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The safer consumer product regulations are finally going into effect.
The Department of Toxic Substances Control's land mark Safer Consumer Products Regulation
aims to remove toxic chemicals from California's consumer goods. DTSC wants manufacturers to
ask a simple question: Are these toxic chemicals necessary?
It becomes critically important to ask the question: are those chemicals really necessary
in those products? Can we design those products and actually have those same products without
the toxic chemicals inside of them? This marks the culmination of a strong effort
on the part industry, consumer groups, environmental organizations and government that came together
to build a new approach that will help protect consumers and propel California's economy
forward. A press event was held at Richmond based,
rubber stamp maker: Hero Arts, to mark the adoption of the Safer Consumer products Regulation.
Really it gives us an idea of what to shoot for and that gives us the opportunity to open
up innovation. Hero Art's received a GEELA award in 2011
for its green business practices...it's the State of California's highest environmental
honor. We use sustainable wood. We used only the
best rubber that was biodegradable...but we had to use chemicals to use glues and adhesives
and slowly we looked at processes that would allow us really remove those chemicals from
the process that we had. Removing toxic chemicals from their process
created a safer work environment for their employees as well as a toxic free product
for their customers. I know as a pregnant woman that my body is
the first environment that my child and my children will ever inhabit...and that environment
is polluted...and it's a sad fact but it's true...and it's mostly because of the chemicals
found in products that I buy everyday on the supermarket store shelves.
This is such an important program and it's such a model for the nation because it is
such a different way of doing things. Other states have looked at this as well but ours
is the first state that's really looking at all consumer products and not just children's
products and I think that's so important. DTSC has posted a list of candidate chemicals
on its website that will be used to identify priority products in the future.
It's not possible to answer the question: is lead necessary? Is formaldehyde necessary?
It's in what...in what type of use. And that use we call a priority product. And so the
next phase of this regulation that will happen early in 2014, early next year, will be to
announce the first set of priority products.