Protecting Our Communities

Toxic chemicals and substances are, unfortunately, all around us. When we go into a hardware or garden store or drug store or supermarket, there are chemical "solutions" proposed to our many problems. We get calls from ChemLawn and other companies offering to make our lawn green again, and get rid of all the pesky weeds, just by the application of some chemicals. Millions of businesses all over the U.S. use, manufacture, or distribute chemicals. Toxic chemicals are integrated into many of our personal and household products.

Many of these chemicals are toxic. Some of them, like the weed killers and deodorizers, are extremely toxic and have lasting effects on our health and the health of the environment. Simple things like wallpaper, floor tiles, plastic toys and cassette cases are made of PVC, which gives off a cancer-causing chemical and is often contaminated with super-toxic dioxin. When we throw things away, they are either tossed into a landfill where they leach (disintegrate and give off toxic chemicals) or are burned in an incinerator, producing massive amounts of super-toxic ash and poisoning the air with dioxin and heavy metals like mercury and lead.

To protect your community, you need to first look carefully at the businesses that operate there. What do they do? Do they use toxic chemicals? What for? Could they use non-toxic alternatives? Is there an incinerator, landfill, or power plant in or near your community?

For instance, gas stations often use trichloroethylene (TCE) for degreasing engine parts. TCE is very toxic - it causes cancer for people that breathe it and leukemia for their children. What do they do with the TCE that is left? Does any go into the air? Are their workers exposed to it? Could they use ordinary detergent instead? If they insist on using solvent, could they use ordinary paint thinner or alcohol instead?

If you have an incinerator or landfill operating in your community, there may be a group already looking at its effects on the environment. If not, begin to ask questions. Incinerator operators must file reports with the EPA and/or your state environmental protection agency, and you can request to look at those reports. Landfill operators usually have fewer restrictions, and you'll need to do some (careful) investigative work to find if the landfill is leaking and poisoning the aquifer.

Many people in your community probably use weed killers. Most people don't know that the active ingredient in lawn weed killers is usually 2,4-D, a very toxic chlorophenol, usually contaminated with super-toxic dioxin. Commercial applicators don't know it's toxic, either. They will usually claim it is safe. If they are aware of its toxicity, they will put little yellow flags on your lawn to keep children away while it "goes away." Most people don't know that it never actually "goes away." It is virtually indestructible in soil. It settles into the ground, collecting where the soil type changes, or goes into the aquifer below, slowly poisoning it. Much of it stays near the surface, and is unearthed during rainstorms. It effectively poisons lawns, so that children should not really play on them for several years.

Your school system probably uses weed killers on its lawns and extremely toxic chlorophenol pesticides in its buildings to kill cockroaches and ants. If your town sprays for mosquitos or gypsy moth, it may use toxic chlorinated pesticides. If it does roadside maintenance, it probably uses weed killers rather than mechanical means to keep down weed growth.

Hardware stores, garden stores, and lumber yards in your community almost always sell a huge array of very toxic chorinated-organic pesticides, weed killers, and fertilizer containing weed killers. During the spring and summer months, hardware stores usually reek of 2,4-D fumes from the bags of "Weed 'N Feed" and "Turfbuilder + 2".

Usually, commercial produce sold in your local supermaket has so much toxic chlorophenol pesticide on it that it is visible (gray dusty coating). You could encourange the owner of the market to offer organically-grown produce. You could also suggest that the market sell non-chlorinated paper products (such as Marcal toilet tissue).

There are obviously many issues involving toxic chemicals in your community. Find the issues that people feel strongly about, and go from there.

Form An Environmental Group

If your community does not have an active environmental group, you can start one by inviting your friends and neighbors to a discussion group. There may be some health problem in the community that people are thinking about, or toxic odor complaints. You can literally become an "expert," compared with most people, by reading a few books on the environment, such as Dying From Dioxin by Lois Gibbs and Our Stolen Future by Theo Colburn. Half of Lois Gibbs' excellent book is about building a community environmental movement, based on her and others' personal experiences.

If you need help, there are statewide and national groups that you can call. They can often connect you with a group nearby, or they may even have heard from others in your community. They can provide you with technical assistance, send you literature about environmental protection or give you references to information about your particular concern, and provide moral support when you're feeling overwhelmed.

You can subscribe to a number of environmental newsletters, full of valuable technical information, which also keep you abreast of new developments in environmental protection and activities of other groups around the country. You can become an Earth Guardian, showing your commitment to the environment.