US Becoming Dumping Ground For Products Other Countries' Laws Won't Allow

[hatrack]

OAKLAND — Destined for American kitchens, planks of birch and poplar plywood are stacked to the ceiling of a cavernous port warehouse. The wood, which arrived in California via a cargo ship, carries two labels: One proclaims "Made in China," while the other warns that it contains formaldehyde, a cancer-causing chemical. Because formaldehyde wafts off the glues in this plywood, it is illegal to sell in many countries — even the one where it originated, China. But in the United States this wood is legal, and it is routinely crafted into cabinets and furniture.

As the European Union and other nations have tightened their environmental standards, mostly in the last two years, manufacturers — here and around the world — are selling goods to American consumers that fail to meet other nations' stringent laws for toxic chemicals. Wood, toys, electronics, pesticides and cosmetics are among U.S. products that contain substances that are banned or restricted elsewhere, particularly in Europe and Japan, because they may raise the risk of cancer, alter hormones or cause reproductive or neurological damage.

Michael Wilson, a professor at UC Berkeley's Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, said the United States is becoming a "dumping ground" for consumer goods that are unwanted and illegal in much of the world. Wilson warned earlier this year in a report commissioned by the California Legislature that "the United States has fallen behind globally in the move toward cleaner technologies." The European Union, driven by consumers' concerns, has banned or heavily restricted hundreds of toxic substances in recent years, invoking its "precautionary principle," which is codified into law and prescribes that protective steps should be taken when there is scientific evidence of risks to public health or the environment.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies have relied on voluntary steps from industries rather than regulations, saying the threats posed by low levels of chemicals are too uncertain to eliminate products valuable to consumers or businesses. In the absence of U.S. regulations, some international corporations, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Mattel, Revlon and Orly International, have declared that all their products, no matter where they are made or sold, will comply with EU standards, the most stringent chemical laws in the world.

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-me-dumping8oct08,1,2869014.story?coll=la-news-environment

[phantom power]

1. There is a beautiful symmetry

to the way that we are turning ourselves into a 3rd-world country, even while former 3rd world countries industrialize themselves.

[Pharaoh]

2. Hey, if somebody can make a buck on it

who gives a fuck about our health? :sarcasm:

[Kurovski]

7. Self-delete.

[niyad]

3. is my memory playing tricks on me, or was there a time when this

country WAS the standard?

[Kurovski]

8. Not particularly, no.

we've produced many thousands of chemicals that are never properly tested, nor tested in combination for health affects, for decades.

All I know is there are a great deal of physically tired, irritable and depressed Americans out here. And it's been that way even before Bush stole power.

[acmejack]

9. Seems like.

We shipped a lot of stuff banned here elsewhere in the seventies and eighties.

[skids]

4. This is the true purpose of globalism.

To use the chaos surrounding the "push towards open markets" to skirt laws: waste, environmental, labor, safety standards -- you name it, big business is lined up to find all the extra cracks opened up in a system when things change. Plus the schemes evolve too rapidly for investigators to keep up.

Utter sham job.

[silverweb]

5. Aint payback a bitch?

This is exactly what U.S. corporations have been doing to other countries for decades.

[Kurovski]

6. formaldehyde ain't so great for asthmatics and chemically sensitive folks

either.

We also sell banned pesticides to countries like Chile, who then sell us back produce poisoned with them.

Out of season fruit from Chile, like plums in the winter, are not such a great treat.

Bushco will bring those pesticides back into use as well, given time.

[kestrel91316]

10. Payback's a bitch, isn't it, America? How many decades have we

been exporting DDT and other goodies to Third World countries for fat profits?????

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. I remember when it was the other way around.

Thanks, Republicans, for fucking nothing.

[Czolgosz]

12. K & R