Wallet Mouth

More BPA resources

Two BPA-themed e-newsletters just landed in my in-box. The Center for a New American Dream’s dispatch mentions a helpful site, the Bisphenol A Portal, which compiles news reports about the endocrine-disrupting chemical. Particularly helpful is the site’s Smart Plastics Guide (pdf), which breaks down what all those numbers on plastic containers mean and gives tips on how to avoid BPA.

The most recent e-newsletter from the Environmental Working Group’s points to the BPA cheatsheet on its Enviroblog. Interestingly, the central graphic used on that page is a water bottle made by Nalgene, which recently announced that it will phase out production of BPA-containing bottles.

Soapmaker sues to keep 'organic' claim clean

Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps today filed suit under California’s Unfair Competition Law against 10 makers of personal-care products for allegedly using the term “organic” in a deceptive way. The “cheater brands” named in the lawsuit include Avalon Organics, Aveda, Jason, Kiss My Face, and Nature’s Gate.

Dr. Bronner’s products—which include the nation’s top-selling natural brand of liquid soap, as well as lotions, hair rinses, shaving gels, and balms—sport USDA-certified “Organic” and “Made with Organic” seals. are USDA-certified, either to the “Made with organic ingredients” level (for which at least 70 percent of the product must be organic material, excluding water and salt) or to the “Organic” level (at least 95 percent must be organic material, excluding water and salt).

The use of the term “organic” for personal-care products is contentious. Historically, an anything-goes climate prevailed over the sector, since there were no standards governing the “organic” claim for such products. That changed in 2005, when the USDA issued a memorandum clarifying that its National Organic Program did indeed apply to personal-care products that are made up of organic agricultural content.  personal-care products made up of organic agricultural content could be USDA-certified according to its National Organic Program. (They are not required to be, however.)

So now the question is, under what circumstances can the term “organic” be used for personal-care products that don’t adhere to USDA standards? And is it permissible for companies to use the word “organic” in their brand or slogans (as does Avalon Organics, for example) when their products aren’t necessarily organic in the true sense of the word (whatever that may be)?

The press release drops a lot of science, but the basic complaint is that the main cleansing ingredients in the soaps, shampoos, and body washes made by Dr. Bronner’s so-called organic competitors come from conventional (as in nonorganic) agricultural material produced with synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, and often contain petrochemical compounds. The release cites as an example the brand Jason (whose slogan is “Pure, Natural & Organic”) and its use of sodium myreth sulfate, “which involves ... the carcinogenic petrochemical Ethylene Oxide, which produces caricinogenic 1,4-Dioxane as a contaminant.”

Reasonable consumers, the suit contends, expect cleansing ingredients in “organic” personal-care products to be made from organic (not conventional) agricultural material, to be produced without synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides, and to be free of petrochemical compounds.

Dr. Bronner’s vice president Mike Bronner told me that one thing organic doesn’t mean is the common practice of the targeted brands of using hydrosols and floral waters, which he equates to “dropping a tea bag of organic material into tap water—and the product is 85 percent water anyway—and than calling that organic, when the other 15 percent contains petrochemicals.”

Now, back to this issue of standards in the personal-care sector. Just last month, a new standard for personal-care products was announced: OASIS (Organic and Sustainable Industry Standards). OASIS is also named in the Dr. Bronner’s lawsuit, which seeks to prohibit it from certifying personal-care products as “organic” because it allows for hydrogenation, sulfation, synthetic petrochemicals, and for cleansing ingredients to be made from nonorganic material.

More on OASIS later this week.

I’ll end this post with the full list of brands named in the suit:

Avalon Organics and Jason (owned by Hain Celestial)
Aveda (Estee Lauder)
Desert Essence Organics (Country Life)
Giovanni
Head Organics (Cosway)
Ikove (Florestas)
Juice Beauty
Kiss My Face
Nature’s Gate (Levlad)
Stella McCartney

Envious on Earth Day, or, The limits of pocketbook activism

Do you ever feel like you’re in the Twilight Zone? Between learning about all this BPA stuff and finishing the book Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry, I’m having a touch of reality disconnect. 

You see, most of the time when I blog about the unsavory side of commerce, it has to do with the environment or labor abuses—stuff that’s “out there”—not physical harm that potentially threatens me personally, as well as my loved ones and most everyone else who lives in the U.S.A. Yet here is Stacy Malkan’s book, a well-written account of how most mainstream cosmetics and personal-care products are contributing to pollution “in here”—inside our bodies, women and men alike—and how nobody is protecting us from this contamination, because the industry polices itself. (And it polices itself without concern for the long-term health effects of chemicals, testing only for short-term things like skin irritation.)

I’ve blogged about this issue before, in the context of the Environmental Working Group’s helpful Skin Deep online database (which is discussed in the book). But as I read the screed, the surreality of the situation really started to sink in. After all, these are normal, familiar products that have been sold on the shelves of normal, familiar stores for years and years. Are we all crazy? 

Thankfully, there’s a reality check: the fact that the European Union has banned scads of chemicals regularly in use in the U.S. (and not just in cosmetics, by the way) through its Cosmetics Directive and REACH legislation—both reflections of Europe’s embrace of the precautionary principle. Why, oh why, can’t the U.S. get hip to this eminently reasonable approach? Here’s where my EU envy starts to kick in with a vengeance (Down, EU envy! Down!). 

Of course, it’s not really about where you are. A couple years ago, I spent an afternoon on a gem of a beach in a Mexican eco-reserve that was stunning—except for the waves of garbage that came in with the tide. My sister, Mr. Wallet Mouth, and I made a game of collecting the trash and putting it in a neat pile on shore so that the people who ran the place could have it taken away. Then we found out from them that there wasn’t any “away” where it could be disposed of. This happens every day, they told us. The litter rides in on currents from places as far away as Australia and China. It was a good reminder that the world isn’t such a big place after all, that you can’t necessarily escape the ills of one region by traveling to another.

It’s the same thing with chemicals. Once they’re let loose in the world, we can’t avoid them—a point Not Just a Pretty Face drives home with its opening anecdote about a 2004 study in which randomly selected newborn babies in the U.S. were found to have hundreds of toxic chemicals in their blood.

So on this Earth Day, I’m contemplating the limits of pocketbook activism. It’s simply not always enough. We need to actively pressure companies to do the right thing and actively pressure our government to strengthen its regulatory muscle to keep us and our environment safe.

Amuse-bouche: PETA bites

It’s inspiring to see a values-based organization like PETA doing a large-scale project like this that emphasizes the carrot rather than the stick, so to speak.

The announcement of a prize for the development of commercially viable in vitro meat delighted Mr. Wallet Mouth, who like me is a vegetarian who has spent many a barbecue slinking around the grill with puppy-dog eyes, talking hopefully of the day when he can again indulge in a bacon cheeseburger...

I like the idea of this X Prize–like initiative just as it is, but I did wonder whether the reward is enough to light any fires... which led me to an idea of how to add more fuel: Why not let individuals with an interest in the outcome of such challenges put their money where their mouth is and add to the kitty? I do believe I’ll write PETA to suggest it (and natch, I’ll let you know if anything comes of it).

The A-to-Z’s on BPA

Someone just forwarded me a great resource for parents who are concerned about all this BPA business: a blog called Z Recommends and its report on BPA in children’s feeding products, which rates makers of products such as pacifiers and sippy cups. Besides the online directory, there’s a mobile component. Just text-message “zrecs” followed by the name of the company you’re curious about to 69866 to receive info on your cell phone.

The blog points out one problem that I’d never considered: while the main functional part of any given children’s product may indeed be BPA-free, that’s not necessarily true of the item’s other parts, which are equally likely to end up in kids’ mouths. The “shield” on a pacifier, for example, isn’t meant to be sucked on, but we all know how that goes. Said shields are often made of polycarbonate plastic, which contains the endocrine-disrupting chemical.

The ratings—there are four categories, ranging from Excellent to Poor—are based on “product quality, innovation, the range of products a company offers, their stance on BPA and their openness about sharing information about their products.” Z Recommends also provides a list of companies whose wares are all BPA-free, so you can trust anything they make. I found it heartening that there are 30 names on that list.   

Z Recommends isn’t just for parents, by the way. It’s chock-full of informative posts such as this one, which talks about Wal-Mart U.S., Nalgene, and BPA-related company claims that warrant skepticism.

BPA blowup

Finally the mainstream media is talking about bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical found in many plastics, in light of a new brief by the National Toxicology Program that expresses concern over the substance. As the report puts it, “the possibility that bisphenol A may impact human development cannot be dismissed.”

It’s especially nice to see more light being shed on the fact that the FDA based its sketchy “BPA is safe” stance on two studies funded by the plastic industry [link], ignoring hundreds of government and academic studies that raised red flags about BPA.

In my recent post about the chemical, I expressed surprise to learn that it’s found not only in baby bottles but also in aluminum food cans and beverage cans and bottles. Turns out it’s in numerous other everyday objects, such as CDs, too. Today's Washington Post story on the issue quotes an overseer of the report as saying, “It’s everywhere.... Your cell phone is probably made out of it.”

In Canada, as the New York Times reports, the government is expected to label it toxic in the coming days. Meanwhile, big retailers there, such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot, are already pulling BPA-containing products from their shelves.

Much of the focus in recent reports is on BPA’s presence in baby bottles, sippy cups, and infant formula containers. That’s as it should be, since developing bodies are more affected by endocrine disruptors than adult bodies are.

The Washington Post story points out that BornFree, a company that makes BPA-free baby bottles, can’t keep up with demand. I don’t know about other parents, though, but I’m sticking to glass bottles. Today it’s BPA, but tomorrow...?

Antimony antipathy

I recently read William McDonough and Michael Braungart’s Cradle to Cradle, and one of the many thought-provoking points the book makes is that sometimes what appears to be environmentally friendly reuse in fact isn’t. They cite as an example the use of recycled plastic bottles in such things as carpet and fleece clothing, because PET plastic contains antimony, a toxic heavy metal.

As I wear fleece from time to time, I’ve been idly wondering if I should jettison the stuff from my wardrobe. Now comes this Treehugger post on the subject. Apparently we don’t have to worry about wearing it, just manufacturing it.

Amuse-bouche: Fun with bar codes

This is perhaps slightly off topic, but if you’re like me and feeling a little down from hearing about nasty chemicals being found in places they shouldn’t be, check out this bit of consumer-related whimsy from Japanese firm D-Barcode (via Dark Roasted Blend).

EPA: WTF?

Not to be outdone by the FDA, the EPA is being grilled by Reps. John Dingell and Bart Stupak about possible conflicts of interest in advisory panels assessing the human health effects of toxic chemicals.

Meanwhile, speaking of toxic chemicals, my friend Evan sent me this link to an interesting PBS piece on phthalates in toys sold in the U.S.

FDA: WTF?

More bisphenol A blues: This story from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the FDA deemed BPA to be safe at current exposure levels based on two studies ... paid for by an arm of the trade group the American Chemistry Council.