A typical Maine resident may be exposed to unsafe amounts of mercury in their fish, arsenic in their drinking water and dioxin in their meat and cheese. These are part of a larger group of highly toxic chemicals that are especially dangerous because they are long-lived (i.e. persistent) once released to the environment. They may also build up to high levels (i.e. bioaccumulate) in the food web including in our bodies and human breast milk.

    Entire classes of toxic chemicals are also infiltrating our bodies and our environment. Brominated flame retardants (used in electronics casings, fabrics, and other products), phthalates (widely used in cosmetics and personal care products), and "Teflon chemicals" (used in non-stick pans, stain-resistant coatings, Gore-Tex, and other products) cause serious health problems and have been increasingly found in humans. Safe alternatives for most of these uses already exist.
There's no place for persistent toxic chemicals in a healthy environment. Exposures have been linked to a variety of cancers, learning disabilities in children, suppressed immune systems, reproductive harm and a host of other adverse health effects in humans and wildlife.

Cosmetics and Personal Care Products

Every day many people use products such as shampoo, deodorant and make-up that contain chemicals linked to cancer, birth defects and other ailments. Cosmetics manufacturers are allowed to use almost any chemical as an ingredient without government approval. Cosmetics and other personal care products should be made of safe, non-toxic ingredients. Some leading companies agree. So far, 150 companies have signed the Compact for Safe Cosmetics, a pledge to make safe products.

     Every week, new information is released that deepens our understanding of the harm caused by phthalates and other toxic chemicals in the products that we put on our bodies. Recent articles and research published in the New York Times, USA Today, Environmental Health Perspectives, and other publications demonstrate the urgent need for action to protect our health and the health of our children.

Learn more:

Campaign for Safe Cosmetics

Not Too Pretty

Skin Deep: Searchable Guide to Personal Care Products

Take Action:

Sign the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics petition to let cosmetics and personal care products companies know that customers want safe products!

Toxic Flame Retardants

In 2004 , the Environmental Health Strategy Center led a campaign that resulted in a first-in-the-nation law to ban toxic flame retardants widely used in consumer products in favor of safer alternatives. These Brominated Flame Retardants (BFRs) are added to many plastics in electronics, fabrics in furniture and rugs, and foams in furniture and mattresses. They easily escape during use and disposal of products, threaten brain development in children, damage reproductive organs, and may cause cancer.

Maine's new law will phase out the use of two high volume BFRs known as Penta and Octa in consumer products by January 1, 2006. The law also presumptively bans the widely used brominated flame retardant (BFR) known as Deca, providing that safer alternatives are found to be nationally available.  Deca is added to the plastic casings of televisions and other electronics and is also used in synthetic textile fabrics.  Levels of the BFRs, including Deca, are rising in breast milk, the food supply, in homes and the environment.  In lab studies, they cause permanent brain damage in young animals and adversely affect the thyroid hormone system.

Two Maine state agencies have reviewed the latest science and market trends on Deca and have concluded that “effective alternatives for achieving flame retardancy appear to be available for all current deca-BDE applications.”  This paves the way for full enforcement of the January 1, 2008 ban on the sale of products containing Deca in Maine.  Another report recently released by the University of Massachusetts Lowell concluded that there are effective alternatives to deca-BDE already available on the market now. In January, 2006, two Washington state agencies released a new action plan and proposal to phase out these substances.

Learn more:

Read the Maine DEP report on BFR hazards and deca alternatives.

Read the Lowell report on alternatives to deca BFR

Visit the Washington state web page about flame retardants

Teflon Chemicals
A growing body of evidence demonstrates that perfluorinated compounds used in the manufacture of non-stick pans, Gore-Tex, and stain-resistant fabrics harm workers that manufacture products using them and consumers who buy these products. DuPont, which makes Teflon, has been accused of suppressing studies that suggest that PFOA causes health problems. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board recently named one of these "Teflon chemicals" as a likely human carcinogen. Read more.

Learn more:

Environmental Working Group Teflon/PFC Page

Mercury
An emerging policy consensus demands the virtual elimination of mercury from human-caused sources. (The qualifier "virtual" recognizes that as an element and a contaminant of fossil fuels and many minerals, mercury can never be eliminated). Mercury in small amounts harms the growing brains of babies, impairing learning, memory and attention span later in childhood. Between 10% and 20% of all women of childbearing age in Maine and the U.S. consume unsafe levels of mercury in the fish they eat. Health warnings advise people to avoid or restrict eating most freshwater fish and some ocean fish (e.g. tuna, swordfish and shark) throughout much of the country.
Maine has led the nation in policy making to phase out the use of mercury in consumer products and its use to manufacture chlorine and caustic soda (at the former HoltraChem plant). Laws enacted in each of the last three years ban the disposal of mercury products (requiring collection for recycling instead), require new products to be labeled and establish the right to know the mercury content of products sold in Maine. New laws ban the sale of mercury fever thermometers, thermostats and mercury used in schools. Maine hospitals have pledged to phase out all mercury products by 2005. Automakers are required to fund a system to collect and recycle mercury switches from old cars — a precedent in the U.S. for manufacturer responsibility to take back toxic products at the end of their useful life.

Arsenic
People are exposed to the highly toxic element arsenic in contaminated drinking water and from wood preservatives used in decks and playgrounds. Arsenic exposure causes bladder and skin cancer. About half of all Maine people rely on private wells. Nearly one-third of these wells may exceed health standards for arsenic in drinking water. Most people have not been warned of the arsenic health hazard nor has their water been tested. Most of the arsenic may be naturally occurring, but some reflects past use of arsenic-based pesticides in orchards and on wood. Maine people suffer from one the highest rates of bladder cancer in the United States.
The fact that Mainers are already exposed to too much arsenic helped drive an arsenic-laced fertilizer out of the Maine market. Ironite, a soil amendment derived from mine tailings, was recently pulled from retail store shelves for the first time in the U.S.

Dioxin
Dioxin includes a large class of the most toxic chemicals known to science. Average Americans contain dioxin in their fatty tissues at or near levels known to cause harm, without an adequate margin of safety. Average daily exposures to dioxin in fatty foods, including meat and dairy products, match current action levels and far exceed health-based thresholds. Dioxin interrupts fundamental biological systems in the body that may in turn trigger cancers, immune system suppression, diabetes, endometriosis, hormonal disruptions, developmental and reproductive harm and more.
The implications of widespread dioxin contamination of the food supply are so profound that industry and the U.S. EPA have kept the dioxin hazard reassessment bottled up in the bureaucracy for a dozen years. No one manufactures dioxin. It's formed as a byproduct whenever chlorine reacts with organic matter under high temperature. Since organic matter is ubiquitous and elevated temperatures common, phasing out chlorine sources is key to dioxin prevention.
The incineration of municipal waste is a major source of dioxin. The major precursor of that dioxin is the widely used plastic, polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl). Dioxin is produced during the production of PVC, whenever it is burned incidentally (in building and car fires, for example) and during disposal (waste incineration, open burning, landfill fires). Some PVC contains other persistent toxic chemical additives that may be released to the environment during use and disposal.
In recognition of these hazards, the Maine Legislature banned the open burning of trash, launched an educational program about PVC and open burning, and called for a study to examine the feasibility of diverting PVC waste away from incineration. The Maine Hospital Association has pledged to steadily reduce the use and disposal of PVC from medical products. Historically, the paper mills in Maine were forced to change bleaching technologies to reduce waste discharges that contaminated river fish with too much dioxin to safely eat.