EDF Health

What does “clean beauty” mean? New framework gives a path forward

By EDF Blogs / Published: March 25, 2021

This post originally appeared on EDF+Business. 

Alissa Sasso, Project Manager, EDF+Business.

Anyone who’s recently purchased a personal care item knows how overwhelming the experience can be. From price and aesthetics to brands, there are many factors to consider. Now add the safety and impact of the ingredients, whether or not it’s  “clean”, and the decision becomes more difficult.

The clean beauty industry has seen enormous growth, with projections estimating it will reach $11 billion by 2027. But the cosmetics industry has been underregulated for so long, there is no standard definition of “clean”. Brands and retailers entering this market therefore have flexibility to use the term “clean” to their own discretion.

Following a new roadmap, brands that are either creating a clean beauty program, or strengthening already-existing “clean” shops and labels, can use their influence to build a growing consensus around the use of the term to represent best-in-class. The roadmap provides guidance for companies on how to develop strong criteria for evaluating the health and environmental impacts of their products, prioritize ingredient safety and champion meaningful transparency in their clean beauty program.

Read More »

Also posted in Markets and Retail / Tagged , , , | Read 1 Response

An issue nearly everyone agrees on: It’s time to fund lead pipe replacement

By Joanna Slaney / Published: March 25, 2021

Joanna Slaney, Legislative Director, and Sam Lovell, Project Manager.

As Congress looks to various infrastructure priorities in the coming months to get the country back on track, funding replacement of lead pipes should be an essential part of that effort. Recent polling from Black Millennials for Flint, BlueGreen Alliance and EDF demonstrates that there is strong bipartisan support for this initiative across party lines and regions of the country. Funding lead pipe replacement will protect health, create jobs, permanently improve water infrastructure, and reduce health inequities. It’s time for action.

And we are already seeing movement on this important issue, with legislation in the first few months of the new Congress in both the US House and Senate including lead pipe replacement as a key infrastructure priority.

Read More »

Also posted in Drinking water, Lead / Tagged , , , , , | Comments are closed

Lead pipe replacement in action: New case examples highlight innovative approaches to financing, outreach, and more

By Sam Lovell / Published: February 22, 2021

Sam Lovell, Project Manager.

[pullquote]

See new case examples of state and local agencies, community groups, and other stakeholders tackling lead service line replacement challenges.

[/pullquote]Across the country, over 9 million homes still get their water through a lead pipe, called a lead service line (LSL). Fully replacing LSLs poses a myriad of challenges – cost chief amongst them – but replacement is critical to protecting the public from the harms posed by lead exposure. It is also a necessary step to upgrading the country’s aging water infrastructure.

To assist water systems, elected officials, health professionals, and other key stakeholders with navigating these challenges to accelerating LSL replacement, the Lead Service Line Replacement Collaborative developed an online toolkit several years ago. EDF is a founding member of the Collaborative, which now has 27 members representing public health, water utility, environmental, labor, consumer, housing, and state and local governmental organizations. The toolkit includes everything from technical replacement information to recent LSL replacement news to equity considerations.

Now, the Collaborative is featuring case examples and interviews with states, water utilities, and advocates advancing LSL replacement with innovative strategies.

Read More »

Also posted in Drinking water, Lead / Tagged , , | Authors: / Read 1 Response

EPA’s three new service line notices: Critical to transparency and accelerating lead pipe replacement

By Tom Neltner, Senior Director, Safer Chemicals Initiative / Published: January 21, 2021

Tom Neltner, J.D. is the Chemicals Policy Director

This is the second in a series of blogs evaluating various aspects of EPA’s December 2020 revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) and what they may mean for accelerating lead service line (LSL) replacements. The blogs cover: 1) new service line inventory; 2) three new LSL notices; 3) environmental justice implications; 4) communicating health effects of lead; 5) economic implications; and 6) sampling and trigger/action level.

Note that President Biden’s Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis directs agencies to review the former administration’s regulations and actions, including the Lead and Copper Rule. 

Three new notices required by the revised LCR from water systems to people with known or potential LSLs provide critical opportunities to build public support for LSL replacement by helping individuals better understand their situation and specific actions they should take. However, we recognize that, like all notices, many people may simply ignore them, especially if only delivered as an insert to a monthly or quarterly bill. We anticipate that notices will be most effective when coupled with broader outreach efforts and requirements that property owners share the notice with potential buyers and tenants.

As explained in a previous blog on the new service line inventories, water systems must assign all service lines to one of four categories. The rule treats three categories – “Lead,” “Galvanized Requiring Replacement,” and “Lead Status Unknown” – as known or potential service lines containing lead. People receiving water from a service line in any of these three categories must receive three new types of notices designed to prompt them to take steps to address the risk of lead in their drinking water pursuant to 40 CFR § 141.85(e) to (g). The three types of notices are:

  1. An annual notice;
  2. A notice of disturbance to service line; and
  3. A notice if trigger or action levels exceeded.

Read More »

Also posted in Drinking water, Health policy, Lead, Regulation / Tagged , , , , , | Authors: / Comments are closed

How we make pollution more visible

By Sarah Vogel / Published: December 2, 2020

Sarah Vogel, Ph.D., is Vice President for Health.

This post originally appeared on the Global Clean Air blog. 

Our new animated video shows how invisible pollution makes its way into our body.

When we’re outside, either walking or driving, we’re instinctively looking out for traffic. “Look both ways when you cross the street,” is advice drummed into most children.

But even so, we all have blind spots, and we’re not aware of the present danger polluting cars and trucks bring into our daily lives.

Our new video shows that although air pollution from vehicle exhaust is invisible, its damage to our health is visible and deadly.

EDF’s Global Clean Air Initiative has spent years researching air pollution in cities around the world. Our pioneering work with Google Earth Outreach, academic, community and government partners in Oakland, Houston and London shows that levels of air pollution vary much more widely than was previously known. In Oakland, we now know that levels of air pollution can vary by up to eight times within one city block. We’ve been working to visualize local pollution and its impacts in order to support targeted policies for cleaner air especially in those communities hardest hit by pollution. But we also recognized the need to make the experience of pollution more visible and more personal to each one of us as we walk down a city street.

Read More »

Also posted in Air pollution, Hyperlocal mapping / Tagged , , | Comments are closed

Two chemicals that remind us why we should exercise caution with the oil industry’s wastewater

By EDF Blogs / Published: October 14, 2020

Cloelle Danforth, Scientist. 

This post originally appeared on the EDF Energy Exchange blog.

Over the past few years, we’ve written a lot about the wastewater generated from oil and gas production — specifically, how little is known about what’s in it and the potential risks of exposure.

But as states try to set standards for how to safely treat and dispose of this waste, there are two chemicals in particular that deserve to be among the regulatory priorities.

The first is a class of synthetic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — PFAS for short. Members of this class, often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they are highly persistent in the environment, are known to cause adverse health impacts in humans. This can include a range of symptoms, including damage to the immune system, low infant birth weights and cancer.

The second chemical is 1,4-dioxane. Short-term exposure to this carcinogen can cause immediate health impacts, like eye, nose and throat irritation and impaired lung function. Prolonged exposure can lead to liver and kidney damage, as well as cancer.

Read More »

Also posted in PFAS / Tagged | Comments are closed