Personal Care Products-katherine Engel Essay Hh Final Edit 3-1-2010

8/14/2019 Personal Care Products-katherine Engel Essay Hh Final Edit 3-1-2010

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PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTSA RESEARCH JOURNEY

By Katherine Engel, Research Associate

Heal the Ocean

Researchers are sleuths of a sortwe look for answers behind every stone, bush andwebsite, and every answer poses three more questions, more calls and more people to talkto until we arrive at a logarithmically huge pile of figures and facts. Sometimes thosefigures and facts begin to create a horrifying picture that even I, a researcher, cant believeis emerging before my eyes. I think of thatErin Brockovich scene where she reaches intoan office drawer, pulls out a sheaf of medical records from a Hinkley, California, realestate file, showing that local health problems were due to the leaching of a toxin intolocal water supplies from a PG&E plant, and asks something like, Whats all this?

In my work as Research Associate at Heal the Ocean, a Santa Barbara citizens actiongroup focused on water quality, I have been working for a few years on a projectenumerating the volume of wastewater discharged from California treatment plants to thePacific Ocean. As this report, California Wastewater Discharge Inventory and Report,was taking shape, I and my fellow researchers were amazed to discover the amount ofpollutants, collectively known as Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs), that are notremoved by standard wastewater treatment and that are making their way daily into ourwaterways, oceans, and drinking water.

One category of CECs is a collection of personal care products, which certainly doesntsound as evil as, say, pesticide, and so this category didnt catch my immediate

attention. But as I set out to determine how people could help the situation by avoiding theuse of things that contain CECs (called source control), I kept coming back to personalcare products. I started reading labels and researching every single one of the ingredients,and became astounded by the sheer number of chemicals substances all of us areinundating ourselves with every day. The plethora of synthetic ingredients that go into asingle bottle of shampoo or lotion is mind-boggling. How can using these things be safe?

The answer is its not safe. The list of chemicals in various personal care products thatconcern me the most are discussed in detail inBad for the Ocean,Badfor You.

As I examined this Pandoras Box of bad stuff, I think my biggest surprise was to learn

that the ingredients in cosmetics and personal care products are not under the regulationof the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)or any government agency for thatmatter. Companies do not need the FDAs approval before they release a product to themarket, other than for a color additive. In fact, in order for the FDA to be able to testproducts before they are released to the public, they would need congressional support tochange the law. The FDA is authorized to approve what you eatbut they are notauthorized to examine the ingredients contained in what women put on their lips nearlyevery day!


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Knowing of FDA authority over food safety, companies with questionable products lookfor non-toxic alternatives even before the FDA has made a final decision on aningredient's safety. A recent example is the discovery of the toxic leaching of Bisphenol A(BPA) from aluminum can linings into canned food. Despite the fact that the FDA has not

yet banned the use of BPA in these cans, food companies are already looking intoalternativeswhether it be cardboard cartons or aluminum cans with an alternative, non-toxic liningbecause they know future regulation is coming. Consumer concern isanother powerful reason companies move fast to look for an alternative: negative publicitycan make an entire line of products unsellable.

In the world of personal care products, companies are having a field day, putting anythingout there they choose. There is no threat of regulation, and most consumers have NO ideathey are bathing in toxins, smearing toxins on themselves, rubbing toxins into their hair,and hey, whos to know about the dose of lead women get every time they put on lipstick?It is estimated that the average woman applying lipstick unknowingly consumes 4 pounds

in her lifetime. Lipstick is known to be contaminated with this poison, and the FDA iscurrently looking into this matter.

In the case of personal care products, the fox is guarding the henhouse. The cosmeticcompany itself is responsible for self-regulation of the safety of its products. Being aresearcher, I was not reassured by this finding, and decided to look further.

In general, a manufacturer may use any ingredients it wants to use, provided that the endproduct is safe.What the manufacturer considers safe is anybodys guess. Themanufacturer performs its own toxicity tests and determines that low levels of many ofthese chemicals are not toxic, all the while ignoring the cumulative effects of using

multiple products with the same ingredient. On average, people use around 10 personalcare products a day, and many women like me probably use more. Between my shampoo,conditioner, body wash, face wash, shaving cream and makeup, I probably put on and intomy body the same ingredient many times per day. Though these ingredients may be non-toxic in low doses and a few doses, this non-toxic claim cannot be made when aningredient is used over and over again, ingested or absorbed from multiple sources.

The reason Heal the Ocean is so involved in this issue is because personal care productsaffect the ocean. They go down the drain from your house to a wastewater treatmentplant, where for the most part they bypass the current treatment system and are dischargedstraight into the ocean. Wastewater plants are not required to test for these chemicals.

Most secondary wastewater systems, approved by the State of California, dont removethese contaminants from the waste stream. Tertiary treatment methods, like microfiltrationor reverse osmosis, as well as extended secondary treatment, can properly degrade andremove some contaminants and help decrease the pollutant load.

The truly scary part is that this problem is not just a threat for our oceans. If a wastewaterplant upstream discharges into a river or other water body, that water eventually mixeswith the supply that is your drinking water and you could be drinking these contaminants.


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Though the water is treated before it comes out of your tap, it is impossible to assume thatthese things come out with conventional treatment. Recent news articles have beenfocusing on contaminants in drinking water, but CECs are not mentioned anywherebecause much of the news media doesnt yet know about this problem. In general, even if

your water is legal, it may not necessarily be safe. Though there are laws to protect U.S.citizens in the matter of their drinking water supplies, these laws are overwhelminglyshortsighted: only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, whilethe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that more than 60,000chemicals are used within the United States alone.

The most effective and efficient way to get a handle on this runaway problem is to look tothe wastewater treatment plant. The sewer system is one of the most invisible andunderrated services in the country, and the most important environmental tool available toremedy the situation. Using higher levels of processing, the sewer system could removethese contaminants. However, the wastewater treatment plants require funding to pay for

such improvements, and ratepayers dont want to pay more than they pay now eventhough most sewer rates are a fraction of other utilities. There are consumers who feel thatif their water is legal, then it is safe to drink without further treatment and that sewerservice rate increases are unnecessary. An engineer with the Sanitary Districts of LosAngeles County told Heal the Ocean that their plants are reclaiming as much wastewateras they can, to recycle and reuse, and that if they had just $5 more per month perratepayer, all their wastewater could be reclaimed. When asked why the agency simplydoesnt get a $5 rate hike passed, the engineer said ratepayers would never go for it. Healthe Ocean continues to ask citizens to consider how much they pay for sewer service. Inthe city ofSanta Barbara its approximately $30 dollars a month whereas gas andelectricity are as much as three times more, and cable can be five times more! Wastewater

service, which is impossible to live without, is not valued enough.

As you read this, contaminants are making their way into the environment where theybioaccumulate in the tissues of animals and humans, causing toxic effects. These effectsare difficult to measure in populations of animals and further research is required.However, some observances are being made in sea life. In the Morro Bay mudflats, theSan Luis Obispo Science and Ecosystem Alliance (SLOSEA) is discovering many fishwith tumors in their reproductive organs. Of the more than 60 organic pollutants found infish liver tissue, nonylphenol is the most concentrated chemical. Nonylphenol, which isalready known to have endocrine disrupting properties, is used in detergents, surfactants,emulsifiers and cosmetics. The European Union has banned nonylphenol, but in the U.S.,

we are still measuring acceptable levels for release into the environment. Here in theU.S., causation of symptoms, and not correlation, must be determined before action istaken to ban a chemical's use.

As a researcher and a consumer, I believe in the precautionary principle. The WingspreadStatement on the Precautionary Principle states When an activity raises threats of harm tohuman health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if somecause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.


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Personal Care Products-katherine Engel Essay Hh Final Edit 3-1-2010