My guest is Peggy Cahill, who became ill after being exposed to isocyanate chemicals from the offgassing of ordinary spray foam insulation. She will tell us how this affected her health as well as her efforts to educate, create awareness and advocate at the state and local level. Peggy’ s professional experience has spanned over 30 years working as an advocate at the state and local level for underserved groups, including children and adults with developmental and physical disabilities, inner city children at risk and adolescents with mental health challenges. She holds a Master of Education degree and is presently working as a program development consultant and freelance writer, creating art and culture programs for those living with Alzheimer’s disease and their care partners.

 

 

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
What Can Happen When Toxic Chemicals Are Not Regulated and What Can We Do As Citizens to Get the Regulations We Should Have

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Peggy Cahill

Date of Broadcast: July 23, 2013

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world. Even though there are toxic chemicals all around us, in the consumer products we use, in the air, and soil, and water, in the environment, it seems like sometimes that there are toxic chemicals everywhere.

And there are. But there are also many products and places that don’t have toxic chemicals, and there are also many ways that we can remove toxic chemicals from our own homes, from our own bodies, and have a relatively toxic-free life, in fact, toxic-free enough to make a huge difference in our health, our happiness, our well-being, our productivity, and having the things that we want in life.

Today is Tuesday, July 23, 2013, and I’m here in Clearwater, Florida. And if I sound a little different today, it’s because I’m having technical problems with my computer. And so I’m calling in this show on the regular telephone, instead of my high-tech, state-of-the-art audio equipment, but it will get fixed fairly soon.

And today, we’re going to be talking about what happens when toxic chemicals are not regulated, as many of them aren’t, and people like you and me get exposed to them, and how they affect our health, and what we could do about them, so that at the regulatory level, things get changed.

But first, I want to just tell you about what’s happening in my life this week.

Oh, my god. A lot of chaos is occurring, lest you think everything is always smooth with me. It’s typical. When you decide that you’re going to make a big change as I’m going through, making some big personal changes in my life. What happened is that there’s all this confusion, and there’s all this stuff going on. Actually, it’s all moving in the right direction. But it looks pretty chaotic, and sometimes things don’t work properly, like my computer, or people don’t show up, or whatever, and you go, “Oh, my god. Is this ever going to be over?”

I know that I’m moving towards a beter place in my life, and that things are going to be more organized, and I’m going to get more work done, and all the things I want to do. And it’s just a little crazy right now.

It’s that way with toxic chemicals too, because for a long time, everything seems very peaceful when we were just sitting there, not knowing what was going on with toxic chemicals. The commercials used to say when I was a kid that we’re living through chemistry, that as long as we didn’t know anything, it all seems rather peaceful about toxic chemicals. We’re just going through our lives being poisoned. And then we started finding out that there were toxic chemicals.

And now, there’s a lot of confusion, there’s a lot of people protesting, and we’re thinking about what to do differently. Some people think we should do this, and other people think we should do that. And things need to change. There needs to be a change.

So things can seem crazy, but just like I’m going to get through what’s going on in my life and come out the other end, so are we as a nation, as a world, we’re all going to come through this toxic chemical thing, and there is going to be a world at the other end of it where we get to have a wonderful toxic-free world to live in, because there’s so many of us that are creating it day by day.

So my guest today is Peggy Cahill. She became ill after being exposed to some chemicals that were off-gassing from ordinary spray foam insulation.

Now, many, many people have this very same spray pump insulation in their homes. And she’s going to tell us how it affected her health, and what she’s doing to educate people, and create awareness and advocate at the state and local level, so that there can be regulations that protect people from this kind of thing.

And just as a coincidence really, this week, I received an e-mail from somebody, a question from my Green Living Q&A Blog.

And she said, “We insulated our attic with sprays from insulation last year.” And she gave me the brand name and says, “Well, it doesn’t have a fishy smell, but I’ve read about it on the internet, it has an odor, a sort of a sweet smell. We only smell it if we go in the attic, when we come home after a few days of the house being locked up and warm. I want to have an air quality test then. Any suggestions on what to have tested?”

Now, this is interesting because I think that there are probably many, many, many more people who are being affected by the chemicals that are off gassing from spray foam insulation and don’t even know it. We’re going to talk about those kinds of things today.

Hi, Peggy. Thanks for being with me on Toxic Free Talk Radio.

PEGGY CAHILL: Hi, Debra. How are you? It’s good to be here. Thanks for having me.

DEBRA: Thank you. So tell us what happened with you. You had some spray foam insulation, and then something happened.

PEGGY CAHILL: Back in 2010, I moved into a small cottage in Massachusetts where I lived that had been recently renovated, completely renovated, including winterization from the exterior walls, and spray foam insulation within the wall. It was a 1940 cottage. It hadn’t been inhabited in a long time. So I was the first occupant. I moved in and lived in that space for seven months.

Within about a month or two of moving in, I began having various kinds of symptoms that were unusual. I had always been healthy before moving into the cottage. I had acid reflux, and some episodes of even chest tightness, short of breath.

I went to the ER a few times. They couldn’t determine anything.

I went back into the cottage and continued to live there. I started having some food reactions that I never had before, first, to wheat, gluten, and then dairy. My immune system appeared to be now, later, I understand reacting to the chemicals that I was breathing in.

Eventually, I started having broader systemic inflammation, soreness in my hips and ribcage and pelvis. So I was in and out of the doctor’s office, and then being referred to a variety of specialists for this array of symptoms—which really no answers were found. It was very mystifying.

And no one was considering an environmental source, including myself actually, that could be at the root of the problem.

Five months into this cottage, I developed left upper quadrant pain, and it was eventually discovered that I now had inflammation of my pancreas, also known as pancreatitis, and again, for unknown reasons, and I had always been healthy, and had a healthy lifestyle.

Essentially, I spent the entire winter in this enclosed building, with no screens or windows, or ventilation system in this cottage.

By spring, which was a total of seven months now in the cottage, a rainy day came, followed by heat, where apparently, the walls of the cottage and exterior were saturated and then got hot. There was a noxious smell in the cottage for the first time.

Several people came into the cottage and noticed it and said, “Something’s very wrong here.”

And I realized then that I vacated immediately, and that it became clear to me that there was an environmental trigger to what was happening with my health.

We moved out.

I got pulmonary function test, and they determined I had reactive airways, which is a form of asthma. And the pulmonologist referred to it as isocyanate asthma, of which he has seen a number of cases, isocyanate as being one of the noxious ingredients in the materials of spray foam insulation.

So during my cottage days, I had three ER visits, 20 doctor visits, tests, x-rays, EKGs, CT scans, blood tests, and there were no real answers until eventually, the pancreatitis. And then when I moved out, after pursuing physicians that might have more knowledge, I got more answers, including the reactive airways in my lungs.

That is how that unfolded.

DEBRA: Yes. Unfortunately, your story is typical of many people who are exposed to toxic chemicals and don’t know that it’s toxic chemicals, and then continued to be exposed to them day in and day out for a period of months, until somebody figures out that, “Oh, this is something.”

I’ve actually never heard the phrase isocyanate asthma. So it’s interesting to me that you went to a doctor that identified it as such. And I’m very happy to hear that they’re putting isocyanate exposure together with asthma.

Just after the break, it’s coming right now, we’re going to talk about isocyanate, and about polyurethane, that is what is used to make spray foam insulation, and so that you can understand what the chemistry is, and what else, other ways that you can be exposed to, in addition to spray foam insulation.

I’m talking with my guest, Peggy Cahill. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and I’m here today with my guest, Peggy Cahill, and we’re talking about unregulated toxic chemicals that made people sick, unknowing that they’re even being exposed to them.

Before Peggy and I start to chat again, I want to just read some portions to you the person who wrote to me that I read their e-mail earlier, about the polyurethane foam insulation that was making them sick. She sent me a link to the product description sheet.

I’m not going to give the brand name here, but the first thing to know is that it has the word natural in it, it’s got a leaf on it right at the top. The first two things you see is the word natural, and then there’s a leaf. And then down at the bottom, it says, “superior green building performance.”

Now, those are the first things, three things, that you see. And it is legitimately is a green thing because it’s there to save energy. But green often, particularly in this case, has nothing to do with being non-toxic. It has to do with other totally legitimate environmental benefits.

So, it says then it’s a [unintelligible 11:28] product. It’s part of a two-component polyurethane foam insulation system, and that it needs to be applied. Wait, I need to find this place. It has to be applied by a certified applier, and that they have to wear approved chemical protection equipment, OSHA-approved respirators are required. They have to be trained.

If you inhale this when it’s being applied, you have to remove to fresh air, and seek medical attention.

And there are more details on the material safety data sheet.

And if liquid is swollen, seek medical attention immediately.

Now, I know that there are some, and this is an important point, there are some materials like paint, for example, which is more toxic when you’re applying it, and then when it dries or cures, then it’s supposed to be less toxic. But in this particular case, with this spray polyurethane foam insulation, a lot of times, there are cases where it doesn’t quite cure. It’s like epoxy glue that comes in two parts, and you have to mix it, and then it makes a glue.

What polyurethane foam is, is a combination of isocyanate plus polyols. And polyols are the plastic part, and the isocyanate, I forgot my chemistry here—Peggy, do you want to tell us more about isocynate?

PEGGY CAHILL: What I learned is that the spray foam insulation contains insocyanate. It’s also referred to diisocyanate.

They’re the same thing. Ammonia byproducts, flame retardants and a reputable Boston physician told me also there are two proprietary chemicals that are not disclosed by the companies because they have a patent, but that those are very noxious.

She said the bad chemicals that they don’t even know what they are, this reputable Boston person. It’s a mixture of things.

It’s timely that this person has e-mailed you, and I’m really, really glad to hear that. I hope my conversation with you can be of use to this person in some way because this physician told, and I learned from many physicians, the material is often not mixed properly, it doesn’t cure properly, and is leaking and bubbling in the wall.

DEBRA: That’s exactly is. In this particular case for this particular product, it’s not like you put it on the wall, and then it dries like paint. There’s so much room for error because—

PEGGY CAHILL: There’s a lot of room for error.

DEBRA: —if you don’t mix it right, if you’re not trained right, if the […] applier is on drugs, or drunk, or didn’t study…

PEGGY CAHILL: …or otherwise, not well.

DEBRA: …or just not paying attention, or he’s having a fight with his wife, or whatever, you could easily end up with a chemical mixture in your walls that is not going to cure.

PEGGY CAHILL: There’s a great room for error. There’s no oversight. There’s no one monitoring. The cottage was granted an occupancy permit. The material was never checked because I learned that the building codes in Massachusetts were old and outdated, and didn’t have any real clear parameters about the checking of the material.

And just to mention, I was also told by a different physician, a very fantastic Harvard-educated physician at an occupational health clinic that even if the material works perfectly, and it is cured, it still creates stale, stagnant air the can pose a health risk without adequate air exchanges and air flow through the space.

So you absolutely are supposed to have mechanical ventilation and/or a system where there is adequate air flow.
Buildings are being made too tight, and it’s creating this poor air. And people don’t realize it. So it’s very worrisome [cross-talking 15:54].

DEBRA: I just want to say a little more about this because it used to be prior to about the 70’s. I started becoming interested in this subject because there’s my own illness at about the same time that houses and all buildings were being tightened for energy efficiency.

I remember when I was 16, and I got a car, I got a Firebird Formula 400 with a huge 400-cubic-inch engine, and I could outrace Corvettes in this car. I’m showing my racing side here. It’s all I wanted when I was 16 was a fast car.

And I got one. My father gave me one for my birthday, and taught me how to drive it.

But I had to sell my car a couple of years later because I couldn’t get a hundred-octane gas anymore. And I remember that that was the time when the energy crisis started because I couldn’t get gas for my car. And then that’s when they started tightening the buildings. And that’s when we started having indoor air quality problems.

And prior to that, I want to make sure people who are listening understand, prior to that, the houses and buildings were built what was referred to as leaky because there was air coming in the cracks. They were not filled up, the cracks and all of those things. And so there was actually ventilation going on even if all the doors and windows were closed.

We need to take a break, but we’ll be back with Peggy Cahill, and we’ll be talking more about isocynates, polyurethane foam insulation, and regulations. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and we’re here today with Peggy Cahill. We’re talking about how she was affected by being exposed to ordinary polyurethane toxic foam insulation.

I can’t talk today.

Peggy, I want to go back to this e-mail that I received from my reader. She asked that she wanted to have an air quality test done, and what should she have tested. Now, I want everyone to know that if you want to get an air test, you do need to have some idea of what to test for. Otherwise, you could be testing from thousands of chemicals, and not get the one that’s actually causing the problem.

So if you think you’re having a problem with a particular thing, like this woman is asking about her polyurethane spray foam insulation, find out what the chemicals might and have them test for that.

So what do you think she should test for?

PEGGY CAHILL: Well, this is a little tricky because when I first moved out of the cottage, I made a lot of phone calls, including to the State Department of Public Health and asked about air testing. And I was told that the science wasn’t there yet, that there was no way to test the human body from the matabolites, or to test the air. And that the product is on the market without adequate information available about the health effects.

Later, I was told by an occupational health clinic physician that there is a way to test the material by going in, having one of only two reputable testers that she mentioned. She said there are a lot of people out there that don’t really know how to test well. But one of two would go in and drill into the wall and see if the material is actually leaking and bubbling because that is what she said is the best way to test.

Other than that—

DEBRA: But that doesn’t tell you what the chemicals are.

PEGGY CAHILL: No, it doesn’t.

DEBRA: I suppose testing for leaking and bubbling, you would then know that it’s not fully cured, and that the chemicals of some sort or another are being released. If you wanted to sue somebody, that would be the way to prove that.

PEGGY CAHILL: That would be one way to establish the clear evidence of what the problems causing a health risk—the materials are causing a health risk.

But I can’t adequately speak to what other testing because I’ve been told there really isn’t clear cut testing for the materials.

DEBRA: Your experience, that’s very valuable to even know that.

PEGGY CAHILL: I actually want to mention—I don’t want to fail to mention this. I called a company that produces spray foam insulation after I moved out, and said I was a homeowner wondering what I had to consider using the materials in a small space because it was all throughout the cottage, around the walls and in the roof line, et cetera.

But he’s a building technologist at the company who said to me, “Using the material all over the house is like putting a plastic bag over the house.” He said, “For health, you need to have fresh air and air exchanges, and you need to have mechanical ventilation to keep the air clean, or it will pose a health risk to the occupants.”

DEBRA: Oh, my god. They need to put that on the label and the product.

PEGGY CAHILL: I know, and I agree with you about green. It’s completely misleading because they say it’s conservationist, but as you said, when workers are covered from head to toe with masks and things to protect themselves, that’s a clear cut indication that the material is quite toxic.

There are some studies, some well-established facts, just to mention. the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has a study out that isocynates are irritating to the GI tract, respiratory tract and mucus membranes [inaudible 21:37] workers who’ve had severe asthma attacks. There’s a guide to chemical hazards that they’ve created, indicating spray foam insulation, which contains this [unintelligible 21:47] that causes adverse health effects to the respiratory system.

There’s a journal of occupational and environmental medicine of a study showing increased lung cancer risk among female workers in the polyurethane foam manufacturing industry. The EPA issued a call-to-action in April of 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency, citing potential health effects that might result from exposures to isocyanates.

I called the EPA after reading that. They said they had gotten a lot of calls after issuing that. I said, “What can be done?” And they said, “You can file a report on the Consumer Product Safety Commission,” of which I did. I would recommend anyone listening that they consider doing that. You can document what’s happened, and if they get enough published accounts of stories and adverse health effects from the product, they will take action.

So there are public reports there. You go to that website, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and you put it under “report an unsafe product” and you write down what’s happened, or urge others to do that.

The EPA itself, you can make a report. It’s a public report, but I’m not sure about the efficacy of that because they’re really not taking action at this point.

DEBRA: But even if they aren’t taking action, they are collecting the information. And at some point, it’s worth having your information on file [if we’re not ready to act on it now] or even better, that if they start getting hundreds of thousands of reports, that’s what makes them get their attention. And that’s why people should write.

PEGGY CAHILL: Exactly. Everyone has to become empowered to write, to document what’s happened.

I wrote a letter to both town and state, stating what happened. So I’ve met with the town that I lived, and the building inspector, the town administrator, of select men, and articulated the problem, and asked how it became occupancy-permitted this property, and learned that there were old codes, and asked them to write a letter to the state, which they did, to say change the code. You’ve got to be concerned. One of our citizens became ill from this material.

Then I went and followed up on that letter to the state, and testified to the Department of Public Safety in Massachusetts about exactly what had happened, and all the research I had learned, urging them to be aware and take to steps to provide better education and protection for consumers, for residents of the state.

So those are concrete stuffs—writing down what’s happened, documenting it, and we can create a body of evidence. And that’s what we have to do.

DEBRA: That is exactly what we have to do. I had to learn a lot about how chemicals got evaluated for being toxic, and when I started asking questions about consumer products that have toxic chemicals in them.

And what gets respected is when there’s a scientific study. And years and years ago, when I started hearing about myself and other people going to doctors and saying, “Well, I was exposed to this and this is one of my health situations is.”

And for many people, doctors, scientists and regulators, they say, “Well, if there’s not a study where official scientific people did this study, then these problems are going to exist.”

It’s called anecdotal evidence. They discredit anecdotal evidence as if it didn’t happen.

But if you get 100,000, 500,000 people all writing the same letter that says, “I was exposed to x chemical, and y symptoms happened,” then that’s how studies can then be done, or doctors and scientists can look at them and say, “Wait a minute.

There was a half-a-million people who use this product and had a problem.”

And so it isn’t insignificant.

We have to take a break. But I’ll finish my sentence after the break.

I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. We’re talking with Peggy Cahill about regulations and toxic chemicals and polyurethane foam, and you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. We’ll be back in a minute.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Peggy Cahill, and we’re talking about toxic chemicals and regulations and polyurethane foam.

I just want to finish what I was about to say before the break about anecdotal evidence, and that is when I first started writing about toxic chemicals in consumer products, it was very clear to me that there were toxic chemicals in wall-to-wall carpets, synthetic wall-to-wall carpets. And the reason it was clear to me, and that I wrote about it, is because practically, everybody I met said these carpets are making me sick. And nobody was doing those studies, and nobody was talking about this, and I was the only one writing about it, until, I forgot the year, but the EPA installed in their building some synthetic carpet, and everybody got sick.

And suddenly, the EPA had a whole bunch of people having anecdotal evidence, and they started testing carpet samples, and they found that there were hundreds of toxic chemicals in them.

And that’s the value of anecdotal evidence.

And the other thing I want to make sure that I say is that polyurethane foam that we’ve just been talking about in the past almost an hour, is the same polyurethane foam in this insulation, it’s the same polyurethane foam as in your polyurethane foam mattress.

It’s the same. Those mattresses are made from polyols and isocyanates. And the difference between them—this is the only difference that I could find, is that when you spray it into the wall as a foam, you are on the spot, taking isycyanates and the polyols, and mixing them there. And then they make the foam the mattresses are made out of, they mix them in the factory, and then they actually are baked, like baking a cake.

PEGGY CAHILL: I didn’t realize that.

DEBRA: And so it cures it. And so when you search for information about the toxicity of polyurethane foam, you get piles and piles and piles of reports about the toxicity of polyurethane foam spray insulation, but very little about polyurethane foam used in a mattress or anything else made—seat cushions or whatever.
In those cases, the thing that is even more toxic is the fire retardant. And I’m imagining that there must be fire retardants in polyurethane spray foam as well because it’s extremely flammable. This polyurethane foam is referred to as solid gasoline, and it’s all flammable.

PEGGY CAHILL: There definitely are flame retardants and ammonia byproducts.

DEBRA: Yes. This is just not a good substance to be putting in your walls. It’s not all.

PEGGY CAHILL: It’s not a substance. It’s not a safe substance for children, for anyone, for adults, for elderly. It’s really unfortunate. But I commend you on the work you’re doing to bring information to the public, to try to just person-to-person get the news out, and help people become more aware because it’s really essential.

For me, it’s been a very lonely journey trying to find information out, dealing with sensitization, and dysautonomia, autonomic nervous system dysfunctions, as a result of this exposure, trying to learn about that, find physicians who support and help you, which you can find.

But it’s really important to find some way to educate and advocate, in whatever way you can, whatever pathway the person feels comfortable, and to just find something to become empowered somehow to take a step, even a single step. Even if it’s talking to friends and loved ones, making sure that they know.

DEBRA: I completely agree with you because the same has got me through when I became chemically injured so many years ago. The things that got me through it was, number one, just a huge desire to being well and not be a victim of it, but also, secondarily, I wanted to tell other people.

It was a puzzle for me. It was a mystery that I wanted to solve.

And it’s like, how come these consumer products that are being sold, I thought the government was regulating these things.

And it turns out that they aren’t.

And so how could there be toxic chemicals in them? What are those toxic chemicals?

And it was the burning desire to find out what were the toxic chemicals in the products, so that I could avoid them, so that I could find the safe products.

They’ve got me out of bed every morning instead of just lying there being sick.

PEGGY CAHILL: To get you to wellness, you have to go…

DEBRA: Exactly! [inaudible 31:11]. I used to drive fast cars and I was a professional musician. And that’s what my life was like prior to being injured from my toxic chemical exposures. And I completely gave all that up and just said, “This is the most important thing that how can I, how can anyone else, function in life if you’ve been poisoned.” And I knew that I could get well.

PEGGY CAHILL: And we want to prevent this from happening to others.

DEBRA: That’s exactly right. That was exactly when I got it. I understood that I didn’t have to go through all that misery of having been poisoned. I was, “Oh, my god. I need to tell people because I know this, because I know that this is true from the bottom of my soul.” And I can see that that’s your viewpoint as well.

For me, I can see, and I’ve seen this in other people, that there’s this kind of anger like, “Why didn’t somebody tell me this?”

PEGGY CAHILL: That’s right. They’re absolutely justifiable anger and frustration, but you have to give yourself permission to feel that too, and then use it as a catalyst in some way to take a step, take a step in some direction, some kind of action, like we talked about, write a letter, tell your friends, write to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Call the EPA. Make a phone call. Bring the attention and the awareness to people because there is a lack of awareness.

I mentioned to you the on point piece by Tom Ashbrook, OnPoint, WBUR.org, he did just a recent piece on toxic chemicals in this country. And that’s really worthy of listening to. I’m recommending others to listen too. It’s just a general framework of understanding what’s really happening.

So getting informed, and determining some way to try to make the situation better.

DEBRA: I think it’s important to talk about how people are getting sick, but also what the safe alternatives are. And especially right now, the whole issue of regulation and disclosure is on the table for the United States of America, and manufacturers, because we have enough people now who are interested in saying we need to know. We have the right as consumers to know what is in our products, so that we can make decisions.

But I think the manufacturers know that if they were to actually put all the toxic chemicals on the label that are in the products, that nobody would buy them. And so there has to be a transition into safer products.

But at the same time, there needs to be a transition into disclosure, and actually saying this is what is in the product.

You mentioned before that a doctor told you that there were chemicals in the spray foam that nobody can find out what they are, and I started hearing that 30 years ago from Poison Control Center. Even the Poison Control Center is not told what these trade secret chemical ingredients are.

And by allowing those trade secrets, then we don’t get to find out what are the toxic chemicals that are harming our health.

And that’s a regulatory thing. There should be regulations, I believe, this is my opinion. I think that the labeling regulation should be across the board, the same for all products, and it should list every single ingredient.

It doesn’t have to list it in the amount, and anybody who has ever cooked anything knows that amount is critical if you want to duplicate something. So I think that you could tell everybody in the world that to bake a cake, you need to put in sugar and eggs and flour, but if you don’t tell them how much, they will never be able to make a cake.

So this whole thing about trade secrets, I think, is ridiculous.

PEGGY CAHILL: I agree with you. Transparency is really important. Disclosure of ingredients, transparency, people getting educated through an environmental working group, going to their databases of products they’ve studied, and learning what’s in the products for yourself, what you’re using, and what is better alternative, safer alternative.

DEBRA: But I think what would be even better would be to live in a world where we didn’t have to do that. Let’s report that.

And I think that that’s where regulation really comes in.

I know for myself—there are different people in the world, and I have different viewpoints. But I know for myself that I have an ethic, a personal ethic, of wanting to do the right thing. And for me, the right thing is doing something that supports life. And if am given a choice between doing something that creates life to be better, or something that harms life, I’m going to choose the thing that creates life to be better.

PEGGY CAHILL: A life-affirming thing, right.

DEBRA: A life-affirming thing. And I think that each of us have that within us, and that we just need to have—if the manufacturers would just say, “We’re going to choose the life-affirming things,” there would be no need for regulation. But since they’re not doing that, then as a nation, we should be stepping in and saying, “Please do the life-affirming thing. And if not, we’ll fine you.”

And that way, everybody gets to be safe.

PEGGY CAHILL: Let’s have a campaign—the life of farming campaign.

DEBRA: Yes.

PEGGY CAHILL: We’ll get you a solar-powered fast car, because you like fast cars, but it will be solar-powered, and you will wear this hat that says, “Debra’s Toxic-Free World,” or whatever.

DEBRA: Right. Thank you so much for being with me today, Peggy. We’re out of time.

PEGGY CAHILL: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

DEBRA: You’re welcome. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio. Find out more at ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com.

My guest is Beth Terry. After learning about the devastating effects of plastic pollution on the environment and human health, this Oakland, california accountant began an experiment to see if she could live without buying any new plastic. Since then, she has reduced her plastic waste to less than 2% of the national average. That experiment turned into the popular blog MyPlasticFreeLife.com and new book Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too. A founding member of the Plastic Pollution Coalition, Terry gives presentations on plastic-free living and why, despite what some critics assert, our personal actions really do make a difference. Her work and life have been profiled in the award-winning film Bag It, as well as Susan Freinkel’s book, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story and Captain Charles Moore’s Plastic Ocean. – See more at: http://myplasticfreelife.com

 

 

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
How to Kick the Plastic Habit and Improve Your Health and the Environment

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Beth Terry

Date of Broadcast: July 22, 2013

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world.

Just because there are toxic chemicals all around us doesn’t mean that we have to be affected by them. It doesn’t mean that we have to damage our health or destroy the environment. We can do things to live without toxic chemicals.

Today is Monday, July 22, 2013, and I’m here in Clearwater, Florida. It’s a beautiful day. The sun is shining after more than three weeks of rain every day. The sun is shining today here.

We’re going to talk about plastics. The whole hour is going to be about plastics. And I have a guest who is an expert in living without plastic. And I’m going to tell you about here in a few minutes. I’ll tell you about my plastic experience this morning.

I’ve been living without plastic since the 80’s. It was one of the first things that I identified as being toxic, and I set to remove it from my life. So I’m sure that my guest tonight will have plenty to talk about.

But this morning, I have a dear friend staying with me after being in the hospital. And at 4 o’clock this morning, we had to go back to the hospital. And as I was sitting there in the emergency room, they had put a plastic sheet.

They transferred him from the bed to the gurney to get him into the ambulance. They put him on a plastic sheet.

When I got him to the hospital, I was sitting next to the bed, and I could smell it. It smelled like PVC. And I thought, here I am in a hospital where people are supposed to be getting well, and they’ve got people lying on toxic plastic sheets.

The Center for Health, Environment & Justice talked about PVC being the most toxic plastic that there is.

And then, I went down to the cafeteria to have some breakfast, and all the food was being served on Styrofoam plastic plates and cups. I just looked around, there was no organic food.

And this is a hospital, again, where people are supposed to be regaining their health. And the entire place is full of plastic. The bag where the IV is dripping out is plastic.

And so we really do live in a plastic world now. And today, we’re going to talk about how we can eliminate plastics from our life.

My guest is Beth Terry. After learning about plastic pollution on the environment and human health in 2007, Beth began an experiment to see if she could live without buying any new plastic. And since then, she’s become plastic-free.

She has a blog called MyPlasticFreeLife.com, and also a book called Plastic-Free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and How You Can Too.

Welcome to Toxic Free Talk Radio, Beth.

BETH TERRY: Hi, Debra. Thanks so much for having me.

DEBRA: You’re welcome. I just want to start by saying that I love your book. There are some books that I read them and I go, “Dang, why didn’t I write that book?” because I’m so much in agreement with the depth of information and the practical suggestions and the easy format in which it’s written. I highly recommend it to everybody because it really goes through all these plastic things.

I mean, the website does this too. But the book is like a guidebook to what’s plastic and how you can get rid of it.

Kudos to you! You did a fabulous job.

BETH TERRY: Thank you so much.

DEBRA: You’re welcome. So tell us how you got into—what was that moment where you got interested in plastic?

BETH TERRY: I’ve discovered over the years—I started this in 2007. and I’ve talked to a lot of people since then who have found a different entryway into this topic. And for me, it originally started with animals because I’m a huge animal lover. I have cats, and I love just all sorts of animals.

One night, in June of 2007, I was sitting alone at my computer, and I stumbled across an article about the plastic pollution problem in the ocean which was bad enough. At that time, I didn’t know that plastic was a problem in the ocean. I had no idea.

DEBRA: Tell us more about it because I think that some of our listeners still don’t know.

BETH TERRY: Well, what we’re finding is that all the plastic waste that we generate, if it doesn’t make its way to where we intend to send it, if it doesn’t get recycled, or if it doesn’t make its way to a landfill, if it gets loose in the environment, eventually, it will make its way downstream, and end up in the ocean.

And the first area in the ocean that was discovered to be full of plastic is within the Pacific Ocean, the North Pacific Gyre, and it was discovered by a sea captain named Charlie Moore many years ago. But it’s only in the last few years it started to get real media attention.

And now, what researchers are finding is that it’s not just this one area of the ocean, but many areas of the ocean are full of plastic.

There are areas in the ocean called gyres where the currents swirl around. They collect the plastic, and they sort of trap it there.

And people may have heard the term, “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” That’s what we’re talking about except it’s not like—people say it looks like a float. It’s like an island. It’s more like a plastic soup. And the plastic goes all throughout the water column. And the problem is that it gets mixed up with the plankton at the bottom of the food chain.

And then fish eat it, and bigger fish eat those, and so it gets passed up the food chain, actually, to us. And we’re finding a lot of food fish full of little plastic particles, which end up being pretty toxic because plastics in the ocean—they already contain their own toxic chemicals, and they also absorb toxic chemicals from the surrounding seawater.

And so the food fish that we’re eating are ending up with a lot of these toxic plastic pieces inside them.

DEBRA: And then, of course, those toxic pieces would end up in our own bodies. But if they’re accumulating in the fish bodies, they would accumulate in all bodies as well.

BETH TERRY: Exactly. Back in June of 2007, when I read this, what I saw that shocked me the most was a photo of a dead albatross chick, which is a bird that lives on Midway Island, which is halfway between the United States and Japan, thousands of miles from civilization. And this bird’s body was completely full of plastic because the mama birds were flying out over the ocean to gather food for their chicks, and they were mistaking plastic for food, and bringing it back, and feeding it to their babies.

And so that utterly stunned me, and that’s what made me decide I needed to change my life.

But then, as you know, and as you’ve known for years, it’s not just mama birds that are feeding plastic to babies.

The human mothers are feeding the chemicals in plastics to our children as well, every time we feed them out of plastic containers, every time we give them plastic or vinyl toys to play with. Everything that they’re surrounded with—things that off-gas, things that can leech into their food and water.

So it’s affecting all of us.

DEBRA: The reason that I knew this morning at the hospital that my friend was lying on a PVC plastic sheet was because I remembered that smell from many years ago when I opened a cookie can full of delicious imported, foreign [inaudible 00:09:28]. And they were packed in a PVC little, packing thing.

And the odor of PVC was so strong, when I opened that tin, I had to find out what it was. And once you know what it is, you never forget that smell.

It’s just everywhere. These plastics are everywhere.

So when we come back from the break, we’re going to find out more from Beth about what the plastics are, and we’ll discuss some of the health effects, and then later on, we’ll find out what to do about this.

We’re here with Beth Terry—author of Plastic-Free. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and we’re here with Beth Terry—author of Plastic-Free, and also blogger at MyPlasticFreeLife.com, which is full of all kinds of tips and ways that you can eliminate plastic from your life. And the book itself is a really good guidebook to help you understand what the issue, and step by step, remove plastics from your life.

So Beth, what do you think is the number one plastic we should be concerned about?

BETH TERRY: Absolutely PVC, I think, is the most toxic.

DEBRA: I think so too.

BETH TERRY: I was really excited to see that you had Mike on last time because that organization has been so helpful in helping me understand the problems with PVC and what to do about it. And in fact, in one of the chapters of my book where I talk about deciding which plastics in your house to eliminate first, PVC is right up there.

And the Center for Health, Environment & Justice has a report where they say, instead of collecting your PVC and sending it to the landfill, take it to the hazardous waste facility.

And I actually did that.

DEBRA: Great. I love that. I love that because that’s where it belongs.

BETH TERRY: Yes, exactly. Of course, when you show up with your shower curtain, they might look at you funny.

But seriously, those things are full of all kinds of chemicals. They’re full of phthalates, they’re full of lead, heavy metals, all sorts of terrible stuff.

And so that’s what we did. We went through our house, and anything with that new shower curtain smell, that smell that you were talking about, we packed it up, anything with a #3 on it, which is PVC, and we just took it to the hazardous waste facility.

DEBRA: Wow. I think that that’s the thing to do.

BETH TERRY: So here’s the thing though. There are chemicals in plastics that we know for sure are hazardous.

So PVC is one of them. People have heard probably about bisphenol A, BPA, which is in some hard plastics like polycarbonates, and also lines the inside of metal food cans, and coats cash register receipts.

These are plastics that people are aware of.

But what most people don’t realize is that all plastics contain additives, and manufacturers aren’t required to disclose to us what any of their additives are because those formulas are proprietary. And some of the chemicals that are being used to replace BPA, and some of the chemicals of concern, may be just as hazardous for us.

There was a study that I talk about in my book, you may have mentioned this at some point, where they studied over 400 different plastic products—containers, wraps, and different kinds of items. And they tested them, they exposed them to human breast cancer cells, and 90% of the plastics, whether they had BPA in them or not, were found to be estrogenic, meaning, that they caused those breast cancer cells to grow.

And so the problem is that we aren’t told what all the additives are in various types of plastics.

So just looking at the number on the container doesn’t tell you if a plastic is safe or not, which is another reason why I’ve decided to limit my use of all plastics, not just PVC and ones with bisphenol A and other things like that.

DEBRA: Yes. Eliminate the use of all plastics as well. If I absolutely have to use a plastic, there are some that are less toxic than others. Here’s an example of one time where I decided to use a plastic. I got rid of my plastic shower curtain years ago, my PVC shower curtain.

I’ve moved several times, and each time I move, I install glass shower doors.

I think most people don’t know that you can go down to Lowe’s or Home Depot, and get glass shower doors for less than $100. And anyone with any kind of handyman skills can install them themselves. That’s my solution for plastic shower curtains.

But I was staying in a rented apartment, I rented furnished apartment, full of plastic, in San Francisco for three months. And it didn’t have a shower curtain. And I thought, “Oh, my god. Now, what am I going to do? I can’t go buy a plastic shower curtain.”

But it turned out that Ikea has shower curtains for just a couple of dollars that are made out of EVA, which is a plastic that is a lot less toxic than PVC.

And so if you have to have plastic for a waterproof layer or something, there are less toxic plastics.

BETH TERRY: There are.

DEBRA: My position is to eliminate them wherever I can.

BETH TERRY: Yes, and we can’t necessarily always eliminate every single thing. And so choosing the less toxic alternative is definitely better.

One thing that I stress in my book and on my site is not to try to do this all at once. I knew for myself that if I try to go through my house, get rid of every single plastic item, and just stop buying plastic, it wouldn’t work. I would give up in frustration.

And so I took it step by step.

So that is why I have questions for people that ask themselves to figure out what their priority should be, what their first step should be, and their second, and so on because it’s taken me years to get to this point where I am.

It’s taken you years to get where you are.

DEBRA: Yes, absolutely. It’s not an overnight thing. Because of my experience being made sick by toxic chemicals, I kind of went on a rampage. And one day, I just went through and took everything out of my house that I can identify as being toxic, which left me with an empty house.

And so it’s a very slow process to find the alternatives that were not toxic. But I found that even having done that, I still, as time goes by, I find out about more and more things, as there are more and more studies, and more and more information, and more and more new chemicals to be concerned about.

When I started doing this, nobody knew anything about BPA. Maybe it existed, but nobody knew about it.

So when we come back from the break, we’ll talk more about alternatives to plastic with Beth Terry—blogger at MyPlasticFreeLife.com, and author of Plastic-Free. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: We’re talking with Beth Terry, blogger at MyPlasticFreeLife.com and author of Plastic-Free.

Beth, I was just looking through your book at the break, and I found something that I didn’t know. Here’s a shocking fact from Beth’s book. Chewing gum is plastic. Do you want to tell us about that?

BETH TERRY: I am constantly discovering new things that are made of plastic that I had no idea about. And when I found that out, I was shocked too.

This is another example where manufacturers don’t necessarily have to tell you what’s in it. If you look at the ingredients of chewing gum, the part that’s chewy will just be called gum base, and gum base can be lots of different things. It could be natural rubber from a tree, but usually, it’s plastic, polyvinyl acetate.

Canada was considering actually banning that chemical.

Even some gums that advertise and sold as natural like Glee, which is made with natural [inaudible 00:19:06] from a tree, it’s combined with plastic in the gum. And the only way you find that out is by calling the company to ask.

They say that they’re looking for a more natural alternative, but as far as I know, they haven’t changed their formula yet.

There was one plastic-free gum that I found. It’s made in England, and it’s called Peppersmith. And the beautiful thing about it is that the gum itself doesn’t have plastic in it, but also, the packaging doesn’t have plastic in it.

DEBRA: In Europe, there were so many things that were ahead of the United States.

BETH TERRY: Yes, they are, in a lot of ways.

DEBRA: I also wanted to ask you about—I know that your book was specifically made to use minimal plastic. So tell us more about how—what did they do to use less plastic?

BETH TERRY: I didn’t even realize when I wrote the book that hardback books had plastic in them. It was my publisher, Skyhorse, that let me know that. And they decided, if they were going to publish this book called Plastic-Free, they were going to make the book itself without any plastic.

And so they found a plastic-free glue for the binding. They have no coating on the cover. It’s just plain board. And the jacket is plain craft paper.

On the book cover, minimal plastic was used in publishing this book, but I believe that there isn’t any plastic at all.

But my editor was concerned in case something turned up that he wasn’t aware of later. But as far as I know, there isn’t any plastic at all. So you do have to be careful.

DEBRA: Well, I just really like the way it looks. It’s not shiny and white. It looks like recycled paper. It’s got a nice gentle color to the paper that is easy on your eyes, and this nice, little cardboard, and nice brown—it’s just very simple and lovely.

What was the most difficult thing that you found that you tried to replace, and had difficulty with?

BETH TERRY: Well, some things I’ve had to learn to live without, and it’s actually been for the better. I used to live on frozen microwaveable meals in plastic. And of course, we know now, you should never ever microwave plastic or heat plastic. But that’s what I used to live on.

And also, energy bars in plastic wrappers.

And I did not want to have to change. I did not want to have to learn how to cook. I wanted to be able to continue heating up food in the microwave.

And so I went to the store, and I bought just about every brand of frozen dinner that’s imaginable whether it was Lean Cuisine, or whether it was Organic Amy’s or anything in between. I bought them all just so I could see what the packaging was inside.

When I found brands that came in a cardboard tray, I thought I was doing better until I learned that any cardboard that’s leak-proof is coated with plastic inside now.

DEBRA: Plastic is used ubiquitously to make things waterproof.

BETH TERRY: So milk cartons, ice cream cartons, coffee cups—all of these things have plastic in them as well.

And when it comes to coffee and things like that, these are hot liquids that are in contact with the plastic.

So I had to learn how to eat whole foods, and that was an added benefit of giving up plastic.

DEBRA: And isn’t that wonderful? Don’t you like it like that?

BETH TERRY: I do. I absolutely do. And it was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. I had this idea that I was going to be stuck in the kitchen forever and never doing anything else.

DEBRA: No, it isn’t that way. And I know—I love to eat, and I also love to cook. And I love to go out to eat. But at this point in my life, I rarely go out. I only go to restaurants that fix food from scratch, from organic ingredients because the restaurant industry, if you ever watch a show on TV like Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on the Food Channel?

I watch it just because it’s entertaining. If I can’t fall asleep at night, I’ll watch it. And it just horrifies me to see what they’re putting in their food. There’s sugar, they use just those big five-gallon white plastic buckets. And they put hot food in plastic. It just goes right into the food.

And most restaurants just don’t have a clue about all these plastic things. They actually put saran wrap, a plastic, on a dish, and then they’ll put it in the oven, and bake it in saran wrap.

BETH TERRY: And you know, what’s really sad is that schools do that too.

DEBRA: It just amazes me.

BETH TERRY: Yes, it’s awful. There’s a café down the street from me that I used to go to. Well, I still go to it. Their coffee is great and organic. You can even get organic milk in your coffee.

When I discovered how they make their tea, I stopped ordering tea there because they put it in plastic pitchers with the tea inside the plastic pitchers. Hot liquid. And I was just astounded by that.

DEBRA: I have, where I live, not too far away, there’s raw, organic, vegan café, and they serve their tea—if you order iced tea, it comes in this plastic tea maker that they say, “Here, let it sit here for five minutes. We’ll come back and tell you when it’s five minutes.”

And then you squeeze it, and the tea, the hot tea, comes out into a cup of ice and becomes iced tea. But it’s only after it’s absorbed those plastics from the container.

We just need to do more education, Beth, because there are all these well-meaning people who just don’t know these things about plastics.

BETH TERRY: So that’s why it was so important to me, as I blog, and also in this book, to include information about speaking up and talking to restaurant owners, store managers, asking for what we want, writing letters, because we need better choices. We can only do so as individuals.

DEBRA: We do. We’ll be back after this break with more with Beth Terry, who is a blogger at MyPlasticFreeLife.com, and author of the book, Plastic-Free. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and you’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. My guest today is Beth Terry, blogger at MyPlasticFreeLife.com, and author of the book, Plastic-Free. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and this is Toxic Free Talk Radio.

Beth, let’s talk a bit about plastic package versus plastic products. And by that, I mean, I’m looking at products, I don’t want to use plastic products, but it’s so much harder to avoid products that might be organic, yet it’s packaged in plastic. So tell us about that.

BETH TERRY: Yes, so that’s so ironic to me. And a lot of times, I find that that’s the choice that we have to make. Organic food is grown without toxic chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides. And such care is taken to make sure that there are no hormone-disrupting chemicals in the food.

And then a lot of times, it’s packaged in plastic, which could be adding hormone-disrupting chemicals right back into the food. The packaging is actually an ingredient in the food.

And so I found lots and lots of way to buy foods without plastic packaging, without any packaging at all, a lot of times, by shopping the bulk bins, bringing my own bags and containers, glass jars with me, to shop the bulk bins.

Now, as I say in my book, and I have a whole section about bulk bins, and how to shop from them, how they’re cleaned and sanitized, but the truth is that sometimes, the food in the bulk bins themselves were delivered to the store in great, big plastic bags, so it’s not always plastic-free, but it’s less plastic.

DEBRA: I used to think if I bought a good in a glass jar that it was fine because it wasn’t in a BPA can. Well, actually, I made that decision a long time before there was BPA. I didn’t know about BPA in cans.

But I was at a farmer’s market one day, and somebody was selling pasta sauce. And I tasted the pasta sauce, and I was assuming that they were making it from fresh tomatoes. But I asked them, “Well, what about the tomatoes? What kind of tomatoes?”

And he very proudly said, “Oh, the finest Italian tomatoes from Italy.”

Yes, Italian tomatoes. And I thought, “Here’s BPA tomatoes in a glass jar.”
So you can’t always know that if it’s in a glass jar, those other ingredients haven’t been in plastic. Plastic is used in—

BETH TERRY: And the lids, the metal lids on glass jars, often contain BPA or some type of plastic inside the lid itself. But it’s a lot less plastic than if you were to buy a can that’s completely lined with plastic.

And so, I do still do that to some extent, but that’s why I feel like it’s so important to, whenever possible, look for whole, fresh foods from the farmer’s market because those things are not packaged at all, and you can see that they’re not packaged.

But I’m really glad that mentioned packaging as well because another issue about packaging and health is that even if the packaging isn’t actually touching our food, it’s still impacting us because anything that affects the environment is affecting our health. And all plastics are produced in petrochemical plants that give off toxic fumes, they pollute the water, they pollute the air.

People who live in communities where plastics are produced often have higher incidences of certain cancers or endometriosis, lots of different illnesses. And the more BPA, and the more toxic chemicals that are produced in this world, that go into the plastic packaging, even if that plastic packaging isn’t necessarily leeching into our particular food or item, it’s still contributing to pollution on our planet, and pollution that we breathe, and that we drink.

And so that’s why I feel like it’s so important to reduce plastic packaging. The most recent post on my blog is to Lotus Foods, the company that makes a stainless steel rice cooker, which we decided to get because we didn’t want to be eating out of an aluminum rice cooker anymore, or one coated with non-stick chemicals.

So we were so excited to get this stainless steel rice cooker. I opened up the box, and there was a huge chunk of Styrofoam in there, and everything was wrapped in plastic.

And so I wrote to them on my blog, and I said, “I really appreciate this product of yours. I appreciate how you’re trying to make us more healthy by giving us a stainless steel option, but these plastics and Styrofoam is actually #6 plastic. These plastics that you’re using for packaging are polluting our planet. Please switch to something safer.”

And someone from Lotus actually did respond in the comments. And so I’m hoping that writing that letter, that open letter on my blog, and that other people writing letters to companies, will help them realize that the packaging is just as important as the product that’s in the packaging.

DEBRA: Just as important. I agree with everything that you say. And all those toxic go into the environment do come back to us because we’re breathing the air, we’re drinking the water, we’re eating the food that is grown in contaminated soil. And we can’t think that the environment is separate from us and our health, and our well-being.

It’s all one system.

So every piece of plastic that we can not use goes a long way. And I think it’s really important to, as you just did with Lotus Foods, that when we find good products that we want to use, that we do write to the manufacturers and ask them about packaging.

One of the dilemmas that I’m going into about plastic packaging is, especially with healthcare products, personal care products, body care things, where they used to all be in glass, and now, they’re all in plastic, because glass breaks. When you take a bottle of shampoo in the shower, and what are you supposed to do?

Well, you and I know that the alternative is shampoo bars.

I’m not sure that shampoo bars work for everybody. I’m trying out a shampoo that’s just made from—it’s a really good shampoo, and it doesn’t have any, what I would call [inaudible 00:33:31] in it. It’s just made from all natural things. And it still comes in a plastic bottle.

And we need to be getting away from that. We need to be really as committed as you and I are. Everybody needs to do this. I didn’t come into being much until the mid-50s. And prior to that, everything everything was pretty much natural materials.

BETH TERRY: That’s one of the things that’s really important is to ask ourselves, how do we use to do things?

You can run into some issues though with getting things second hand. Buying things second hand is one of the things that I recommend in my book to avoid the packaging, to avoid new plastic. And yet, we still have to be careful with that too because there are issues of lead, for example, in some ceramic products that we might buy second hand.

So we have to ask ourselves if the newer things might actually be a little bit safer than the older things.

As you know, there’s a whole chapter in my book on personal care and cleaning, and lots of recipes, and lots of DIY. But sometimes people do have favorite products, one favorite personal care product or something that they just love, and it comes in plastic, and they don’t want to give it up.

So that’s another situation where you want to write to that manufacturer, tell them how much you appreciate what they’re doing, and ask them to change their packaging, and why. Explain why.

DEBRA: I know that on my website, on Debra’s List, where I’m recommending non-toxic products, I had to draw the line and say, I’m not going to be evaluating packaging, because if I were to eliminate every product that has a plastic package, there would be very few products left.

But I do make a note as best as I can if people and companies are using paper packaging instead of plastic, making a point to be plastic-free. Publicize that for them because it’s a really important thing. At this point, I don’t feel like I could eliminate everything that has a plastic package, but I agree that plastic packaging needs to go.

We just need to move away from these things.

BETH TERRY: Yes, and I feel like we just need to speak up because as long as companies don’t realize that this is an issue, or don’t realize that their customers care about it, they’re not going to make those changes.

Everybody has different priorities. For me, the plastic packaging is just as important as the product itself. But that’s my mission. That’s just what I decided what’s going to be the focus of my life. And there are lots and lots of other issues that other people have taken on.

So I do understand your decision about that, but the more we can at least—I don’t know. Let them know when they have a product that they want us to review, mention the packaging to them. Don’t just let it go because that’s the only way they’re going to realize that it’s important.

DEBRA: I totally agree with you. And in fact, I’m going to do that from now on. I am really going to be looking at the packaging. I’m not going to say that I can’t recommend a product if it has plastic packaging, but I’m going to mention to people about how they can be eliminating plastics.

This has been such a pleasure to talk to you, Beth. And I wish you all the best with everything that you’re doing.

BETH TERRY: Thank you so much.

DEBRA: And good luck to you too with your work because I think everybody should just listen to you and see what you say.

BETH TERRY: Thanks so much, Debra.

DEBRA: You’re welcome. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.

My guest is Mike Schade is the Markets Campaign Coordinator with the Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ), a national environmental health organization that was founded in 1980 by Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs. Lois became involved in toxics issues after finding out her entire neighborhood had been built on a toxic waste dump. Today CHEJ helps communities form strong local organizations in order to protect neighborhoods from exposure to hazardous wastes. Mike has over a decade of experience working on environmental health and justice issues. For four years, he was the Western New York Director of Citizens’ Environmental Coalition, where he coordinated community, marketplace and policy campaigns, including the Toxic-Free Legacy, Bucket Brigade and Kodak Corporate Accountability campaigns, resulting in substantial victories for environmental and public health. He also worked for the Buffalo Coalition for Economic Justice. At CHEJ, Mike has coordinated the successful national PVC and BPA Marketplace Transformation Campaigns which has convinced some of the world’s biggest companies to phase out PVC, phthalates and BPA. Ethisphere Magazine listed Mike as one of the 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics for 2007 and the PVC Campaign received the “Path to Victory” Business Ethics Network award. He is the author or co-author of numerous reports including the Wasting of Rural New York State-Factory Farms and Public Health, Volatile Vinyl-the New Shower Curtain’s Chemical Smell, Baby’s Toxic Bottle-BPA Leaching From Popular Baby Bottles, No Silver Lining-An Investigation Into BPA in Canned Foods, and Toxic Toys R Us. He has a BS in Environmental Studies from the State University of NY at Buffalo. http://www.chej.org

 

 

TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
How Vinyl Affects Our Health and the Environment—and What We Can Do

Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Mike Schade

Date of Broadcast: July 18, 2013

DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world.

Even though there are toxic chemicals in consumer products, and in the environment, and in the water we’re drinking, and the clothes we wear, and everything else, there are many people who are working to change things, make safer products, help us take toxic chemicals out of our bodies, and all kinds of other things, so that we can live healthier and happy lives.

And these are people that I’m talking to every day, Monday through Friday right here. And I know that in my own life, reducing my exposure to toxic chemicals has made a big difference for me. And it can make a big difference for you, and for your families.

I am on lots of different lists for inspiring quotes, and I get them every morning—in addition to sending them out every morning too. A couple of days ago, I got this one from Dr. Robert Goddard.

“It is difficult to say what is impossible. For the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.”

And I can really see that in my own life. I am—how old am I now? Oh, my god. My memory is going. I was 58 years old this year, in June. And I can see in my own lifetime what a difference my life is to now than it was when I was a child.

And in 1960, for example, we didn’t have computers. Nobody had computers. We didn’t have cell phones. There were computers. I don’t know. I guess the government had computer, or the CIA or something.

But we didn’t have personal computers. We didn’t have cell phones. What else didn’t we have? Nylon stockings, pantyhose, we didn’t have all kinds of things that we have today. And I even know that when I started working on toxic issues in 1978, there were so many toxic products and so few toxic-free products.

And now, we have a whole lot of toxic-free products to choose from. And that any of us who choose to not use toxic consumer products can do so because they exist.

And so just because something looks like it can’t be changed right now, or that we need to do something to make a change, doesn’t mean that it can’t happen because everything starts with an idea, a desire, a dream, a thought, and then we put those things into action.

Today, we’re going to be talking about vinyl with Mike Schade from the Center for Health, Environment & Justice.

And what the Center for Health, Environment & Justice does—we’ll probably be calling it CHEJ, is that they can help you and your community, if you’re facing an environmental health risk.

So they work with things like if you have a leaking landfill, food or drinking water, or incinerators, any kind of hazardous waste sites, they can help you with these community things.

Thanks for being on the show, Mike.

MIKE SCHADE: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

DEBRA: Well, first I want to hear, and I want my listeners to hear, how the Center for Health, Environment & Justice came to be starting with Love Canal.

And I remember in 1978, was it, or 1980, 1970-something, the whole story about Love Canal was in the news. But I know that not everybody is as old as I am, so they might not have been there at the time. So why don’t you tell us the story?

MIKE SCHADE: Yes, definitely. Our organization was founded out of the struggle at Love Canal around 1981. But our story goes before it. Our story begins before that.

In way back when, in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, [inaudible 00:04:21] and other businesses dumped over 20,000 tons of toxic waste into a canal, in the City of Niagara Falls. And back then, we didn’t know as much as we do today, about the hazards of chemicals in our environment. This is, in fact, even before Silent Spring.

Many of the chemicals that were dumped in the canal were some of the most toxic chemicals on the plant docks, and even waste from the Manhattan Project, from the first atomic bomb was dumped in the canal.

And in their wisdom, the land was eventually sold to the City of Niagara Falls for just $1. That’s how valuable it was because they knew that this was a toxic nightmare.

So unfortunately, in their grand wisdom, the City of Niagara Falls eventually decided to build two schools on top of and next to the canal, as well as hundreds and hundreds of homes adjacent to the canal. Many of the families that moved there were first-time homeowners. Many of them were newlyweds that had just graduated from high school and college, and wanted to start their dream homes there.

And so one of the people that lived there was a housewife, a woman by the name of Lois Gibbs, who is our founder and our executive director. She was 27 years old at the time. She had two children. And she had discovered that her child was attending a school, an elementary school, built on top of this canal, so is with 20,000 tons of toxic waste.

So Lois, as a concerned mom, she started going door-to-door because her children started getting sick, and she was wondering whether there were other people in the community that were also suffering from health problems.

And she soon realized that her children’s health problems were not an isolated incident, but many other people in the community were also suffering from health problems, including birth defects, miscarriages, cancer, and other severe health problems.

So Lois, working with her neighbors, they organized a community group, and they forced the government, after years of organization and protests, even at one point, holding two members of the EPA hostage, where they didn’t harm them, but they actually fed them milk and cookies, but they wouldn’t let them leave Lois’ home, they forced the government to close down the two schools and to relocate the entire community of Love Canal.

Over 800 families were relocated from this toxic site. And this was history in the making. This was the first time in the history of the United States that a community was relocated due to a toxic site.

And it really awoken the nation to the dangers of chemicals in our community. And it led to the creation of the Federal Superfund Program which, of course, is the program that cleans up toxic waste sites. And it also raised a lot of awareness among community members from coast to coast that, hey, maybe it’s not such a good idea to build a school on top of, and a community next to a toxic waste site.

And the struggle at Love Canal really helped spark the creation of the Grassroots Environmental Health Movement here in the United States today.

So our organization was formed after Love Canal. At the time of Love Canal, Lois started getting calls from people all across the country that were concerned that, “Hey, I might have a Love Canal type envirometal problem in my community.”

And at the time, Lois had called many other national organizations. And unfortunately, many of them basically just blew her off. While they sympathized with her, they didn’t really have the capacity or the tools to help Lois and her neighbors, until Lois realized that there was really a vacuum in the environmental movement.

So with just a little bit of money in the bank, she moved her family to Washington D.C. t form our organization, the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, to assist and empower communities across the country that were dealing with environmental health hazards in their communities.

And since 1981, our organization has assisted over 11,000 communities across the country, very similar to Love Canal, all across the country.

Our organization was really formed out of the struggle at Love Canal back in 1981.

DEBRA: And I so appreciate it. And I’m sure others too that you exist, so that you can help on a community level.

I didn’t know that you’d helped 11,000 communities. That seems like a very large numbers of communities to have these problems, and it makes me look outside my window, and ask myself, “Is that kind of problem exist here in the community that I live in, and that we don’t even know?”

So toxics can be everywhere, and so I’m glad that you’re there to help on a community level.

After the break, we’re going to talk particularly about vinyl, and the toxicity of it, the community. But I want you all to know that Mike, in addition to working for the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, has his own long pedigree of environmental work that he’s done and many, many things.

So I’ll tell you about a few of those, or he’ll tell you about a few of those after the break.
You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and I’m here today with Mike Schade from the Center for Health, Environment & Justice. And before the break, we heard all about the history of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, which started with the situation at Love Canal, which had houses built on a toxic waste dump.

But I wanted to let you know that Mike has been doing environmental work, exceptional environmental work, for the last decade himself. He has his own history on some of the things. And if you go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, you can read his bio.

But I want to mention that he’s had over a decade of experience, working on environmental health and justice issues. He was the New York director of Citizens’ Environmental Health Coalition. It’s so long.

So he’s coordinated the successful national PVC, polyvinyl chloride and BPA, bisphenol A, marketplace transformation campaigns, which convinced some of the world’s biggest companies to phase out PVC, phthalates and BPA. These are chemicals that I’m writing about all the time, and telling you about.

So he’s the author of numerous reports, including one that I have already linked to, No Silver Lining: An Investigation into BPA in Canned Foods. He’s also done one called Volatile Vinyl—The New Shower Curtain’s Chemical Smell.

And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today—it’s vinyl. And so this man knows all about it. He’s done the research, and he’s going to tell us about it.

So Mike, start by telling us where we can find vinyl. Maybe you should start by telling us before that about what is vinyl, and what’s in it besides vinyl.

MIKE SCHADE: Yes, I’d be happy to. So vinyl is commonly used plastic. It’s also referred to as polyvinyl chloride, PVC. And it’s a plastic that is, unfortunately, the most toxic plastics for children’s health and the environment.

From production to use to disposal, vinyl uses and releases some of the most dangerous chemicals on the planet, including chlorine gas, which was originally used as a chemical warfare agent in World War I, ethylene dichloride, vinyl chloride, mercury dioxins, phthalates, lead, PCBs—the list goes on and on.

So it’s a fundamentally hazardous plastic to me. There’s no safe way to make it, use it, or dispose of it. It’s toxic throughout its life cycle.

DEBRA: I had a question from somebody the other day on my Q&A blog where she said, “I like to wear sandals, and I don’t like the way 100% leather sandals look. So I want to wear the toxic sandals that are sold like at Target. I don’t want to single out Target. Most of the sandals that are made, are made out of vinyl.”

She wanted to know was there a way that she could detox these sandals because it was more important to her to wear this fashionable thing than it was to look at what are the safe materials.

She says, “I have to wear my fashionable sandals.”

And yet, all of these shoes that people love the style of, they’re all made from vinyl. And I want people to understand this—that vinyl is in all kinds of things that we don’t even think about.

So tell us some other places that we might find vinyl.

MIKE SCHADE: So vinyl is most commonly used in building materials. The number one use of vinyl is PVC materials.

So for example, piping—the white piping that you may have in your home is vinyl. The flooring—vinyl flooring in your home or in your kid’s school is PVC. Other examples include carpet. A lot of times, carpet is stacked with PVC.

And so it’s found in all sorts of building materials in our homes. It’s also found in building materials in schools, playgrounds, the linings of windows and doors.

So the number one use of vinyl is in building materials in our homes and schools. Other uses—it’s also commonly found in all sorts of consumer products. You mentioned apparel, so it’s sometimes found in certain clothing items, such as fake leather products like vinyl purses, for example.

It’s also found in consumer products like three-ring binders, vinyl three-ring binders, school supplies and office supplies, plastic paperclips. Those colored paperclips that we often use are vinyl.

Other products include vinyl shower curtains, and even children’s back-to-school supplies, such as backpacks and lunchboxes. It’s even found in electronics products like computers and laptops.

Unfortunately, to manufacturer, use and dispose of this product is nothing short of an environmental nightmare. It’s widely considered to be the most hazardous plastic on the planet.

And when we buy these products that are made out of vinyl, we’re contributing to the contamination of environmental justice communities in places like Louisiana. We’re exposing ourselves to hazardous chemicals like phthalates and lead. And finally, when these products are eventually disposed of, when we throw it out, we’re releasing dangerous chemicals like dioxins into the environment, which eventually, make their way through the food chain and get into our bodies.

So we’re actually contaminating ourselves when we’re using these products, when we’re buying vinyl plastic products.

DEBRA: The other day, I went into a large office supply discount warehouse. And I was looking for a cardboard binder because they had sold them for a while. I could just go in and buy them at the store instead of ordering them by mail.

And they discontinued them. And every single binder on the shelf—it was probably 100-feet of shelving for binders. They had vinyl, vinyl, vinyl binders in every color of the rainbow, and every size, and every single one of them was vinyl.

That just amazes me, that they can’t do better than that.

And I also want to make a point that it’s so important to understand that whatever we put into our bodies comes back—whatever we put into the environment comes back into our bodies because we’re breathing the environment. We’re eating the environment. We’re drinking the environment.

So just because something’s going into the environment doesn’t mean it’s not coming to us as well.

We need to take another break. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and we’re here with Mike Schade from the Center for Health, Environment & Justice. We’re talking about vinyl—the health effects, the environmental effects, and what we can do to protect ourselves.

We’ll be back in a minute.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and my guest today is Mike Schade from the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, also known as CHEJ. And we’re talking about vinyl, or PVC, it’s also called, and where it is in products, and what we can do about it.

Mike, what’s going on in the market? Are they moving away from vinyl?

MIKE SCHADE: Yes, absolutely. So as we talked about, vinyl is really considered to be the most toxic plastic on the planet. So in response to these concerns, there has been a huge market shift away from the use of PVC. And just about in every major sector of the economy, you’ll see major Fortune 500 companies that have adopted policies to phase out the use of vinyl and phthalates.

DEBRA: What are some examples?

MIKE SCHADE: Among retailers, big retailers like Target and Wal-Mart and Ikea, are working to reduce the use of vinyl and phthalates. In fact, Ikea worked to eliminate these PVCs over 20 years ago, going back to 1992.

Automobile manufacturers like Honda and Volkswagen, even electronics companies like Apple and HP and Dell.

So for example, if you buy a new Apple MacBook or iMac, it’ll be completely PVC-free.

So just about many major Fortune 500 companies are dissing these hazardous chemicals because they recognize that they’re not safe for the environment, they’re not safe for children’s health, and they’re also bad for companies, bottom line, given that there are many countries and governmental agencies across the world that restrict the use of vinyl, or really just chemicals.

DEBRA: Is there a PVC-free list?

MIKE SCHADE: Yes, absolutely. We have been compiling all sorts of information in about both the hazards of PVC and safer alternatives. Folks can visit our website at PVCFree.org, to get involved and learn more.

So for example, in terms of a PVC-free list, every year, we publish a back-to-school guide to safer school supplies, so that parents can identify safer products for their families. We’re actually just about to publish a new list in a couple of weeks.

We also have an interactive website called This Vinyl School, where you can see information about what are the most common products in schools that are made out of vinyl, and what are safer alternatives that we can encourage our schools to use, especially because we know that children are really vulnerable to the health hazards of the vinyl and phthalates.

The good news is that there are safer and cost-effective alternatives that are available, that are safer for our environment, but most importantly, healthier for our children. And if you go to our website, again, that’s PVCFree.org.

DEBRA: I’d like all the big box office supply businesses to carry cardboard binders instead of PVC binders. That’s the change that I’d like to see because as a writer, I’m always needing binders, and I have to order them online.

And people should be able to go into any of these stores, and be able to buy them for their children to use at school.

The children should not be using vinyl binders. Period.

MIKE SCHADE: Yes, absolutely.

DEBRA: It just doesn’t make sense to me that these big companies would continue to sell these toxic vinyl binders when other binders are easily available.

MIKE SCHADE: Last year, we published a study which found that many popular children’s school supplies, including binders, contain high levels of phthalate chemicals that are so toxic, they’ve been banned in toys. Yet, they’re allowed to be put into products like binders that children and other vulnerable population come in contact with.

We have seen some movement in the right direction in the case of binders. So Staples for example, if you go to Staples today, you’ll see that many of three-ring binders that Staples sells are PVC-free. They’re actually labeled as such. Now, not all of them are recycled—

DEBRA: Really? I will go right down to Staples and see.

MIKE SCHADE: You’ll see on the side or the cover, many of them are labeled PVC-free.

Now, not all of them are cardboard, per say. Some of them are made out of polymers or other plastics.

DEBRA: They’re made out of other plastics, but they’re not PVC plastics.

MIKE SCHADE: That’s right. They don’t contain phthalates, which is great. And then also, they’re not chlorinated plastics, so they don’t release dioxins when they’re made, and when they’re disposed of—dioxins being some of the most toxic chemicals on the planet.

So the market is beginning to move away from the use of vinyl in school and office supplies, like binders.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to be done. And one of the things that we’re doing actually this summer is we’re actually in the process of trying to raise money to test more children’s school supplies, like binders, for the presence of phthalates because last year, we found phthalates in 80% of school supplies that we tested.

Seventy-five of them was so high, it would be illegal to sell these products if they were toys. But because they’re not toys, because they’re school supplies, there’s this loophole in the law that allows retailers and manufacturers to continue to sell binders and other school and office supplies laden with these very harmful chemicals, phthalates, which are linked to asthma, they’re linked to reproductive health problems—the list goes on and on.

So we’re trying to raise funding to test more school supplies this summer, so that we can educate consumers about this problem, and how to find safer and healthier alternatives, as you stated.

DEBRA: And if you’d like to make a donation to help them do that, you can just go to CHEJ.org, and I think it will be apparent what to do once you get there, in order to make that donation.

I would like to really reiterate what you just said about the fact that there are laws that will say that to limit a chemical in one type of product, but not limited in another type of product because I don’t want people to hear that they shouldn’t have phthalates in children’s toys—that’s how toxic they are.

And so they may think, “Well, phthalates have been banned.”

No, they haven’t because it’s only for children’s toys. And so they’re still in all kinds of other products. And I think that’s pretty amazing that if it can be established that they shouldn’t be in children’s toys, why is it okay to be in a binder that a child is taking to school?

And I think that that’s something that needs to be addressed on a government level, that if they establish that a toxic chemical shouldn’t be in one kind of product, or that it needs to be labeled, with a warning label on one kind of product, that it goes across the board.

For example, with another chemical, with formaldehyde, in particle board, it’s supposed to have a warning label on it, but as soon as you cut that piece of particle board, and make a table out of it, for example, it’s now furniture instead of a building material, and it’s not required to have a warning label. The exact same material—one has a warning label, and another one doesn’t.

So there really are tremendous variations about how things get regulated. It’s not the same across the board, and that’s a problem we’re facing today.

We’ll be back after this. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. We’re here today with Mike Schade from the Center for Health, Environment & Justice. And we’re talking about vinyl, where it is and what we can do about it.

When we come back, Mike is going to give us some tips for reducing our exposure to vinyl in our daily life.

= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd, and today, we’re talking to Mike Schade from Center for Health, Environment & Justice. And we’re talking about vinyl—where it is in our homes, how it can affect our health, and how we can reduce our exposure.

So Mike, how can we reduce our exposure?

MIKE SCHADE: Well, there’s all sorts of safer options on the market, as we have discussed. If you go to our website at PVCFree.org, you can download reports and tip sheets for finding safer alternatives.

Just a couple of tips, if you want it, if you’re shopping for back-to-school supplies for your children or students this summer, you should definitely check out our back-to-school guide to safer school supplies that has information on how to find safer school supplies for your children and family.

Secondly, if you’re building or renovating a home, if you’re doing any renovations in your home, for example, if you’re putting a new flooring in your kitchen, bathroom or hallway, skip the vinyl and look for safer materials like linoleum.

Linoleum is a bio-based material, it doesn’t contain phthalates, and it actually lasts longer than vinyl, and is cheaper over its life cycle as a result. And also, it doesn’t require the use of toxic cleaning products to maintain.

DEBRA: What you’re talking about is natural linoleum, and not the stuff that’s just rolled up in a roll, which could be vinyl itself. I think linoleum is a generic term in some people’s mind, but there is something that’s natural linoleum made from—

MIKE SCHADE: That’s right.

DEBRA: [inaudible 00:27:40]

MIKE SCHADE: Exactly. It’s actually a certified bio-based material. It’s made from linseed oil. And it’s widely available. One of the companies that manufactures it is Forbo, and they have a lot of good information on their website there.

So if you’re doing renovations, that’s one place to start. Also, look at other building materials in your home like siding and roofing.

Thirdly, if you have children and they go to a school, encourage the school to adopt a PVC-free purchasing and building policy.

So if the school is doing any renovations, they should avoid the use of vinyl in building materials. They should adopt a green and healthy purchasing policy because a lot of schools buy a lot of stuff, a lot of products like computers and office supplies. We talked about binders.

So if you’re a parent, and you belong to a PTA, you can work with your PTA to encourage your school district to adopt the healthy PVC-free purchasing policy.

We have a lot of great information on our website that can help you encourage your school district to adopt such a policy, and that information is available at CHEJ.org/GreenPurchasing.

A couple of other tips, if you’re buying a new shower curtain for your home, if you’re looking to replace that old shower curtain, definitely skip the vinyl.

We did a study some years ago that found one new vinyl shower curtain can release over a hundred toxic chemicals into the air. So that new shower curtain smell is actually the smell of hazardous chemicals that you’re breathing in.

Today, a lot of major retailers like Ikea, Bed, Bath & Beyond, even Wal-Mart and Target, most of the curtains that thy sell these days are PVC-free. So in searching for a shower curtain, I prefer a PCV-free one.

DEBRA: Yes, I found that. I was renting an apartment when I was staying in San Francisco a few years ago. I rented a furnished apartment, but it didn’t come with a shower curtain. And I was astonished that I can just go down to Ikea and get a completely odor-free, PVC-free, clear, plastic shower curtain. But I think it was $2.

MIKE SCHADE: That’s great.

DEBRA: It was made from EVA, not PVC. And I think that’s one of the best deals there is because it’s so easy.

Some of these things, it’s just a matter of knowing that there’s an alternative. Why would you go buy a PVC shower curtain if you knew it was toxic, and you knew you could just go to Ikea and buy a safe one for $2.

MIKE SCHADE: Yes, absolutely.

DEBRA: And this is a no-brainer choice. We need to have those alternatives. We need to know what those alternatives are. So it’s so great that you’re providing these.

MIKE SCHADE: And if you just want to learn more about this issue, there’s a really fantastic documentary that was done some years ago. It’s called Blue Vinyl.

DEBRA: I have that.

MIKE SCHADE: You do? That’s great.

DEBRA: It’s great.

MIKE SCHADE: It’s actually available on Netflix.

DEBRA: It really makes the point.

MIKE SCHADE: Yes, and I was just going to say it’s available on Netflix, so folks, go onto Netflix. You can just rent that from Netflix, and it’s a great educational documentary. And if you want to educate other folks, you can organize a screening of the film in your community, or for your PTA, or community group, whatever it may be.

That’s another great way that we can all raise awareness, by seeing and sharing that film.

DEBRA: I’d love the way, as I’ve been listening to you talk, I know for myself, my work is very focused on what consumers can do individually. But I love the way that everything that you’re talking about is really pouring into community—how you can get other people involved.

I think that’s the thing that most distinguishes your organization, you really are looking at how toxic chemicals affect your communities, and what can you do as a community, as a neighborhood, to work together to find the toxic chemicals that may be present in your community. And to get them out of community buildings like schools, or hospitals, or hazardous waste dumps, or wherever those things are.

And it’s a whole different level of operating. We do need to be taking care of the toxic chemicals in our homes. I love that your organization is community-oriented because that needs to be taken care of too.

In our last three minutes here, can you just give us some examples of school supplies that are mentioned in your report, so that people can just—if they don’t have time to go look at the site or whatever, and then going out shopping right after this show, give them some ideas of things that they can be looking for, what might be toxic, and what might be the replacement that they can choose.

MIKE SCHADE: Yes, absolutely. And we actually have even a wallet-size version of our school supplies guide that folk can download on our website, so that if you’re shopping on the go, and you’re just looking for quick tips.

So a couple of quick ones—if you’re buying a backpack for your children, and you want to avoid backpacks with the shiny, plastic designs. Those often contain vinyl, and often contain phthalates.

Our study last year found some backpacks containing levels of phthalates 50 times higher the safety standard.

We talked about binders, three-ring binders. We recommend avoiding those that are labeled vinyl. You can buy cardboard, fabric-covered, or polypropylene binders.

DEBRA: Are they labeled vinyl if they’re made of vinyl?

MIKE SCHADE: Most of the time, about 90% of the time, when it says vinyl, it’s PVC. So when it says vinyl, you want to avoid that. Sometimes vinyl refers to EVA, which you mentioned before. But most times, if it says vinyl, it’s PVC.

So generally, when you’re shopping for three-ring binders, you want to look for those labeled PVC-free.

A couple of other tips—lunchboxes are often coated with vinyl on the inside, so look for lunchboxes that are abeled PVC-free. You can also use cloth lunch bags.

DEBRA: Or metal lunchboxes.

MIKE SCHADE: Yes. Those are certainly preferable from an environmental health perspective.

Paperclips—if you’re buying paperclips for your kids, stick to the plain, metal ones. The colored paperclips are usually coated with PVC.

And again, we have a very comprehensive guide on our website that folks can download to identify and procure safer school supplies. And again, that’s at www.CHEJ.org. Check out our back-to-school guide. And we’re going to be updating and releasing the 2013 version in just a couple of weeks. But in the meantime, you can check out our version from last year, which a lot of the products mentioned last year are still on store shelves, thankfully—or still available, I should say.

DEBRA: And I will link to that on ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. You can go there, and go to the archive blog. And all these things that we’ve been talking about, I’ll put links to. So you can just go right to those pages, go right to Mike’s blog page, and you’ll see all that, and you can just click to all these different resources.

Mike, thank you so much for being with us. You taught us so much, and I hope you’ll come back again, and we’ll discuss another chemical.

MIKE SCHADE: Great, I would be happy to. Thank you so much for having me.

DEBRA: You’re welcome.

MIKE SCHADE: I appreciate it.

DEBRA: Thanks for coming. Again, I just want to tell you that you can go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com. There are so many resources there. In addition to having the guest listed for the entire week, you can also go back and listen to all the shows that I’ve done, and there are biographies of all the guests.

You can go to the archive blog. Just go to ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, and click on archive blog, and you’ll see it.

Also, at the top of the page, on ToxicFreeTalkRadio.com, you’ll see that there are other links to other parts of my website, and the first one is, it says Q&A. And what that is, it’s my green living Q&A that has more than 12,000 entries. It has 3000-something questions, but more than 12,000 answers to those questions. And I’ve been answering these questions for years.

Also, my readers answer them, and our knowledgeable experts answer them. So if you have a question, it may have already been answered. You can just go at the top of the right-hand column on any page on my website.

There’s a search box just for the site, and you can type in something like vinyl, and everything about vinyl will come up, or you can type in shampoo, and you’ll get everything about shampoo.

So thank you for joining me today. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. And if you enjoyed this show, please tell your friends, and come back tomorrow.