The Environmental Working Group (EWG) today applauded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for standing up to the chemical and wood treatment industries by forcing the phase-out of arsenic-treated lumber.

The East Coast's leading manufacturer of wooden playground equipment, PlayNation Play Systems, Inc., announced today that it will discontinue the use of arsenic-treated lumber, becoming the first national playground manufacturer to exclusively use arsenic-free preserved wood in the construction of treated wood playgrounds.

The Center for Environmental Health (CEH) announced today that it has filed legal notice to sue the manufacturers of wooden playground equipment treated with arsenic.

In September 2000, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that every single one of the 289 persons tested for the plasticizer dibutyl phthalate (DBP) had the compound in their bodies. The finding passed with little public fanfare, but surprised government scientists, who just one month earlier had rated DBP of little health concern based on the scientific assumption, which later turned out to be wrong, that levels in humans were within safe limits. DBP causes a number of birth defects in lab animals, primarily to male offspring, including testicular atrophy, reduced sperm count, and defects in the structure of the penis (CERHR 2000).