Why does the public need to know more about toxic chemicals that are incorporated into products?

Products with toxic ingredients can damage the environment and human health when they are used, discarded, or even recycled. For example, thermometers, fluorescent lamps, and batteries all may contain mercury, a potent toxin that damages the nervous system. If a thermometer breaks during use, mercury washed down the drain can pollute water supplies. Recent evidence indicates that landfills where mercury-containing devices are buried are generating mercury-containing gases and runoff. And iron and steel smelters were recently identified as major sources of mercury emissions from switches contained in wrecked cars and obsolete appliances undergoing recycling.

INFORM’s analysis of data from the expanded right-to-know programs in New Jersey and Massachusetts indicates that the average quantity of toxic chemicals incorporated into products at industrial facilities is 10 to 20 times greater than the amount generated as waste. At some facilities, hundreds or even thousands of times more toxic chemicals are going into products than into wastes. Nonetheless, most environmental regulations and pollution prevention programs -- such as the federal TRI -- focus almost exclusively on reducing the waste from industrial facilities, failing to address the significant impacts of toxic chemicals in products.

In New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Eugene, Oregon, on the other hand, expanded toxic chemical reporting data allows the public to determine how much of the chemicals used at a plant ultimately wind up in the products it manufactures. As a result, interested consumers (including government purchasing agents and secondary product manufacturers) can more easily identify and purchase environmentally preferable alternatives. Data on toxic chemicals in products also allows secondary product manufacturers (which use industrial feedstocks and components to make consumer end-products) to protect workers from unnecessary exposure to hazardous chemicals, fill out their own TRI reports accurately, and develop effective warning labels for consumers. (It should be noted, however, that this product data is typically aggregated at the facility level. Therefore, if a facility manufactures several different products, it may not be possible to determine the extent to which individual toxic chemicals are found in specific products.)

For a comparison of what the TRI and materials accounting data reveal about an actual facility’s use of the toxic chemical DEHP, click here.

For more information on toxic chemicals in consumer products, see INFORM’s Purchasing for Pollution Prevention webpage.