Companies Keep Cosmetics Chemicals Secret

  • Researchers have found undisclosed chemicals in a variety of products, from perfume to floor polish. (Photo courtesy of Escape(d) CC-2.0)

When you use cosmetics or cleaning products, you might assume that the government has checked out the ingredients and has deemed them safe. But Julie Grant reports – that’s not the case. Companies don’t even have disclose everything that’s in their products.

Transcript

When you use cosmetics or cleaning products, you might assume that the government has checked out the ingredients and has deemed them safe. But Julie Grant reports – that’s not the case. Companies don’t even have disclose everything that’s in their products.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics wants the labels on cosmetics to reflect all the ingredients in a product. But spokesperson Stacy Malkan says that’s not what’s happening. The Campaign recently sent 17 brands of perfumes and body sprays to an independent lab.

“We found in these products an average of 14 hidden chemicals that were not on the labels that the lab was able to detect.”

Malkan says some of those hidden chemicals have been associated with asthma and headaches, while others are hormone-disruptors, linked to sperm damage, thyroid problems, and even cancer. Malkan says there’s a reason companies don’t put those chemicals on the labels: they don’t have to.

“It is required that companies list the chemicals in their products, except that if they are part of the fragrance. So there’s a huge loophole in the federal law that allows companies to keep secret the chemicals in fragrances.”

And this loophole exists for more than just for perfumes.
Malkan says they have things like children’s bubble bath can create toxic contaminants. And researchers have found un-disclosed chemicals in nearly all brands of cleaning products – things such as dishwashing soap, floor polish, and air fresheners.

“If a chemical is found in a product, it doesn’t mean that the product is toxic or hazardous.”

Gretchen Shaefer is spokesperson for the Consumer Specialty Products Association, which represents the makers of cleaning products. She says companies are required to list anything that’s hazardous on the label.

As more consumers ask for additional information, she says manufacturers are providing more about their chemical formulas. But Schaefer says most are not willing to disclose the trade secrets of their fragrances:

“It is the fragrance that makes those products unique. And that’s why protecting those fragrance formulas are absolutely critical to the manufacturers of the overall product.”

That’s also true when it comes to companies that make cosmetics and perfumes. The trade group representing the cosmetics industry says that new study, the one that found 14 un-disclosed chemicals in the top perfumes and colognes, is misusing the information. The Personal Care Products Association says the chemicals in question are only a concern at very high levels. But the study doesn’t report the levels of these chemicals.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics says most of the chemicals it found in fragrances have not even been assessed for safety.

Ann Steinemann is an environmental engineering professor at the University of Washington, and has studied hundreds of cleaning products. She says nearly all brands on the market, even those labeled green products, contain undisclosed carcinogens – which are considered hazardous by the Environmental Protection Agency:

“According to the EPA, things that are classified as carcinogens have no safe exposure level. There is no safe exposure level. Even one molecule cannot be considered safe.”

Bills have been introduced in both the U.S. House and Senate to change labeling laws on things like cleaning products. And the EPA has recently classified some of the chemicals found in fragrances as chemicals of concern. Advocates for improved labeling and safer ingredients advise consumers to use fewer products with fragrances.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Coal: Dirty Past, Hazy Future (Part 4)

  • Four Corners Power Plant is one of the dirtiest in the country, based on its emissions of nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and mercury. Under a cap-and-trade system, plants like this would have to cut pollution or buy carbon permits. (Photo by Daniel Kraker)

President Obama wants the U.S. to reduce the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that contribute to global warming. Congress is considering a carbon cap-and-trade program. Lester Graham reports on what that will mean to coal-burning industries and your power bill:

Transcript

President Obama wants the U.S. to reduce the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide that contribute to global warming. Congress is considering a carbon cap-and-trade program. Lester Graham reports on what that will mean to coal-burning industries and your power bill:

For all the talk about carbon cap-and-trade, few people really understand what it is. And no one really knows what it will end up costing you on your electric bill – at least not yet.

The President wants carbon dioxide polluters such as coal-burning power plants to cut how much carbon dioxide they spew from the smokestacks.

So, the government is now designing a plan to cap the total amount of carbon dioxide pollution nation-wide. Once that amount is set, each polluter is allotted a limited amount of allowances to release carbon dioxide. Go over that allowance and the polluter has to pay per ton of CO2 released. Don’t use all of the allowances, and a company is free to trade them -–for a price—to others who need the allowances.

Over time that nation-wide cap will keep get lower, making carbon pollution more and more expensive.

How much of that cost ends up on your electricity bill is the big question.

There are some wildly different predictions. Some lobby groups indicate cap-and-trade could nearly double electric rates. But politics really plays into many of those predictions.

We went to analysts at Point Carbon. It’s a respected world-wide carbon market consultant. Veronique Bugnion says Point Carbon made some estimates based on President Obama’s carbon cap-and-trade plan in his proposed budget.

“Now, in terms of the U.S. average, what we calculated is that it would represent a roughly seven% increase over current electricity rates.”

That’s the average.

But, if your power company uses mostly coal instead of hydro-power or nuclear or wind or solar, Bugnion says it could cost more.

“At the extreme, in the regions that are essentially entirely coal dependent, the impact would be closer to anywhere between ten and 15-percent.”

President Obama says says a carbon cap-and-trade scheme can be designed so that it smooths out the effect on consumers who live in a coal-dependent area.

“The way it’s structured has to take into account regional differences. It has to protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices. So, there are a lot of technical issues that are going to have to be sorted through.”

And Congress is just beginning to sort through them. But coal and power companies as well as big oil and industries that use a lot of energy are lobbying hard to kill carbon cap-and-trade or make sure doesn’t cost them, or their shareholders, more than they want.

That leaves most of us wondering what reducing the greenhouse gases will end up costing us after Congress gets finished.

Sandy Kline runs a small house-cleaning business called “More Grime than Time” out of her home in suburban Detroit. Because of the economy she’s lost some business lately. Times are a little tighter.

She says she’s concerned about climate change, but she’s worried what the President’s carbon cap-and-trade plan might do to her power bill and her family budget.

“What he’s proposing sounds like a good idea –big picture– as far as the greenhouse emissions and that, but, you know, on an individual basis it can really hurt people like me.”

She wonders if consumer pressure isn’t enough to get those power companies using coal-burning plants to change. But, that could take decades. Climate scientists say we don’t have that kind of time. We have to do something to reduce greenhouse gases now.

So, experts say you should get ready. Since we don’t know exactly what cap-and-trade will do to electricity rates, it might be a good idea to reduce your power usage. Take advantage of the current tax incentives to get more energy efficient appliances and tighten up your home.

They say, even if rates do go up because of carbon cap-and-trade, if you’re using less power, it could be you won’t see a much of a difference when you get your electric bill.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Farmland Goes Idle

  • Rice harvesting in Fort Bend County, Texas (Photo by David Nance, courtesy of the USDA)

The US is not farming as much land. Kyle Norris reports farmland equal to the size of the entire state of West Virginia has been taken out of production in the last few years:

Transcript

The US is not farming as much land. Kyle Norris reports farmland equal to the size of the entire state of West Virginia has been taken out of production in the last few years:

The United States Department of Agriculture surveyed farmers from 2002 to 2007.

During that time farmers stopped planting more than 16 million acres of farmland.

In some cases farmers retired. Or they just decided not to plant crops. Or sold the land to developers in sprawling areas.

Don Buckloh is with the American Farmland Trust. He says what happens to farmland should be important to people.

“They should be interested in whether good farm land is remaining available to produce the food they’re interested in eating. And then secondly just how strong is agriculture in the community as an economic force.”

While less land is being farmed, the USDA says there are more farms. The survey counted 291,000 new farms during that time. Most of those new farms are smaller operations.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Related Links

Canadian Groups Concerned About Water Withdrawals

  • Groups like the Pembina Institute worry about water sustainability as the Great Lakes receive little new water and government officials both in Canada and in the U.S. discuss Annex 2001. (photo by Jenn Borton)

Canadian environmental groups are concerned that a new plan to regulate water withdrawals from the Great Lakes basin would allow too much water to be removed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:

Transcript

A Toronto researcher says most communities are underestimating a potential source
of cheap electricity – raw sewage. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports:


University of Toronto professor David Bagley collected waste water at a North
Toronto water treatment plant. He took the sewage into his lab, dried it and
then burned the solids to see how much energy they produced. He estimates the
energy produced from sewage at three treatment plants could produce more than
100 megawatts of electricity. That could be enough to keep a small town going
for a year. But Bagley says few take advantage of this resource.


“Our measurements show that there’s enough energy that we should be able to
completely offset the electricity needed to run the plant, and have extra
left over the send back to to the grid.”


Bagley finds communities are reluctant to invest in the equipment they’d
need to convert sewage into power. But he’s hoping to to design a cheaper
and more efficient system so more people can get the most out of their sewage.


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

Related Links