Green Child Safety in Your Home

There are so many chemicals just inside your home that can be very hazardous to children. This is something that I think we’ve been aware of for a while and it seems that greener alternatives are popping up all over. But you might not realize how close to your children chemicals really are. Obviously household items like bleach, batteries, cleaners, gas etc. are things that we know cannot only be dangerous to our children but also dangerous to us as well. Did you know that some baby bottles are hazardous? Surprised? I was when I first started researching hazardous materials in the home. BPA (Bisphenol-A) the chemical found in baby bottles and canned foods has been linked to health impacts and early puberty to increased fat cell production and miscarriages. WOW who would have thought?
Children are especially vulnerable to chemical exposure, yet safety regulations are too weak to offer them meaningful protection from untested--and potentially toxic--chemicals in consumer products like baby bottles, water bottles, shampoo and food packaging. The Kids, Worker and Consumer Safe Chemicals Act, also known as the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act, would help reduce children's exposure to hazardous chemicals before and after birth and protect workers and other people. The Act responds to the growing body of scientific literature, which is identifying chemical exposures as a factor in the rise of disorders and diseases such as certain types of cancer, birth defects, asthma, neurological and developmental disorders and infertility. Biomonitoring studies are finding hundreds of these synthetic chemicals in our bodies, even in infants and fetuses. With approximately 50 percent of breast cancer cases unexplained by factors such as genetics or diet, scientists are increasingly looking into the environmental causes of the disease. The Kid-Safe Chemicals Act would provide important safety measures in protecting people's health.

The Kid-Safe Chemicals Act would:

* Require manufacturers to provide health and safety information prior to distributing a chemical in consumer products, instead of presuming a substance is safe until proven dangerous;
* Increase public awareness by providing much needed hazard and exposure information to EPA and the public; and
* Require EPA to determine the safety of 300 chemicals within the next five years. By 2020, all chemicals distributed in commerce would need to meet the safety standard.

By Angie Thomason