Toxics

Kids spend up to 90 percent of their time indoors, often playing with toys and games they frequently put in their mouths. But playthings can release harmful chemicals such as hormone-disrupting phthalates and fire retardants, maybe even lead paint. In fact, one study showed that some toys released volatile organic compounds – airborne chemicals known as VOCs – at two to seven times the amount generally considered low emitting.

The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is a right-wing policy shop that brings together conservative state lawmakers and corporations to develop model legislation that promotes what ALEC calls “principles of limited government, free markets, and federalism.” 

North Carolina’s dense concentration of approximately 6,500 confined animal feeding operations, often called CAFOs, annually generate two million tons of dry chicken waste and 10 billion gallons of liquified hog waste, enough to fill more than 15,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.

A new study from the Danish Environmental Protection Agency found toxic fluorinated, or PFAS, chemicals at high levels in nearly one-third of the cosmetics products it tested.

In much of the country, winter means you can’t let fresh air into your house. But without it, the quality of the air inside your home goes down.  

The heavy rains and high waters after Hurricane Florence flooded 35 industrial poultry operations in North Carolina housing an estimated 1.8 million birds, according to a new investigation by Waterkeeper Alliance and the Environmental Working Group. The state estimates it spent $11 million disposing of dead poultry following the hurricane.

After a career as a coal lobbyist and five months as acting head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Andrew Wheeler has been tapped by President Trump to be the agency’s next administrator.

EWG News Roundup (11/16) - Here’s some news you can use going into the weekend.

Deadly wildfires continue to blaze in Northern and Southern California. Dozens of people are dead, hundreds more missing and entire communities have been destroyed.