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California Department of Toxic Substances Control Director Maureen Gorsen explains how, by using wiki technology, California shares with the public at large its mandate to create Green Chemistry regulations.

Director Gorsen also instructs wiki users on how to participate in this innovative approach to advancing California's green product revolution. California is implementing the first body of green chemistry law in the world and DTSC, the agency charged with its implementation is making history by writing the regulations on real time along with stakeholders and the people of the State of California.


Wiki for Green Chemistry

Chemical safety affects us all.  But how do laws support chemical safety?

Out of more than 62,000 synthetic chemicals that are part of our everyday lives, fewer than 200 have been tested for safety.

The Chemical Industry and Safety Best Practices

Thanks to effective lobbying by the chemical industry, laws are written so that every synthetic chemical is "innocent until proven guilty." The legal burden weighs on those seeking to prove the harm a substance can cause.

Find out more in "Toxic Ignorance is Not Bliss," by author and writer Dominique Browning.

Human Guinea Pigs

Browning reveals the shocking truth when it comes to potentially toxic chemicals -- you're basically on your own.

"We should be worried about what amounts to a huge, uncontrolled human testing experiment. Without agreeing to it, without understanding it, without even knowing it, we have become the chemical industry's guinea pigs."

Of highly visible concers of late is Bisphenol A (BPA), found in baby bottles, possibly the water bottle sitting by your desk and plastic dental sealants.

BPA is increasingly suspected of causing a variety of serious ills, yet factories continue to produce six billion pounds of it each year.

In the coming months, Congress may review the process by which we regulate toxic chemicals -- or, as Browning points out, mostly don't regulate them.

"Society needs to pay much more attention to this problem," says Dr. Richard Denison, Senior Scientist at EDF. "We've been complacent about it." Denison maintains an influential blog tracking the debate over chemical safety.

In 1976 Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).

Unfortunately, the 62,000 chemicals on the market at that time were given a free pass: no requirement they be tested or assessed for safety.

EPA's Role in Chemical Regulation

Although the Environmental Protection Agency has garnered some information about chemicals through voluntary submissions by industry in a program that EDF helped start, limited testing has been required on a mere 200 chemicals over the past three decades.

Worse, EPA has managed to restrict only five substances--and even that overstates the agency's efficacy.

The only group of chemicals entirely banned was PCBs, because Congress required it.

Even Cal Dooley, the president of the American Chemistry Council, commented on EPA's incapacity in this matter: "EPA cannot make a determination on whether or not a chemical is safe for its intended use."

Read more at: "Toxic Ignorance is Not Bliss,"

The Environmental Council of the States (ECOS)

The Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) is the national non-profit, non-partisan association of state and territorial environmental agency leaders. The purpose of ECOS is to improve the capability of state environmental agencies and their leaders to protect and improve human health and the environment of the United States of America.

 

Their belief is that state government agencies are the keys to delivering environmental protection afforded by both federal and state law.

The Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC) is an affiliated work group of states  seeking to speed the acceptance of new technology, primarily by reviewing and certifying  cleanup technology for use in new jurisdictions. ITRC is a state-led coalition working together with industry and stakeholders to achieve regulatory acceptance of environmental technologies. ITRC consists of 50 states, the District of Columbia, multiple federal partners, industry participants, and other stakeholders, cooperating to break down barriers and reduce compliance costs, making it easier to use new technologies, and helping states maximize resources. ITRC brings together a diverse mix of environmental experts and stakeholders from both the public and private sectors to broaden and deepen technical knowledge and streamline the regulation of new environmental technologies.

ERIS is the host for ITRC, which conducts training and reviews technology applications, providing state officials in new jurisdictions with a level of comfort as to the efficacy of new technology. ERIS and ITRC do not have separate staff, but use ECOS staff on a reimbursable basis.

ECOS has steadily increased the base level of practical research regarding state environmental agencies. This year was no exception. Here are some examples:
 
Restoring Budgets for "Core Programs" ECOS is working to convince Congress (and US EPA) to restore the cuts to the State and Tribal Assistance Grants that have occurred since 2005. Nearly all the cuts to EPA's budget have been passed on to the States, which implement 96% of the delegated programs such as clean air, clean water, waste and drinking water protection. ECOS members believe these cuts threaten our ability to protect the environment. ECOS again this year (2008) presented an alternative budget to Congress. In 2009, we worked with US EPA to present state budget needs for the 2011 budget period.
 
Mercury

ECOS is particularly interested in reducing the presence of mercury in the environment because continued mercury pollution poses a growing threat to human health and the environment. In 2001, ECOS and other partners founded the Quicksilver Caucus (QSC) to pool resources, and to explore and pursue methods for reducing mercury in the environment. The removal of mercury from the environment remains a priority for state environmental agencies. In 2009, the QSC continues to help provide a forum for dialogue between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state environmental agencies to facilitate facility compliance with the Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) Rule.

Currently, the QSC is exploring ways to preclude use of mercury in thermostats and thermometers, and is exploring ways to recover and better manage mercury already contained in such products.

Dental Mercury Amalgam Waste Management White Paper

In April 2008, the QSC released the Dental Mercury Amalgam Waste Management White Paper, which explores successes and lessons learned from early dental amalgam mercury management programs. The QSC also held a webinar on the topic of dental amalgam mercury programming and state and local efforts to reduce loading of amalgam mercury to water systems via use of separator machinery. The webinar highlighted the White Paper the Quicksilver Caucus published earlier in the year, along with various states' experiences with the subject, as outlined in case studies also recently published by the Caucus. The QSC is working to develop mercury total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for waterbodies, taking into account the contributions of air and waste programs. Currently, the QSC is also considering pursuing more work in the field of management of mercury from compact fluorescent lights (CFLs).

Environmental Information Management

States need to tell the public and USEPA about the quality of the environment in each State. In the past five years, over 40 States and USEPA have initiated projects to modernize their information systems to support their complementary roles in environmental protection. Because of outdated and inefficient information systems, the States and USEPA began to modernize -- with many leaning towards integrated systems.

The One Stop Reporting Program provided a solid foundation for the development of an integrated environmental information network to improve environmental decision-making and enhance access to environmental information among States and USEPA.

Since 2002, State and federal partners have expended tremendous effort to create the National Environmental Information Exchange Network (Exchange Network) -- a revolutionary way to exchange environmental information between partner organizations.

Writing about complex scientific stories isn't easy, and takes years of both study and research.  These two investigative reporters have been honored for their dedication.

Susanne Rust & Meg Kissinger

Chemical Fallout
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Thirty years ago, a carcinogenic flame-retardant material was taken out of children's pajamas.  In 2008 it was being used with frequency in products such as baby carriers and bassinetts.  This was just one of several discoveries made by Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in their series, "Chemical Fallout."

The team exposed government programs that favored chemical makers over the public and conflicts of interests among regulators.  Rust and Kissinger reported that there was no such thing as "microwave-safe" plastics. An outside laboratory tested containers labeled as such and found toxic levels of chemicals leached from every item.

The Journal Sentinel team did their homework: They reviewed hundreds of scientific journal articles and worked with scientists to determine that the federal government's assurances that bisphenol A (a chemical compound found in many plastics) is safe are based on outdated U.S. government studies and research heavily funded by the chemical industry. PBS broadcaster Bill Moyers compared the reporting to the legendary Upton Sinclair. David Kessler, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said that the Sentinel was doing the work that the agency should have been doing all along to protect the public.

Susanne Rust

Senior Reporter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Susanne Rust was part of a reporting team that won the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi award and the Society of American Business Writers and Editors award for detailing chemical dangers and lax regulations in Washington, D.C. The team also won the 2008 John B. Oakes Award.  Rust has continued to break new ground throughout 2008 with more stories exposing the failures of the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration.  In her five years at the Sentinel, Rust has also trekked through the hills of Rwanda to cover stories on civil engineering and AIDS; hacked through the dense foliage of a Ugandan rain forest in search of mountain gorillas; poked around Scotland's Roslin Institute looking for clones; and written about eco-friendly agriculture in Costa Rica.  Before joining the Sentinel, Rust pursued a doctorate in biological anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Meg Kissinger

Investigative Reporter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Meg Kissinger is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's investigative reporter focusing on health and welfare.  She and two of her colleagues won the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi award and the Society of American Business Writers and Editors Award for a series of articles on the government's failure to screen for dangerous chemicals in household products.  The series also won the 2008 John B. Oakes Award.  Kissinger has spent the last year breaking new ground on the failures of the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration to regulate toxic chemicals.  She was a finalist for the 2007 Selden Ring and Investigative Reporters and Editors awards for her reports on the filthy and dangerous housing conditions in Milwaukee County for people with mental illness. That series won the Mental Health America Award for best news repoting.  In her 25 years in the newsroom, Kissinger has written about abuses in the nursing home industry, the scam of the door-to-door magazine sales industry and the travails of an oncologist who unwittingly discovered his own end-stage cancer.  

CHEMICALS CAN TURN GENES ON AND OFF; NEW TESTS NEEDED, SCIENTISTS SAY

"A National Academies workshop examined the evidence of epigenetic
effects and considered whether the thousands of chemicals in use today
should be tested for them. Some pollutants and chemicals don't kill
cells or mutate DNA. Instead, they may be more subtle, muting genes or
turning them on at the wrong time, which can lead to diseases that are
passed on for generations. Asthma in New York City children exposed to
traffic exhaust is an example, experts say." Bette Hileman reports for
Environmental Health News August 3, 2009.

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/epigenetics-workshop

The meaning of greening

The term green chemistry was first coined in 1998 by Yale professor Paul Anastas and John Warner of the Warner Babcock Institute in their book "Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice." They defined it as "the utilization of a set of principles that reduces or eliminates the use or generation of hazardous substances in the design, manufacture and application of chemical products."

The green chemistry movement is beginning to take hold at UC Berkeley. An important recent step was a 2008 report commissioned by the California EPA entitled "Green Chemistry: Cornerstone to a Sustainable California," which includes among the authors Drs. Michael Wilson and Megan Schwarzman, research scientists in the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. The wide-ranging report outlines some of the major environmental, health, and economic impacts of California's current approach to regulating chemicals.

Over 100 synthetic chemicals and pollutants have been found in umbilical cord blood, breast milk, and adult tissues, and, according to the report, many of these chemicals are "known or probable human carcinogens, reproductive or neurological toxicants, or all three."

Thousands of new chemicals are introduced to the marketplace each year and global chemical production is doubling every 25 years.

The report highlights the need for comprehensive policy solutions to avoid the potentially disastrous consequences of releasing these chemicals into the environment.

Read more at the Berkeley Science Review

SOURCE:
Green Chemistry
Chemists clean up their act (view PDF)
by Lee Bishop and Mitch Anstey

From 1961 to 1971, over 20 million gallons of the powerful defoliant Agent Orange were sprayed across the jungles of South Vietnam. The herbicidal active ingredients destroyed millions of acres of forests, but perhaps even more tragically, the contamination of Agent Orange with the carcinogen dioxin caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and continues to affect the people of southern Vietnam to this day. Dioxin is now infamous as one of the world's most potent cancer-causing chemicals.

It's All About the Supply Chain . . .

Burning chlorine-containing organic materials produces dioxin, and oftentimes the chlorine is present only as a contaminant and not as the crucial component of the material, making dioxin production difficult to control. Coal fire plants, waste incinerators, and even forest fires are implicated in dioxin production, and until recently, engine exhaust from ships and trains also contributed to the problem.

In response, the California Environmental Protection Agency began investigating how chlorinated chemicals could be contaminating these vehicles' fuel.

They found that the automotive repair industry was using two chlorine-containing compounds, methylene chloride and tetrachloroethylene, as brake and engine cleaners. These chemicals were then combined with used car oil that was recycled into a cheap source of fuel for dioxin-spewing tankers and trains.

These findings prompted well-intentioned regulations to prohibit the use of those chlorinated chemicals in degreasers in California, and the automotive repair industry adopted a mixture of the chemicals hexane and acetone as a substitute.

Tragically, auto mechanics began experiencing numbness of their hands and feet, and some were even rendered wheelchair-bound.

It was eventually determined that hexane was being metabolized into a potent neurotoxin in the mechanics' bodies, causing nerve damage. This so-called "regrettable substitution" illustrates the difficulties inherent in designing and regulating chemical tools, weighing their benefits against often unknown environmental and health impacts.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the current chemical production and regulation system is flawed, and the field of green chemistry aims to provide the solution.

Read more at the Berkeley Science Review