Which Chemicals in Your Home Are Toxic? EPA Doesn’t Know!

Chemicals are used to produce 96% of manufactured consumer goods. Many of them are toxic. In 1976 Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to regulate the introduction of new or already existing chemicals. Under the TSCA the government must, for the most part, prove that a chemical is unsafe before it can be removed from market, instead of requiring manufacturers to prove that their chemicals are safe in the first place. A recently introduced piece of legislation hopes to plug the holes in the thirty-seven year old TSCA, one of the few pieces of legislation that has never been amended. Toxic chemicals can be found in a tremendous number of everyday products from BPA in food containers to flame retardants on our furniture, which can spread to the dust on the floor that children can ingest when playing. Flame retardant chemicals have been linked to lower IQ and the development of diabetes. Toxic chemicals can cause a number of health problems, and exposure to chemicals in the womb can have long-lasting affects on the child’s life. This bill will go a long way toward getting rid of, or at least identifying, the toxic chemicals that citizens may be encountering on a daily basis.