Story of Cosmetics
- Many cosmetics contain chemicals linked to diseases
- average woman uses 12 personal care products, man uses 6 average
- Less than 20% of chemicals have been inspected for safety
- Carcinogens – can cause cancer
- Neurotoxin – Messes up brain
- We all are filled with many toxic chemicals
- Lead is in lipstick
- Petrochemical is used to make shampoo
- Skin whitening and hair strengtheners are toxic to health and stereotypes about beauty
- Big cosmetic company say the dosage in products is safe, but only if rarely and not used with other products
- Smarter laws would help companies find safer ways for their products
- FDA doesn't assess safety of cosmetics
- Not all ingredients are even needed
- Cosmetic industry make rules and decides whether to follow them or not
- Precautionary Principle – must get rid of chemicals don’t debate
- European governments have banned many toxic chemicals
- Cosmetics industry is making the rules and decide whether or not to follow them
- Green chemists are designing products that are safe and non toxic
- Lack of regulation leads to a huge hole
- Makers use toxins and forget about human health impact
- Each product contains a dozen or more chemicals
- They banned only 8 out of over 12,000 chemicals in cosmetics since 1937
- Chemicals in cosmetics are getting into humans
- Important decisions happen when companies and governments decide what should go on the supermarket shelves
- People all over the country are demanding congress to pass a law to give FDA power to check if the products we use are safe
Story of Electronics
- Instead of paying to make facilities safe, workers are with their health
- Instead of paying to redesign using fewer toxics, villagers pay losing their clean drinking water
- Externalizing costs allow companies to keep 'design for the dump'
- Old TV's have about five pounds of lead
- 25 million tons of e-waste per year
- Big companies externalize costs so they don’t have to pay with money
- Making companies deal with e waste is called extended producer responsibility or product take back
- Take back laws are popping up all over Europe and Asia
- Moore’s Law – 18 months could be an upgrade
- Bosses of these designers got Moore's Law all twisted up
- Workers make the products with toxic chemicals like PVC and flame retardants
- Many gadgets are made from 1000 materials and made with many toxic chemicals
- IBM said computer chips worker were more likely to get miscarriages and cancers
- Designed for the dump – Making stuff to throw away quickly
- Problems of electronics are created by the companies ignore environmental costs
- Take back laws are popping up all over Europe and Asia
- Many cities and states in US are passing similar laws
- E-waste goes to landfills or is shipped across the world for someone else to recycle it
- They thought that every 18 months, we have to throw away our electronics and buy more
- Disposal is what we think of as the end of an electronics life
- Choices in store are limited to choices by designers and policy makers
- It is a key strategy for the company to make our electronics
- Today's electronics are hard to upgrade, easy to break, and impractical to repair