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Safer Chemicals Charter

The Alliance for a Toxic-Free Future’s Safer Chemicals Charter — Towards Creating a Safe and Healthy Environment

From Niagara Falls to Long Island and New York City, we are constantly exposed to toxic industrial, agricultural, commercial and household chemicals. We carry these poisons in our bodies. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the soil beneath our feet, our homes, our schools, our playgrounds, our offices and our food are all laced with chemicals and contaminants that have been linked to birth defects, infertility, asthma, neurological problems, and some forms of cancer. The burden of this chemical assault is greatest at the fence lines of polluting facilities, in workplaces handling hazardous materials, in agricultural fields overloaded with pesticides, in marginalized minority communities and in the womb. This chemical burden is exceptional in human history and represents a major failure of the current chemical management system. Especially vulnerable are our future citizens — developing babies and children — but no one is exempt.

It is crucial and necessary to protect people, the environment, and the food web. True reform will require a new vision that meets the needs of society while restoring and protecting our health and the health of the systems that support us. Real change will require us to transform our thinking and to change the direction of government and the marketplace. It will require action to phase out the most dangerous chemicals, to innovate and use safer, accessible, affordable alternatives, and to protect the most high-risk communities.

Some cleaner and safer chemicals, products, and production processes are already available; more are needed. Leading companies are developing creative solutions and using safer technologies, providing a roadmap for a new approach that supports life and health. Aside from new technologies, policy change is also necessary to transform entire markets. A first step to creating a safe and healthy environment is major reform of New York’s chemical policy. Reform must:

Require Safer Affordable and Accessible Substitutes and Solutions. Seek to eliminate the use and emission of toxic chemicals by substituting safer chemicals, altering and redesigning the production processes, products and systems, and rewarding innovation. In addition, the public and private sectors are required to invest in research and development of greener, less toxic chemicals, products, materials, and processes and to buy and use safer substitutes.
Phase-out Persistent, Bioaccumulative, or Highly Toxic Chemicals. Prioritize chemicals that are slow to degrade, accumulate in the body, or are highly hazardous to humans or the environment to be eliminated and replaced by safer alternatives.
Provide Communities, the Public and Workers a Real, Full Right-to-Know and Participate. Provide meaningful involvement for the public and workers in decisions on chemicals. Label products that contain hazardous chemicals, list quantities of toxic chemicals used in agriculture and in manufacturing facilities, provide parents of school children, office and production workers and the public access to health and safety data on chemicals, and disclose all inert ingredients used in pesticides.
Act on Early Warnings. Act to protect public health and the environment when evidence suggests that harm is occurring or is likely to occur, even when there is a lack of full scientific certainty about the exact nature, cause and effect and magnitude of the harm.
Require Comprehensive Safety Data for All Chemicals. Assume that a chemical is highly hazardous unless comprehensive safety data exist for the chemical. In addition, require manufacturers to provide this data by 2015 for a chemical to remain on the market. This is the principle of “No Data, No Market.”
Take Immediate Action to Protect Children, Communities, and Workers. When developing infants and children, communities and workers are exposed to chemicals that pose an immediate health hazard, immediate action is necessary to eliminate these exposures. We must ensure that no population is disproportionately burdened by chemicals.

Implementing these principles is a first step in reforming a 30-year-old chemical management system that fails to protect the public’s health and the environment. By implementing the Alliance for a Toxic-Free Future’s Safer Chemicals Charter and committing to the innovation and use of safer chemicals and processes, NY’s government and American corporations and public and private agencies will be leading the way toward a healthier economy and a healthier society.