August 2024 Newsletter
2024 Legislative Session: Wins, Progress, + More Work to Do
2024 brought wins and progress. NYS has the power to safeguard our health, protect our environment, and transform the whole US marketplace when it limits toxic chemicals in products or requires information. This year’s session, state legislators missed some key opportunities to protect their constituents from harmful chemicals. We look forward to working with our legislative champions to win these laws in the 2025 Legislative Session!
🟩= Passed both houses 🟨= Passed one house
🟩Diaper Disclosure Bill: Requires listing ingredients on diaper packages. It passed the legislature and is awaiting Governor Hochul’s signature! This huge win for ingredient disclosure builds on the Period Product Disclosure law we won in 2019, which has changed labeling across the US. Parents deserve to know what’s up against their littlest ones’ skin.
🟨PFAS Ban in Consumer Products: Bans PFAS “forever chemicals” in items we use often like dental floss, cleaning products, textiles, rugs, ski wax and more, where safer solutions are already easily available. It passed the Senate, but didn’t get its vote on the Assembly floor. New York needs to join the growing list of states (including VT, CT, and MA next door) that are banning these completely unnecessary uses of chemicals that cause or contribute to cancer, infertility, neurological problems, weakened immune systems and more.
Confused about PFAS? Click here for more info!
🟨Toxics in Period Products Bill: Bans toxic chemicals in menstrual products, such as: PFAS “forever chemicals”, lead, mercury, and formaldehyde. The Senate passed this bill unanimously twice (it was amended right at the end) and had over 90 of 150 Assembly cosponsors. Sadly, the clock ran out on the Assembly floor. Especially given the new evidence of heavy metals hiding in period products (see below), with your help, we can win this in 2025.
🟨Enhanced Public Participation: Requires the inclusion of a public participation plan for major projects located near disadvantaged communities in order for applications to be considered. This bill complements the previously passed Cumulative Impacts law to promote environmental justice. This bill passed the senate.
🟨Lead Paint Right to Know: ensures that testing for lead based paint in homes occurs before they are sold, so buyers have this vital information before moving in. It passed overwhelmingly in the Assembly.
🟨Packaging Reduction & Recycling Infrastructure Act: NYC alone produces 14 million tons of trash/year. This bill shifts the cost and responsibility from cities and towns to the companies that produce the packaging in the first place, requires packaging reduction, development of infrastructure for reusable packaging, and for use of recycled content materials. It passed the Senate.
Progress but not passage:
The Beauty Justice Act: Bans dangerous chemicals such as formaldehyde, triclosan, PFAS, etc. from personal care & cosmetic products. These chemicals are associated with asthma, allergies, hormone disruption, neurodevelopmental problems, infertility, and even cancer. The Beauty Justice Act was advanced to the full Senate, and moved to the Ways & Means committee in the Assembly.
Reimagine Albany
In the 1960's Interstate 787 was built, splitting Albany's predominantly Black, and historically red-lined communities from the riverfront and each other, while increasing traffic, noise, and air pollution. Changing that transportation corridor is essential to transforming Albany into a healthy, thriving and just community. We're proud to be partnering with groups like Albany Riverfront Collaborative, Arbor Hill Development Corporation, AVillage, Capital Area Urban League, NAACP, and South End Neighborhood Association to center the community's needs as the State department of Transportation studies potential redesigns for the highway.
Did you know there were 57 bridges in the small city of Albany, mostly due to the tangle of I-787, the Dunn Memorial Bridge to the city of Rensselaer, and the connector to the Empire State Plaza?!
What Is Our Team Up To?
Meet Jasmine!
Hi everyone, my name is Jasmine Phillip! I am Clean+Healthy’s new Communications Coordinator. That means I will be connecting with you through social media, newsletters, websites, and press. I will also work with Albany Medical Center’s NYSCHECK communication efforts; whose mission is to prevent, diagnose, and treat environmentally related conditions for families across New York State. Since starting with C+H, I’ve been excited everyday to learn something new, and help my team work toward making a cleaner, healthier New York.
Make sure to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter)
Gabby, Sophia, + Coming Clean!
Coming Clean is a national environmental health collaborative working to transform the chemical industry so it is no longer a source of harm, and to secure systematic change that allows a safe chemical and clean energy economy to flourish. As we have over C+H’s whole existence, we are playing leadership roles in workgroups: Sophia Longsworth, C+H’s Toxics Policy Director, co-leads the Cumulative Impact & Mandatory Emissions Reductions Team with a familiar face: our co-founder and former ED, Kathy Curtis!
Gabby Gonzales, C+H’s Environmental Justice and Health Program Manager, co-leads the Farmworker Health & Justice Team.
This July, Gabby and Sophia joined the Coming Clean general meeting. There they discussed strategies on how to move our work forward in a productive way with the next election, ways to identify what strategies are working along with how to: build clinics with communities, incorporate community engagement, identify when it is appropriate to move to the next step of an action plan. We are excited to bring their insights to work here in New York and continue our national collaboration!
News We Are Reading
Period Product News
Just as our bills highlight, unsafe ingredients in menstrual products are preventable and have been receiving a lot of news attention within the past few weeks.
A new study from UC Berkeley found that tampons, including both organic and non organic varieties, may contain toxic metals such as lead and arsenic. Researchers emphasize that this study does not conclusively determine health risks but highlights the need for further studies. This study results stresses the importance of product awareness and understanding the ingredients in products to make the best informed choice for you.
NPR’s Marketplace quoted our Executive Director Bobbi Wilding in their piece, “Report on toxic metals in tampons draws attention to regulation of period products”: “Companies have to show that they don’t cause problems like bacterial growth or changes in the mucus in the vagina,” she said, “but there are no requirements at the FDA level that limit the kind of chemicals that can be present in menstrual products directly.”
PFAS News
‘Forever Chemicals’ PFAS are another focus of a few of our bills that we have been seeing in local news the past few weeks regarding herbicides containing PFAS being used for water plants in Lake George.
The use of ProcellaCOR to treat Eurasian watermilfoil in Lake George has sparked controversy due to concerns about introducing chemicals to a lake that is used for drinking water for many. Non supporters of this ring the alarm on the practice of these using toxic herbicides; putting emphasis on the dangers to drinking water & ecosystem and suggest for mechanicals methods of removal instead. The Lake George Park Commission commented on the herbicide's safety, but critics say further research and evaluation is needed to fully determine those statements.
CBS 6 News quotes Executive Director Bobbi Wilding in their piece, “Controversial herbicide applied to fight invasive water plant in Lake George”: “This pesticide is also known as a PFA chemical which we know as forever chemical and so when you put a forever chemical into a lake that is serving drinking water for people you are directly, ensuring that that kind of chemical could end up in the water that people are consuming.”
Bobbi was also quoted in ABC News 10 article, “30 day study: Lake George herbicide is effective”: “There was never any debate about whether or not this pesticide was going to kill the Milfoil…What Procella COR’s presence in the drinking water will mean as it adds to all of the other sources of PFAS we’re exposed to is the open question”.
What's To Come
Reception in New York City at Naturepedic
What: Come learn about what we do at C+H!
When: Tuesday, September 17,2024; 6:00 P.M
Where: Naturepedic Store: 245 E 60th St, New York, NY 10022
Healthy Harvest 2024: We're turning 18!
What: Join us for our annual Healthy Harvest dinner! This is a night where we all get together to celebrate our accomplishments for the year. This year we’ll recognize and hear from businesses that highlight businesses that are releasing clean products and toxics knowledge making it easier for the public to understand that taking toxics out of our products is possible and effective.
Stay tuned for more details!
Did you make it to the bottom? THANK YOU! If so, send an email to Jasmine and tell her what you’d like to see in the next newsletter! jasmine@cleanhealthyny.org
