If you’re like me, you were caught pretty off-guard over the big headlines the last few years regarding toxins in our everyday lives: Melamine in pet food, Bisphenol-A in our plastics, lead paint on our toys………and because I was caught off-guard, I was furious. Prior to our pets dying, I had heard not even a whisper of the potential for my cat’s food to contain a life-threatening toxic chemical, and plastics…….well, we live in a plastic society, for chrissakes, even a good recycler/reuser such as myself was not aware of the dangers of releasing toxic chemicals into whatever the plastic’s contents if it was heated, or gasp……reused too often.
And these were things that I and my family and my pets had previously taken into our bodies without the slightest sense of the havoc that they could wreak. Infuriating. All the more infuriating because I know that for every big headline/melamine/BPA/lead paint story, there are a hundred more that we still don’t know about. And manufacturers who knowingly use such toxic chemicals have not been adequately regulated by a looooong shot. Just taken to task after the fact, which is really not a help to us at all. In fact, I really don’t understand why people, en masse, aren’t far more outraged than they are.
At least help is on the way, in the form of a plan designed to actually regulate the manufacturer’s use of toxins in those products that many of use freely and willfully every day without question: “The Obama administration last night unveiled the broad outlines of a proposal to overhaul the regulation of thousands of chemicals used in consumer products and the workplace, calling for more testing and greater authority to restrict toxic products. The plan, which would require legislation, would replace an existing system that is widely seen as ineffective – so much so that it did not allow the government to ban asbestos, a known carcinogen, decades ago”.
Thank you, Obama administration. This is a gift to my family, my pets, and all of us here in the US. This is exactly how the government needs to take care of its people. Thank you.