Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
A national effort to protect families from toxic chemicals.
Tribute to Andy Igrejas, environmental health hero
We lost a dear friend, colleague, and extraordinary public health champion this past weekend. Andy Igrejas was all of the above and more, and we’ll miss him greatly. Over these last dozen years, he founded Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and led us in an ambitious marathon of a national campaign that resulted in the first major update to our broken chemical safety law, the federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), in forty years.
EPA paint stripper rule will leave workers’ lives at risk
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its final rule on methylene chloride in paint strippers. The Trump administration’s final rule will ban consumer uses and sales of these dangerous paint strippers while continuing to allow commercial sales to contractors and other professionals.
Bi-partisan group of senators introduce PFAS Action Act
Washington, DC — On Friday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation (S.638) to classify fluorinated chemicals (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as “PFAS”) as hazardous substances under the Superfund law (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act or CERCLA).
Toxic paint strippers: Ace Hardware (finally) acts; Trump EPA stalls
On Monday, Ace Hardware Corporation became the 13th U.S. retailer to publicly commit to stop selling and distributing paint removers that contain the toxic chemicals methylene chloride and N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP).
Trump administration PFAS “action” plan doesn’t act quickly enough
This morning, the EPA announced its federal PFAS action plan. In response, Safer Chemicals Healthy Families Director Liz Hitchcock issued the following statement.
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In our third annual report card on safer chemicals in consumer products, the Mind the Store campaign found that major retailers are making slow but meaningful progress in improving the chemical safety of the products and packaging they sell, but nearly half have failed to make the grade.