Erin Switalski

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Consumer Advocates about Pending Struggle to Label Chemical Ingredients in Cleaning Products

Erin Switalski, Program Manager, Women’s Voices for the Earth

(Mothers Day Week)

Examine a bottle of Palmolive dishwasher soap or Tide laundry detergent and try to figure out what chemicals they use to break down grease or produce suds. Stuck? You're not alone. Those chemicals aren't listed.  Although consumers have long had label information about food ingredients, a list of what's in cleaners and detergents used around the house has not been readily available.

Earthjustice is taking Proctor & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, and other household cleaner manufacturing giants to court for refusing to follow a New York state law requiring them to disclose the chemical ingredients in their products and the health risks they pose. The first-of-its-kind case could have national implications. Independent studies into chemicals contained in cleaning products continue to find health effects ranging from nerve damage to hormone disruption. But ingredient disclosure requirements are virtually non-existent in the United States.
 
The exception is this long-forgotten New York state law which requires household cleaner companies selling their products in New York to file semi-annual reports with the state listing the chemicals contained in their products and describing any company research on these chemicals' health and environmental effects. But in the three decades since the 1976 law was passed, companies failed to file a single report. In the fall of 2008, Earthjustice sent letters to more than a dozen companies asking them to comply with the law. The companies targeted in this lawsuit -- Proctor & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Church and Dwight and Reckitt-Benckiser -- each ignored or refused this request.

Studies show links between chemicals in common household cleaners and respiratory irritation, asthma, and allergies. Occupational exposures to some ethylene glycol ethers, often used as solvents in cleaning products, are associated with red blood cell damage, reproductive system damage, and birth defects.  Some solvents in cleaning products are also toxic to the nervous system.  Because many cleaning chemicals survive the sewage system and are released into streams, there is growing concern that such chemicals pose a threat to fish and other aquatic wildlife, causing, among other things, the “feminization” of male fish and throwing ecosystems out of balance. 

Manufacturers have so far been successful in maintaining the status quo; no state or federal law requires companies to identify chemical ingredients on cleaning product labels. Although New York’s reporting law has largely been forgotten, its mere existence means the state leads the nation in household cleaner right-to-know laws.

Erin Switalski

Women’s Voices for the Earth, Program Manager http://www.womenandenvironment.org/

Erin Thompson Switalski has several years of grassroots organizing experience in Montana. Erin came to Missoula, Montana from Colorado in 1997 and graduated from the University of Montana in 2001 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Spanish. Erin was active at the University as a student Senator and chairwoman of the student political action committee and sat on the board of the Montana Public Interest Research Group. She coordinated a youth “Get Out the Vote” campaign with a “Vote Environment” component and organized student lobbying efforts for higher education funding at the Montana State Legislature. Erin is the Board treasurer of the Missoula-based social justice organization Community Action for Justice in the Americas and through this organization has traveled to Colombia twice to act as a human rights observer. At WVE, Erin is primarily responsible for overseeing the Safe Cleaning Products Initiative. In her free time, Erin can be found backcountry skiing, cycling around Montana, or backpacking in her favorite wilderness areas.