Teflon Inc.
My sister, Susan, and brother-in-law, Douglas, were talking about teflon in cosmetics the other day. I had a tough time believing that this was a big problem, but apparently with certain cosmetics like lipstick it is. Toxic elements in cosmetics in general is more widespread than I would've believed. I figure the guys out there are thinking "Well I don't use lipstick, I don't see how that's my problem." Yeah, keep thinking that one through. PTFE is what teflon is
Polytetrafluoroethylene - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. There are variants FEP and PFA. All are plastics or more formally polymers. The major difference between the former and latter two is that PTFE is hard, non malleable, requiring that it be milled into its final shape or application, FEP is mold ejectable, but has a much lower melting point. With both it is the presence of the compound PFOA (pentadecafluorooctanoic acid), a suspected carcinogen part of the manufacturing process, that is the problem. I can't imaging the attraction to cosmetic products, but teflon is supposed to be the only solid surface that a gecko can't stick to. It is uniquely slippery stuff. This was something they had heard from the news shortly before. Nearly as I can figure it was probably this article which they had probably seen
CapeGazette.com - Covering Delaware's Cape Region - Stacy Malkan book they were down at Cape Henelopen over my nephews' spring break. The article was a review of a book
Not just a pretty face : the ugly side of the beauty industry [WorldCat.org] by Stacey Malkan, there is also a web site for the book by the publisher and author
Not Just A Pretty Face. The book came out of the work she does for a foundation Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. From the Safe Cosmetics web site there is a link to a further website: the
Skin Deep: Cosmetic Safety Database itself part of something called the Environmental working Group. I point out to my sister here that this is the same web site we discovered while talking about this. This database concentrates on cosmetics but contains data across a wide spectrum of consumer and household products. It is limited by state and federal regulations covering covering ingredient disclosure. There is a fairly massive loophole there covering the "fragrance" category which is a proprietary catch-all. This explains why this db often lists fragrance as the most concerning ingredient. It's simply that the product is suspect, but the disclosed ingredients are compounds with known toxicity profiles that do not account for the concern.
In a similar vein I heard a NPR piece on another aspect of environment toxins, Consumer electronics. The problem of recycling batteries (particularly rechargeable batteries), cell phones, and computer parts which are neither biodegradable nor landfill friendly. The key here is to find a green way of dispossession. The claim was made that if you piloted to the online version of the piece
After the Techno Lust, There's Always E-Cycling (NPR is radio after all) they had a list of web database resources such as
E-cycling Central: Find a Recycler or
Rechargeable Battery Recycling that allow you to find standing recycle programs and special recycling events by local area. It didn't seem to list the recycling set-up at the Mom's organic grocery on Nicholson (or is it Parklawn?) that it know is there, but that's the point, really, many of these recycling efforts are small low key and hard to find.
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