Stanley Elliott)

Officials in the Midwest want to prove they’re not damaging their state forests. States that sell timber to paper companies are spending thousands of dollars to earn a certificate that says they’re managing the forests in a sustainable way. Paper producers are demanding that state foresters earn certification because officials want to stave off protests from consumers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:

Transcript

Officials in the Midwest want to prove they’re not damaging their state forests. States that sell timber to paper companies are spending thousand of dollars to earn a certificate that says they’re managing the forests in a sustainable way. Paper producers are demanding that state foresters earn certification because officials want to stave off protests from consumers. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Celeste Headlee reports:


It’s lunchtime and employees on break from Compuware in downtown Detroit are browisng through the magazine racks at Borders. Melody Kranz says she reads three different magazines every month. She says she is an avid recycler and an impassioned environmentalist, but never considered what kind of paper was going into her magazines.


“I don’t know why I haven’t thought about it, I just haven’t. I will now. Because I’m a gardening nut, I love to garden. So yeah, I just never really thought about it.”


But executive David Refkin is betting that Franz and others like her would think twice before picking up Time Magazine if they thought a forest was demolished to make the paper. Refkin is the Director of Sustainable Development for Time Incorporated. He says he’s noticed a strong surge in environmental awareness over the past two or three years.


“We don’t want people looking at a magazine and feeling guilty that a stream has been damaged and the fish are dying in there, or that habitats aren’t being protected because people are practicing bad forestry practices.”


Refkin says his company wants to take action now, before consumer groups decide to boycott its magazines over ecological issues. Time uses more coated paper for its publications than any other company in the U.S. The company is asking that 80 percent of all paper products Time buys be certified by 2006.


To the average consumer, that may not seem like big news. But for paper producers and foresters, it’s earth shattering. Larry Pedersen is with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Pedersen says getting certified means years of work for state employees. The government has to prove to investigators that its management standards take into account issues such as biodiversity, water quality, soil erosion and wildlife habitat. Pedersen says the state is also required to provide records for each tree from the moments it’s planted or inventoried to the time it’s cut down and then made into planks or paper. But he says it’s worth the effort.


“A number of wood and paper-using companies brought it to our attention that they needed to have certified products because their consumers were demanding those. And with us having four-million acres of state forestlands, we saw the writing on the wall that we needed to jump on this.”


State forests in the region generate a lot of revenue. Wisconsin’s forests earn two and a half million dollars from timber sales and Ohio pulls in almost three million. Michigan’s forests bring in 30 million dollars annually. Earlier this year, Michigan’s Governor Jennifer Granholm announced that all state forests will be certified by January 1st of 2006. And the Great Lakes State is not alone… New York, Wisconsin, and Maine are also pursuing certification and Ohio and other states are considering it.


Andrew Shalit, with the environmental activist group Ecopledge, says he’s glad Time Warner is encouraging paper companies and state governments to get certified. But he says that doesn’t necessarily mean the paper is produced in an environmentally friendly way.


“It’s great to say that they’re going to get all of their paper from certified forests. The question is, who is certifying? And in the case of Time Warner, a lot of the forests are certified by a group called SFI, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and their standards are so weak as to be almost meaningless.”


There’s a heated debate over just what certification means. There are currently two groups that certify forests in the U.S. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative, or SFI, was originally founded by the timber industry but is now an independent body. The Forest Stewardship council, or FSC, came out of the environmental movement… or more specifically, out of the effort to protect South American rainforests. Shalit says he doesn’t think SFI certification is as rigorous or as comprehensive as FSC.


“It really is a problem for the consumer because you see something in the store and it has a little green label on it with a picture of a tree and it says sustainably certified, and you think you’re buying something good. It’s hard for the individual consumer to keep up with that.”


Shalit says several states, like Michigan, have solved the dilemma of rival certification programs by getting dual certification. he says although the system has flaws, it will improve if consumers demand more stringent forestry regulations.


Executives at Time Warner hope they can avoid boycotts and pickets by taking action preemptively. The company is leading the push for forest certification in the U.S., and environmentalists say the federal government may have to bow to pressure eventually and get the national forests certified as well.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Celeste Headlee.

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Reclaiming Mercury Switches in Cars

  • Work is now being done to reduce mercury emissions. Pennsylvania pioneers an incentive program for the removal of mercury switches from cars. (Photo by Davide Guglielmo)

One of the nation’s top sources of mercury emissions is
scrap automobiles. U.S. automobiles built before 2003 used mercury in light and brake switches. When those cars are recycled, the mercury can escape into the air. Now one state in the region is working to prevent that from happening. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder reports:

Transcript

One of the nation’s top sources of mercury emissions is scrap automobiles.
U.S. automobiles built before 2003 used mercury in light and brake
switches. When those cars are recycled, the mercury can escape into the
air. Now one state in the region is working to prevent that from
happening. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brad Linder reports:


Mercury is a neurotoxin that can be found in the air, water, and soil.
Pregnant women who eat fish with high levels of mercury might see
developmental delays in their children after they’re born.


Pennsylvania is the first state in the nation to offer a bounty on mercury
switches from cars. This month, the state started offering a dollar per
switch to automobile recyclers.


Kathleen McGinty heads the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.
She says the goal is to reclaim 350-thousand switches, or nearly 600
pounds of mercury over the next two years. The material will be sent to
mercury recyclers.


“They safely take that mercury, they clean it up, they put it back into some products where it is still essential that we still use mercury.”


McGinty says the mercury can be reused in products ranging from
fluorescent lighting to dental fillings. She says mercury emissions from scrap automobiles are second only to coal-burning power plants in Pennsylvania.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Brad Linder.

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Province Seeks to Recycle E-Waste

  • Ontario has proposed a new recycling plan for electronic waste in an effort to conserve materials and reduce pollution. (Photo by Eylem Culculoglu)

Old computers, televisions and stereos may soon be
found in recycling bins across Ontario. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

Old computers, televisions and stereos might soon be found in recycling
bins across Ontario. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


Last year, 157 thousand tonnes of electronic waste ended up in Canadian
landfills.


The Ontario government plans to send that waste to recycling plants instead.
It will require electronics manufacturers to devise a recycling plan for their
own products – things like CD players, microwaves and even power tools – and then
help pay for it. John Steele is a spokesman for the Ontario environment ministry.


“Our goal is to reduce the amount of electronic waste that enters a landfill site.
Once something enters a landfill site, for all intents and purposes, it can not be
recycled or reused. It’s a waste of a resource as far as the Ministry of the Environment
is concerned.”


It’s also a source of pollution. Many electronics contain toxins like lead and mercury.
Steele says the plan will be modelled after recycling agreements the province already has
with newspaper, soft drink and pizza box manufacturers.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Usda to Boost Use of Ozone-Depleting Chemical?

  • To prevent invasive insects from getting into the country, officials want to increase the application of methyl bromide to wooden pallets. (photo by Kevin Connors)

The USDA wants to increase the use of methyl bromide to keep invasive insects from getting into the country. But some environmentalists are fighting the plan, saying the chemical will do more harm than good. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach explains:

Transcript

The USDA wants to increase the use of methyl bromide to
keep invasive insects from getting into the country. But
some environmentalists are fighting the plan, saying the
chemical will do more harm than good. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach has more:


The U.S. Agriculture Department wants to nearly double the
use of methyl bromide. The compound is used as a pesticide
to fight invasive insects that come into the U.S. on wooden
pallets. But scientists say methyl bromide is harmful to the
stratospheric ozone layer. The Natural Resources Defense Council
plans to sue the government over its plan. David Doniger is with
the NRDC. He says more use of methyl bromide might reverse advances
made in protecting the upper atmosphere.


“The ozone layer has been badly hurt. It’ll take a long time – 50 years –
to fully heal it… and only if we get rid of all the ozone depleting chemicals.”


Doniger contends the Indiana company that’s a key producer of methyl bromide
has many other products and wouldn’t see any job losses if the government
plan is halted. The USDA argues there are no feasible alternatives to methyl
bromide, so the government says the chemical deserves an exemption from a
1987 international treaty that targets ozone depleting compounds.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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High Lake Levels a Boon for Shipping

Water levels on the Great Lakes have come up this summer… thanks to the wet conditions. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has more:

Transcript

Water levels on the Great Lakes have come up this summer… thanks to the wet conditions. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson has more:


Higher water levels have been good for the shipping industry. Lake cargo is up 20 percent this
year. Glenn Neckvasil is with the Lake Carriers Association in Cleveland. He says a wet
summer has brought water levels closer to normal. Because of that, ships are able to carry a lot
more cargo.


“We did a little study here in July. Some of the thousand footers are carrying 2800 tons more per
trip. Some of the smaller ships are carrying as much as 1400 more tons per trip. So obviously,
this is a big boost to the efficiency of the industry.”


Neckvasil says water levels are just a fact of life… a cyclical thing.


Lakes Superior and Erie’s levels are up from last summer and close to the normal historic level.
Lake Ontario is above normal. Lakes Huron and Michigan are up a foot from last year, but still
about a foot below normal levels.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

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Buying Organic: Grocery Stores or Local Farm-Raised?

It can be tough deciding whether to buy organic foods at the market. Organic produce often costs more, sometimes doesn’t look as nice, and can compete with locally-produced products that might be raised organically but don’t carry the government’s certification. As part of an ongoing series “Your Choice, Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant looks at what you’re getting when you buy the organic label:

Transcript

It can be tough deciding whether to buy organic foods at the market. Organic produce often costs more, sometimes doesn’t look as nice, and can compete with locally-produced products that might be raised organically but don’t carry the government’s certification. As part of an ongoing series called “Your Choice, Your Planet,” the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant looks at what you’re getting when you buy the organic label:


(sound of supermarket)


Elizabeth Culotta is shopping around the natural and organic food section of the Acme Supermarket in Kent, Ohio. She’s glad there are now standardized stickers on the fruits and vegetables that say “USDA Organic” because it makes it easier to judge what’s grown without pesticides.


EC: “It matters to me, because I feel like organic produce is grown in a way that is better for the global environment. So it matters to me in a global sense. I’m not actually a person who that is worried about the health aspects of pesticides.”


JG: “If the prices were comparable, would you buy organic over conventional?”


EC: “Sure. Sure. Definitely. If you look at these organic cherry tomatoes, they look great. But they’re $3.99 a pint.”

JG: “Let’s go look at the conventional.”

EC: “Here’s some grape tomatoes. A little different. And they are… $1.49 for a pint. So that is less than half the price.”


One reason organics cost more is the price farms pay for USDA certification. It’s an involved process…


(farm sound)


Mick Luber inspects farms for the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association. His group is approved by the USDA to certify farms as organic. This morning he’s visiting Larry Luschek’s farm in Ohio. Until a couple of years ago, cabbage, collards, or other produce claiming to be “organic” could be certified by any number of organizations. But, now the USDA has established guidelines everyone must follow. Luber says that actually hasn’t changed his inspections much.


(sound in fields)


Out in the fields… he sticks a metal probe in the ground and pulls out a soil sample… the soil structure looks right.


ML: “See that little white stuff there? That’s bacteria in the soil. It means the soil is alive. And you also look for earthworm activity.”


JG: “What would any of that mean for certification?”


ML: “Means soil is alive. That’s what the whole organic thing is about is alive soil. You’re not just using NPNK to produce your plants. You’re using the soil as a living organism.”


JG: “NPNK is?”


ML: “Nitrogen-potassium-phosphorous. A living soil is a living soil, it actually produces a lot of those things itself…”


In addition to the soil, Luber checks the equipment for oil leakage, the barrels used to clean produce, and everything else he can think of to bring back to an inspection committee.”


(kitchen sound)


He sits at Larry Luschek’s kitchen table for more than an hour, asking where Larry buys his seeds and checking his receipts. There’s a lot of paperwork involved in getting the USDA’s organic certification.


Not everybody thinks it’s worth the hassle.


(market sound)


At the North Union Farmers’ Market in Cleveland, Mark Welton and his teenage daughter are selling rhubarb. Welton owns a three-acre farm…


MW: “We do everything organically with no herbicides, pesticides, lot of composting, cover cropping, crop rotation. You know, things like that.”


Welton used to certify his farm organic. But he stopped once the USDA national standards went into effect.


MW: “I just didn’t feel I needed to keep it going anymore. And it was getting expensive. It was getting expensive to stay certified. I said, I haven’t changed my practices, I’ve been doing it twenty years that way. I just felt now was the time just to say… okay, I’m done.”


Welton says people at the market know him and trust that he’s not using chemical-laden seeds or spraying things like NPNK on his fields. He says they can visit his farm if they want to check for themselves.


Farmer Bruce Cormack thinks that’s a lot more important than the USDA organic label. He wonders if huge organic farms on the west coast are really
earth friendly…


BW: “I mean, I think the organic certification is supposed to be, as far as environment, less impact and better for everybody but when you have 800 horsepower tractors and shipping 4,000 miles it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t see how that is not impacting the environment.”


Shoppers at the farmers’ market know they’re paying more than the average price for produce. They don’t seem to mind because it’s fresh and locally grown. But not everyone has the time to get to the farmers’ market, let alone drive out to the farm to make sure it’s organic.


(supermarket sound)


Back at the supermarket, Elizabeth Culotta is glad the federal government has standardized what it means to be an organic farm…


EC: “Yes. I mean I think that makes it simpler for someone like me to go into a grocery store and if I can find something that says organic, then I can probably be pretty sure that that’s probably going to meet what I want. As opposed to having to parse the label and trying to figure out from the ads who is exactly doing what.”


The USDA organic label does let people know how the food was grown and processed. It does not tell them whether it’s good for the planet. That’s something shoppers still have to figure out for themselves.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

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Study: Green Groups Should Target Big Institutions

A new study indicates environmental groups could help conserve resources faster if they’d spend more time trying to change the buying habits of big institutions instead of individuals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A new study indicates environmental groups could help conserve resources faster if
they’d spend more time trying to change the buying habits of big institutions instead of
individuals. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


We’re often reminded to buy environmentally friendly products… re-use… recycle.
But a new study reveals that a lot more progress could be made if environmental groups would
spend more time trying to convince big business, big institutions, and government to buy green…
recycle… and implement more environmentally friendly practices. Lisa Mastny is author of the
study from Worldwatch Institute.


“We don’t really think about the places we work and the supermarkets we shop at, places like that
do their own buying and in much, much larger quantities than we would do in a household. So,
larger changes can occur and on a larger scale if you approach institutions rather than simply
individuals.”


And Mastny argues many of those changes can benefit the institution… such as more energy
efficient lights that save on the power bill. Mastny adds green buying is not a solution to what
she calls the “world’s rampant resource consumption,” but it can lessen the impact.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

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Treated Lumber a Health Hazard?

A just-released study by two environmental groups has found high levels of arsenic on the surface of pressure-treated wood products. The Environmental Working Group and the Healthy Building Network tested pressure-treated wood purchased from home improvement stores in 13 cities. In releasing their findings, the groups are calling for a ban on the use of the lumber in construction. Their findings add to the growing concern about the safety of the chemicals used to treat this wood. Those chemicals are now being re-evaluated by both the Canadian and American governments. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, the two governments are approaching the issue differently:

Transcript

A just released study by two environmental groups has found high levels of arsenic on the surface of pressure-treated wood products. The Environmental Working Group and the Healthy Building Network tested pressure-treated wood purchased from home improvement stores in 13 cities. In releasing their findings, the groups are calling for a ban on the use of the lumber in construction. Their findings add to the growing concern about the safety of the chemicals used to treat this wood. Those chemicals are now being re-evaluated by both the Canadian and American governments. But as the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports, the two governments are approaching the issue differently.


For years, Don Houston at the Canadian Institute of Child Health has been calling for warning labels on pressure-treated wood. The lumber is used in playground structures and picnic tables throughout North America. And it’s treated with a preservative called Chromated Copper Arsenate, which protects the wood from insects and fungi. The preservative is made from arsenic, chromium and copper. And Houston says children who are exposed to the wood may be exposed to those chemicals, as well.


“It’s not just children’s play structures. I’d rather suspect even more problematic is the deck that’s on the back of their house because often times children spend more time there. It’s all sorts of structures that are put in outdoors – decks, balconies, retaining walls; even the telephone pole that might be in a schoolyard might be problematic.”


Houston says the problem arises when arsenic and chromium, which are both carcinogens, remain on the surface of the wood. A study of ten playgrounds conducted by Health Canada in the late 1980’s detected both substances on the surface of play structures made with pressure treated wood. Arsenic and chromium were also found in the nearby soil. Health Canada warns people who work with pressure-treated wood to wear gloves and a mask and to thoroughly wash clothing and exposed skin once they’re finished. The agency also warns against burning pressure treated wood. But Houston says there are still no guidelines for children.


“It doesn’t make a lot of sense for the guy who’s building it to use gloves and then the child ten minutes after it’s built to be walking over it and running on it barefoot and having greater potential health impact from the exposure.”


But scientists at Health Canada say the research findings have been mixed. They point to studies conducted by the U.S. EPA in the late 1980’s that found minimal health risks. Now, fifteen years since they last evaluated these chemicals, both Health Canada and the EPA are taking another look. The update is required by law in both countries. Richard Martin is a toxicologist at Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency. He says the presence of arsenic is not always a cause for concern.


“Although there’s a number of reports out there of arsenic being found in soil, and although they’re useful, arsenic is found in all soil. So we need to go the extra step to determine to what extent there’s potential for exposure to children and that type of thing.”


Martin says his agency is reviewing research to determine the effect of exposure on both adults who work with cca-treated wood and children who play near it. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking the review a step further. Jim Jones, the deputy director of the EPA’s office of pesticide programs, says they’re concentrating on the exposure to children first.


“It was the children’s exposure through cca-treated wood we think are the most important to look at as they’re the group in the population that is likely to have the greatest exposures, just because of the way in which they interact with playground equipment and on decks.”


The EPA also plans to take soil samples near cca-treated wood structures in 75 playgrounds around the United States. And it’s considering a recommendation that people apply sealants to pressure-treated wood in the interim. The EPA’s scientific advisory panel suggested the agency take that measure. The EPA and Health Canada are collaborating on the re-evaluation – sharing their findings and their recommendations. Don Houston of the Canadian Institute of Child Health hopes that will lead to legislation in both countries that will restrict the use of this lumber in places where children play. The EPA and Health Canada are expected to announce their recommendations next spring.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.