The Louisville Charter provides an excellent blueprint for an ideal chemical policy reform. Beginning with finding safer substitutes and solutions, individuals can make these changes to pave the way for the usage of safe chemicals on a broader scale. This is essentially the low hanging fruit on the list of reforms but it can have a profound impact to reduce individual as well as community exposure to toxins in the environment. On both an individual and community level, phasing out persistent, bio-accumulative or highly toxic chemicals can have a significant impact, especially when combined with offering safer substitutes and solutions. From a public health protection perspective, the Louisville Charter prioritizes for reform to take immediate action when it comes to protecting communities as well as workers. On a community level, this reform also seeks to give early warnings, require comprehensive safety data for all chemicals and give the public and workers the right-to-know and participate.
These are all important elements to consider since they promote overall awareness and education for the general public in order to keep people safe. With this approach, it looks at the system as a whole and seeks to create reform at all levels. I think that this should be implemented nationwide and potentially include a larger educational or advertising component to make this information widely available and easily accessible by the general public.
Hi Christina,
ReplyDeleteI agree that an ideal chemical policy can start with finding safer substitutes and solutions and banning highly toxic chemicals. I think the government need to start an inspection of all companies/manufacturers that produce products that contained chemicals. They need to require them to list all the chemicals that they used. In addition, they need to know if these manufactures are providing safety information about products that have chemicals.
- Krissy