Toxic Chemicals

From before we are born until the time we die, we are repeatedly and regularly exposed to toxic chemicals with the potential to seriously harm our health. Toxic chemicals can be found in our homes, schools and workplaces – in products we use on a daily basis. We're fighting at local, state, and federal levels to fix our chemical laws and find safer alternatives to the chemicals in everyday products.

Beakers. Photo credit: Africa Studios / Shutterstock

California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, National, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island

PFASs Chemicals – Protecting Our Drinking Water And Our Health

PFASs is a class of human-made chemicals which includes Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl substances These chemicals are very long-lived, which means that they remain in the environment and in humans and wildlife for a very long time. Two of these chemicals, PFOA and PFOS are relatively well known, and manufacturers have voluntarily stopped producing them. However, PFOA and PFAS continue to be detected at contaminated sites, in water, and in our bodies.

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Recent Actions

California

Keep Our Families from Being Lab Rats for the Chemical Industry

Despite the fact that toxic fluorinated chemicals have been linked to cancer, birth defects, liver problems, and decreased effectiveness of vaccines, they are still used in food packaging.

Act Now

Massachusetts

Who deserves clean air and water?

Everyone deserves clean energy and a healthy environment, but many Massachusetts communities bear a greater health burden from fossil fuel pollution.

Take Action for Clean Energy

National

Make Them Pay for the Non-stick Nightmare

Make them pay

Take Action!

Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, National, New Jersey

Tell America’s top retailers: Take action on toxic chemicals in your products!

Who's Minding the Store, the 2017 Retailer Report Card was released recently. It shows that while some retailers are making improvements in getting toxic products off their shelves, the industry as a whole is failing to protect consumer health.

Act Now!

Press Releases

June 7, 2018

Public Interest Groups Call for Release of Suppressed U.S. Study on PFAS Chemicals

A wide-ranging coalition of public interest groups is calling for the immediate release of a suppressed federal study that says perfluorinated chemicals in drinking water are hazardous at much lower levels than the Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines state.

April 20, 2018

Clean Water Action Applauds Governor Murphy on Signing of Environmental Justice (EJ) Executive Order

"The time for talking is past," said Kim Gaddy, Environmental Justice Organizer for Clean Water Action. "This environmental justice (EJ) executive order starts the process and the governor cannot move fast enough to adopt mandatory EJ measures across multiple agencies. We need to significantly reduce the cumulatively be pollution burdens and health impacts on New Jersey is most vulnerable-low income communities and communities of color."

December 21, 2017

Clean Water Action Applauds McCabe as New NJDEP Commissioner

Clean Water Action is looking forward to having NJ’s next governor put Catherine McCabe in the driver’s seat as the new NJDEP Commissioner. She is a person who has made a career of being a science-based environmentalist.

Why does everything have to smell like roses?

September 25, 2018

Have you walked down the lotion, cleaning product, or personal care aisles lately and gotten a little light headed from the hundreds of different fragrances hitting you all at once? Do you ever avoid walking past the perfume area in Macy’s or any of the other large retailers in malls?

I am part of a generation that is not protected from mercury exposure

August 27, 2018

When legislators and government agencies make decisions, we request they consider my generation’s future and the potential of our lives, and those that will come after. A life riddled and intertwined with the threats of this heavy metal was not what our parents had in mind, yet it is what we face. We urge state and federal governments to protect us from these dangers and allow us to live our lives free of the effects of mercury and we call upon them to make decisions to ensure that our children are the first generation that is truly protected from mercury exposure.

A lot going on

August 20, 2018

There is alot going on. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Do-Nothing proposal around chemical leaks and spills into water deserves attention.