Clean Water Action is working in New Jersey to reduce toxic chemicals found in everyday consumer products. Many of these chemicals are linked to cancer, asthma, and other respiratory and health disorders. Current priorities:
Reducing Toxic Pesticides
Most commonly used pesticides are harmful to our health, our kids health, and our pets health. Studies show a direct correlation between pesticide exposure and the development of cancers in children, such as leukemia, tumors and disease. Pesticides and phosphorus and nitrogen-based fertilizers also pollute drinking water supplies. Clean Water Action is working to implement:
Pesticide Free Zones
We've helped over 100 New Jersey towns pass Pesticide Free Zone (PFZ) ordinances in public parks, school yards and home lawns to provide safe, healthy living lawns and landscapes that protect the health of children, families, pets, wildlife and the environment from unnecessary exposure to toxic pesticides.
PFZ means that no chemical pest controls at all are used, but will consider the use of organically certified materials and USEPA-exempt pesticides.
Integrated Pest Management
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) uses a wide variety of practices to reduce pests without the use of toxic pesticides. In an IPM program, pest control includes: prevention of pests by reducing food, water, and access used by pests; application of pesticides only as needed; selecting the least toxic pesticides effective for controlling pests; and, restricting pesticide use to areas not contacted or accessible to children, faculty and staff.
The New Jersey School IPM (IPM) Act (effective date June 2004) requires all public, private and charter schools to adopt a school IPM program that provides 72 hour parental and staff notification of a chemical pesticide application, 7 hour reentry delays and a shift to low-impact pest control methods.
Safe Playing Fields Act
This bill will stop the use of the most toxic pesticides where kids play. Unfortunately, the NJ Legislature continues to stall the bill despite passing three committees with overwhelming bi-partisan support and over 60 sponsors. We are urging Senate President Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Oliver to let this bill be heard.
Reducing Fertilizer Pollution
New Jersey has one of the strongest fertilizer laws in the nation. We helped get the law passed in January 2011 to protect Barnegat Bay and other New Jersey waters from excessive nutrient pollution.
The use of fertilizers containing phosphorus, and their eventual presence in stormwater runoff, constitutes a threat to New Jerseys water quality. Phosphorus fertilizers often end up on impervious surfaces such as sidewalks and driveways, causing direct polluted runoff into sewers and then out to rivers, streams and lakes.
To help protect NJ's waterways and keep your lawns healthy, select a low or no phosphorus fertilizer designed for lawns and apply it to your lawn properly. Check the second number on the package formula. A zero in the middle means no phosphorus, a 2 or 3 in the middle means low phosphorus.
Try to avoid the use of all-purpose type fertilizer products on your lawn. Fertilize in the spring after the first lawn cutting. Only apply fertilizer when your grass is growing enough to be mowed. Fall is the best time to fertilize your lawn, for a healthier, greener lawn next spring.
Green Cleaning
Many commonly used cleaning products contain harmful chemicals that are not safe for you, your family, kids, or pets. These chemicals are linked to a wide range of skin, respiratory, and immune disorders, allergies, asthma, cancer, and reproductive harm.
Of the 2,863 most commonly used chemicals only 7% have complete toxicity data and 43% have NO toxicity information available (Source: US Environmental Protection Agency). 1 of every 3 cleaning chemicals used in schools can cause environmental or health problems such as asthma. (Source: Center for a New American Dream).
Switch to green cleaning in your home, school or workplace. By doing so you can provide safe, cost-effective solutions. Download our 
Green Cleaning Guide 2016.pdf to learn more.
Antibacterials
Antibacterials are found in wide variety of soaps, laundry detergents, shampoos, toothpastes, body washes, dish soaps, shaving cream and household cleaning products. According to Beyond Pesticides, they: Encourage growth of super-resistant bacteria. Wipe out "good" bacteria, vital for good health. Children not exposed to "good" bacteria may be more prone to allergies and asthma. Have no proven benefit over mild soap and water.
The American Medical Association says: "There is science to suggest that the use of some of these antimicrobials in consumer products can be linked to development of antibiotic resistance…We urge the FDA to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of antimicrobials in consumer products and strongly urge FDA regulation of them where resistance against antimicrobials has been demonstrated."
Dangers of Triclosan
Triclosan is the most "Active Ingredient" in antibacterial Products including shaving cream & toothpaste. Possible health effects include: allergies and asthma shavecream antibiotic resistance weakening of the immune system decreased fertility altered sex hormones birth defects cancer toxic to algae and aquatic ecosystems
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
Clean Water Action is part of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition, which represents more than 11 million individuals and includes parents, health professionals, advocates for people with learning and developmental disabilities, reproductive health advocates, environmentalists and businesses from across the nation. Our coalition of diverse groups is fighting for reform of our outdated toxic chemical laws, working with retailers to phase out hazardous chemicals from the marketplace and educating the public about ways to protect one’s family from toxic chemicals.
Toxic Substances Control Act
Last year, the U.S. Congress took major steps toward chemical safety reform by passing bills to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act. Now, the two pieces of legislation must be combined before the final version can go to President Obama for his signature.
Both bills contain fundamental reforms that empower EPA to test chemicals and to restrict them when needed to protect public health and the environment. Unfortunately, there are also provisions, especially in the Senate bill, that exist solely to help out special interests.
For example, the Senate bill makes it harder for EPA to restrict chemicals in imported products. It would let some chemicals off the hook without a thorough safety review and it would block states from taking action on chemicals while EPA is reviewing their safety, which could take years. The House bill largely avoids those problems but it fails to provide EPA with new resources and a mandatory schedule.
Tell Congress to make the final bill as strong as possible. The final bill should combine the best of both bills, rather than the worst. It should ensure that EPA makes steady progress every year. It should have no loopholes or rollbacks and it should preserve the ability of state governments to protect their citizens.
Mind the Store
The Mind-the-Store Campaign campaign has realized significant victories towards its goal of pressing the nation’s largest 10 retailers to phase out toxic chemicals. Some of the nation’s largest retailers such as Home Depot, Lowe’s, Walgreens, Target and Walmart, have all made announcements to eliminate toxic chemicals from their stores. However, the details of these new plans and policies are often undisclosed to the public. Suppliers have also been known to find substitutes that may be somewhat safer than the targeted chemical of concern, but which display other hazardous health effects.
Safer Cosmetics Coalition
Have you ever thought about what is in your cosmetics, sweet-smelling bath products or that lipstick your toddler loves to wear (and undoubtedly eat!)? Believe it or not, as much as 70 percent of what we put on our skin ends up inside our bodies.* And yet many popular cosmetic, fragrance, and beauty products contain toxic ingredients like mercury, lead, or phthalates, which have been linked to reproductive and developmental issues.
Unfortunately, there is almost no safety or health regulation over these products, which most of us use every day. Instead, the cosmetic industry claims it can voluntarily regulate itself. Call us cynical, but if we've learned anything from the current state of Wall Street and the banking industry, we'd say corporate "self-regulation" doesn't always put our families' interests, health and safety first.
Clean Water Action is part of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics coalition, a project of the Breast Cancer Fund, which works to protect the health of consumers, workers and the environment through public education and engagement, corporate accountability and sustainability campaigns and legislative advocacy designed to eliminate dangerous chemicals linked to adverse health impacts from cosmetics and personal care products.
