Safe School Supplies
That time of year has come again: school supply shopping. My daughter and I had plenty of company doing our back to school shopping this afternoon. It seemed as if everyone in my city had descended on Staples!
So there we were along with dozens of others picking out markers, pencils, glue and folders and I found myself wondering: Are these products safe? And how would I know?
A little research confirmed my suspicions that back-to-school supplies–like many consumer goods–are chock full of industrial compounds. Products like markers, crayons, notebooks and lunchboxes contain chemicals that have been associated with a range of diseases including allergies, asthma, cancer and behavioral disorders.
Chemical reform legislation that is making its way through Congress will hopefully change this, and put the burden on industry to prove that chemicals are safe before they go to market, as well as pull those suspected or known to be hazardous.
But in the meantime, I return to my original question: how are we to know which markers, notebooks, and lunchboxes are safe?
Fortunately, there are some great resources we can turn to for help answering this question:
The Environmental Working Group has put together a series of Healthy Home Tips to help families choose safe, non-toxic products. Their Back to School Guide offers great tips for how to keep toxins out of your kids’ schools supplies.
The Center for Health, Environment and Justice has also created a guide focused on avoiding PVC. PVC is one of the most toxic plastics and yet is found in a wide variety of consumer goods, including those designed for children. Examples include backpacks, lunchboxes, and three ring binder. You can download CHEJ’s guide by clicking here and find out more about PVC by clicking here.
But what about school lunches? Plastics, pesticides, additives in processed food–these can also expose our kids to unhealthy chemicals. Fortunately, Healthy Child, Healthy World has created a handy pocket guide to help you make safer food & food storage choices.
Happy & healthy shopping!
Post updated August 28, 2011
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I thought that you might be interested in this link from Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. It lists information about some school supplies, including paint.
http://www.saferchemicals.org/resources/chemicals/heavy_metal.html
Comment by Katherine Friedrich — February 1, 2011 @ 10:43 am