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User:BCarter UOW/California passes legislation to ban harmful toxins

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The American state of California has introduced a Safer Consumer Products program, aiming to reduce the use of harmful chemicals that can cause cancer and other illnesses in children's clothing and everyday household items.

Flame retardant TDCPP, diisocyanates and methylene chloride, are all in the first round of chemicals that the program hopes to omit. State Regulators said they will push companies to consider using safer alternatives in the manufacturing of their products.

Janet Nudelman, Director of Program and Policy for the Breast Cancer Fund stated, "[The program] will have a ripple effect through the larger industry. It's a brilliant one-two punch."

The SCF legislation is the second action the state has taken to remove harmful chemicals this month, after San Francisco became the first major city in the U.S. to ban the sale of plastic water bottles on public property Tuesday 4 March. David Chiu, the Board of Supervisors' President said, "Recology collects 10 million to 15 million single-use plastic water bottles a year."

Further knowledge about the negative effects such waste has on oceans and consequently human and animal health was recently found in an Australian academic study, conducted November last year. The study, undertaken by the University of Western Australia's Julia Reisser, encouraged people to avoid using single-use plastic products in an effort to decrease marine pollution and the health implications that come with eating affected marine life.

Reisser stressed the importance of decreasing the amount of plastic waste that we produce, especially single-use, throwaway plastics. "We need to decrease plastic waste and toxicity, regulate plastic disposal on land at an international level, and better enforce the laws prohibiting dumping plastics in the sea," she says.

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