2020 Victories against Toxic Chemicals: What States are Doing to Ensure our Healthy Future
Despite the hardships with the global pandemic, many states in the U.S. have continued their leadership adopting important protections from toxic chemicals. These victories come after countless efforts by advocates, allies, and partners in states across the country–emboldened and enabled by strong community voices and legislative leaders..
Now more than ever, we must support actions that protect our ongoing health. To accomplish this, we must ensure leadership, at all levels, is equally as committed. This has been a year where the spotlight has been put on state leaders. And many of them have risen to the occasion. State governments are powerful and, as we’ve seen firsthand, have the ability to lead.
This year’s state-level victories around protecting us from toxic chemical exposures reflect a bold vision for a future where communities are healthy, resilient, and not harmed by toxic chemicals; where harmful chemicals are banned in the marketplace; where companies that have caused the harm are held accountable; and where polluted communities are cleaned up.
And, we plan to keep winning! By tracking our efforts and understanding what these victories have in common, we can be confident that our successes will have the opportunity to grow.
These victories have three core elements in common, which include:
-
Regulating chemicals by class, instead of one-by-one.
-
Requiring companies to tell us what is in their products and to phase out the most toxic chemicals.
-
Cleaning up existing chemicals and protecting communities from further harm
In a series of upcoming posts, we will dissect each of these core victory elements in further detail. Be sure to check back in next week for our first installment, focusing on regulating classes of chemicals to reduce exposures.
