Toxic Chemicals

From before we are born until the time we die, we are repeatedly and regularly exposed to toxic chemicals with the potential to seriously harm our health. Toxic chemicals can be found in our homes, schools and workplaces – in products we use on a daily basis. We're fighting at local, state, and federal levels to fix our chemical laws and find safer alternatives to the chemicals in everyday products.

National

Make Them Pay for the Non-stick Nightmare

Make them pay

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Recent Actions

Massachusetts

Let's Ban Toxic Flame Retardants Together-Write to your Legislator

Please contact your state legislators now and ask them to protect our health from toxic chemicals.

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Minnesota

Tell Ulta, Sephora, and Sally Beauty: It’s time for a makeover

Beauty product retailers can use their purchasing power to ensure the products sold on store shelves are safe, but the top three companies received poor marks on consumer health. Ask these companies to become consumer health leaders in the beauty product sector today.

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California

Keep Our Families from Being Lab Rats for the Chemical Industry

Despite the fact that toxic fluorinated chemicals have been linked to cancer, birth defects, liver problems, and decreased effectiveness of vaccines, they are still used in food packaging.

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Massachusetts

Who deserves clean air and water?

Everyone deserves clean energy and a healthy environment, but many Massachusetts communities bear a greater health burden from fossil fuel pollution.

Take Action for Clean Energy

Press Releases

June 7, 2018
Public Interest Groups Call for Release of Suppressed U.S. Study on PFAS Chemicals

A wide-ranging coalition of public interest groups is calling for the immediate release of a suppressed federal study that says perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water are hazardous at much lower levels than the Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines state.

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April 20, 2018
Clean Water Action Applauds Governor Murphy on Signing of Environmental Justice (EJ) Executive Order

"The time for talking is past," said Kim Gaddy, Environmental Justice Organizer for Clean Water Action. "This environmental justice  (EJ) executive order starts the process and the governor cannot move fast enough to adopt mandatory EJ measures across multiple agencies. We need to significantly reduce the cumulatively be pollution burdens and health impacts on New Jersey is most vulnerable-low income communities and communities of color."

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December 21, 2017
Clean Water Action Applauds McCabe as New NJDEP Commissioner

Clean Water Action is looking forward to having NJ’s next governor put Catherine McCabe in the driver’s seat as the new NJDEP Commissioner. She is a person who has made a career of being a science-based environmentalist.

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Related Toxic Chemicals Topics

Toxic Chemicals Publications

Toxic Chemicals Blog Posts

Nina Frame - Massachusetts Intern
I am part of a generation that is not protected from mercury exposure
August 27, 2018

When legislators and government agencies make decisions, we request they consider my generation’s future and the potential of our lives, and those that will come after. A life riddled and intertwined with the threats of this heavy metal was not what our parents had in mind, yet it is what we face. We urge state and federal governments to protect us from these dangers and allow us to live our lives free of the effects of mercury and we call upon them to make decisions to ensure that our children are the first generation that is truly protected from mercury exposure.

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photo: flickr.com/gambier20 (CC BY 2.0)
A lot going on
August 20, 2018

There is alot going on. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Do-Nothing proposal around chemical leaks and spills into water deserves attention.

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Chem tanks. Credit: raymondclarkeimages
Doing Something About EPA's Do-Nothing Plan
August 10, 2018

Imagine living near an industrial facility with aboveground storage tanks and not knowing what is in those tanks.  What if hazardous chemicals were stored in those tanks and that leaks or spills could contaminate a lake where you fish or swim, or a river that is also your drinking water source.  Wouldn’t you want to know that water in your community is protected?

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