A Stroller Brigade of hundreds of parents and their children descended on the nation's capital today to call on Congress to protect their families from toxic chemicals.
The demonstration for safer chemicals was timed to coincide with the U.S. Senate's consideration of reforming federal laws overseeing toxic chemicals, which organizers say is the most serious reform attempt in nearly 40 years.
Toxic chemicals—many of which are linked to cancer, birth defects, early puberty, asthma and other serious illness—have been found in common consumer products ranging from household cleaners to children’s products and building materials.
Stroller Brigade organizers say the chemical industry has been blocking progress on meaningful reform, spending a staggering $30 million for lobbying in the first two quarters of this year alone.
"Americans have woken up to the fact that known toxic chemicals get into our homes and our bodies, often through the products we buy, and that the government doesn't do a thing about it," said Andy Igrejas, director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, the coalition that hosted today's event.
"We need reform that truly protects American families from chemicals that contribute to the rising rates of childhood cancer, learning disabilities, infertility and other health problems. The current proposal before Congress does not meet that standard," he said.
A rally on Capitol Hill, which kicked off at 10 a.m., featured parents, children and cancer survivors from around the country. Families also met with their senators to urge federal reform that will:
- Protect pregnant women, children and vulnerable communities
- Take immediate action on the most toxic chemicals
- Allow states the ability to pass their own toxic chemical laws
The bill before the Senate, the Chemical Safety Improvement Act, doesn’t meet these important health criteria, organizers say.
Among the parents in attendance was actress Jennifer Beals, who has been an outspoken advocate for safer chemicals.
“We are living in the most extensive human experiment imaginable, one that is without our consent because it is largely being conducted without our knowledge,” Beals said. “We look to our government to provide our basic rights of clean air and water and yet right in front of us, chemicals have for the most part gone untested in their effect on human health.”
Representatives from Alaska visited their senators, including two delegates from St. Lawrence Island in Alaska who hand-delivered chemical policy reform resolutions from the villages of Gambell and Savoonga. The Alaska Nurses Association hand-delivered a similar resolution, which says in part, “the Alaska Nurses Association advocates for meaningful chemical policy reform both nationally and on the state level that reduces the use of toxic chemicals and requires that less harmful chemical be substituted whenever possible and ensures adequate information on the health effect of chemicals is available to the public before these chemicals are introduced on the market such as is the process outlined in SB 1009.”
New information about product testing was revealed at the event. The new data, commissioned by Healthy Stuff and the Center for Health Environment and Justice, found common products with high levels of phthalates, a group of chemicals linked to hormone-disruption, cancer and infertility. Among the products were dumbbells, over-the-ear headphones, vinyl flooring and a Spongebob Square Pants rain poncho for children.
"Diverse organizations of doctors agree on the urgency of reforming our toxic chemical laws and the critical elements needed for it to be meaningful," said pediatrician Dr. Yolanda Whyte, citing statements by the National Medical Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and American Academy of Pediatrics.
"The proposal before Congress does not meet that test," Whyte said. "We're here to tell Congress that reform needs to be meaningful and credible with the public health community."
Among the critical elements Whyte cited were protection of vulnerable populations, looking at all the sources of exposure to a chemical and providing a strictly health-based standard of review.
Public health and environmental groups have raised strong critiques of the Chemical Safety Improvement Act, as drafted.
Sara Chieffo, legislative director of the League of Conservation Voters, said, “To win the support of moms across the country, reform of our toxic chemical laws must be real. Parents are asking the Senate to pass reform that will truly protect the public from toxic chemicals.”
Visit EcoWatch’s HEALTH page for more related news on this topic.
Though made in large part of plastic, glass, ceramics, gold and copper, they also contain critical resources. The gallium used for LEDs and the camera flash, the tantalum in capacitors and indium that powers the display were all pulled from the ground — at a price for nature and people.
"Mining raw materials is always problematic, both with regard to human rights and ecology," said Melanie Müller, raw materials expert of the German think tank SWP. "Their production process is pretty toxic."
The gallium and indium in many phones comes from China or South Korea, the tantalum from the Democratic Republic of Congo or Rwanda. All in, such materials comprise less than ten grams of a phone's weight. But these grams finance an international mining industry that causes radioactive earth dumps, poisoned groundwater and Indigenous population displacement.
Environmental Damage: 'Nature Has Been Overexploited'
The problem is that modern technologies don't work without what are known as critical raw materials. Collectively, solar panels, drones, 3D printers and smartphone contain as many as 30 of these different elements sourced from around the globe. A prime example is lithium from Chile, which is essential in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles.
"No one, not even within the industry, would deny that mining lithium causes enormous environmental damage," Müller explained, in reference to the artificial lakes companies create when flushing the metal out of underground brine reservoirs. "The process uses vast amounts of water, so you end up with these huge flooded areas where the lithium settles."
This means of extraction results in the destruction and contamination of the natural water system. Unique plants and animals lose access to groundwater and watering holes. There have also been reports of freshwater becoming salinated due to extensive acidic waste water during lithium mining.
But lithium is not the only raw material that causes damage. Securing just one ton of rare earth elements produces 2,000 tons of toxic waste, and has devastated large regions of China, said Günther Hilpert, head of the Asia Research Division of the German think tank SWP.
He says companies there have adopted a process of spraying acid over the mining areas in order to separate the rare earths from other ores, and that mined areas are often abandoned after excavation.
"They are no longer viable for agricultural use," Hilpert said. "Nature has been overexploited."
China is not the only country with low environmental mining standards and poor resource governance. In Madagascar, for example, a thriving illegal gem and metal mining sector has been linked to rainforest depletion and destruction of natural lemur habitats.
States like Madagascar, Rwanda and the DRC score poorly on the Environmental Performance Index that ranks 180 countries for their effort on factors including conservation, air quality, waste management and emissions. Environmentalists are therefore particularly concerned that these countries are mining highly toxic materials like beryllium, tantalum and cobalt.
But it is not only nature that suffers from the extraction of high-demand critical raw materials.
"It is a dirty, toxic, partly radioactive industry," Hilpert said. "China, for example, has never really cared about human rights when it comes to achieving production targets."
Dirty, Toxic, Radioactive: Working in the Mining Sector
One of the most extreme examples is Baotou, a Chinese city in Inner Mongolia, where rare earth mining poisoned surrounding farms and nearby villages, causing thousands of people to leave the area.
In 2012, The Guardian described a toxic lake created in conjunction with rare earth mining as "a murky expanse of water, in which no fish or algae can survive. The shore is coated with a black crust, so thick you can walk on it. Into this huge, 10 sq km tailings pond nearby factories discharge water loaded with chemicals used to process the 17 most sought after minerals in the world."
Local residents reported health issues including aching legs, diabetes, osteoporosis and chest problems, The Guardian wrote.
South Africa has also been held up for turning a blind eye to the health impacts of mining.
"The platinum sector in South Africa has been criticized for performing very poorly on human rights — even within the raw materials sector," Müller said.
In 2012, security forces killed 34 miners who had been protesting poor working conditions and low wages at a mine owned by the British company Lonmin. What became known as the "Marikana massacre" triggered several spontaneous strikes across the country's mining sector.
Müller says miners can still face exposure to acid drainage — a frequent byproduct of platinum mining — that can cause chemical burns and severe lung damage. Though this can be prevented by a careful waste system.
Some progress was made in 2016 when the South African government announced plans to make mining companies pay $800 million (€679 million) for recycling acid mine water. But they didn't all comply. In 2020, activists sued Australian-owned mining company Mintails and the government to cover the cost of environmental cleanup.
Another massive issue around mining is water consumption. Since the extraction of critical raw materials is very water intensive, drought prone countries such as South Africa, have witnessed an increase in conflicts over supply.
For years, industry, government and the South African public debated – without a clear agreement – whether companies should get privileged access to water and how much the population may suffer from shortages.
Mining in Brazil: Replacing Nature, People, Land Rights
Beyond the direct health and environmental impact of mining toxic substances, quarrying critical raw materials destroys livelihoods, as developments in Brazil demonstrate.
"Brazil is the major worldwide niobium producer and reserves in [the state of] Minas Gerais would last more than 200 years [at the current rate of demand]," said Juliana Siqueira-Gay, environmental engineer and Ph.D. student at the University of São Paulo.
While the overall number of niobium mining requests is stagnating, the share of claims for Indigenous land has skyrocketed from 3 to 36 percent within one year. If granted, 23 percent of the Amazon forest and the homeland of 222 Indigenous groups could fall victim to deforestation in the name of mining, a study by Siqueira-Gay finds.
In early 2020, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed a bill which would allow corporations to develop areas populated by Indigenous communities in the future. The law has not yet entered into force, but "this policy could have long-lasting negative effects on Brazil's socio-biodiversity," said Siqueira-Gay.
One example are the niobium reserves in Seis Lagos, in Brazil's northeast, which could be quarried to build electrolytic capacitors for smartphones.
"They overlap the Balaio Indigenous land and it would cause major impacts in Indigenous communities by clearing forests responsible for providing food, raw materials and regulating the local climate," Siqueira-Gay explained.
She says scientific good practice guidelines offer a blueprint for sustainable mining that adheres to human rights and protects forests. Quarries in South America — and especially Brazil — funded by multilaterial banks like the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Group have to follow these guidelines, Siqueira-Gay said.
They force companies to develop sustainable water supply, minimize acid exposure and re-vegetate mined surfaces. "First, negative impacts must be avoided, then minimized and at last compensated — not the other way around."
Reposted with permission from DW.