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.

Test tubes, table of elements. Photo credit: Ben Schonewille / Shutterstock

National

Taking on the Toxic Soup - Why We Fight for Safer Chemicals

English

Recent Actions

Rhode Island

Take Action! Urge Legislators to Keep Toxic Chemicals like PFAS out of Food Packaging!

Contact your legislators today to tell them to keep toxic chemicals like PFAS out of our food packaging!

Keep Toxic Chemicals like PFAS out of Food Packaging!

Minnesota

Tell Ulta, Sephora, and Sally Beauty: It’s time for a makeover

Beauty product retailers can use their purchasing power to ensure the products sold on store shelves are safe, but the top three companies received poor marks on consumer health. Ask these companies to become consumer health leaders in the beauty product sector today.

Act Now!

Massachusetts

Let's Ban Toxic Flame Retardants Together-Write to your Legislator

Please contact your state legislators now and ask them to protect our health from toxic chemicals.

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

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.

Thank you Lowe’s: Toxic paint strippers going, going….!

June 4, 2018

From May 6^th through May 11th, 2018, consumers from around the country visited their local Lowe’s home improvement stores as a part of the “Mind the Store’s” Week of Action to urge Lowe’s to remove harmful chemicals from its products – in particular, methylene chloride commonly found in paint strippers. Massachusetts’ Clean Water Action staff Kadineyse Paz, Laura Spark, and myself went to Lowe’s in Braintree, MA to partake in this campaign on May 10^th(pictured above).

EPA is Failing to Protect Children from Toxic Coal Plant Pollution

April 27, 2018

Scott Pruitt is failing our children -- on purpose.

Mid-Session Defense Update

April 24, 2018

We are halfway through the Minnesota 2018 legislative session and it’s been made clear that some of our lawmakers are not willing to put our environment and public health first. They are placing policies that ignore science and weaken protections for our land, air, and water before people.