A member of the Stroller Brigade pushes for passage of the 2011 Safe Chemicals Act. (Courtesy photos)PROVIDENCE — These tiny protesters couldn't make it to Washington, D.C., but they still let it be known that they want Congress to eliminate harmful chemicals from their environment.

Earlier this month, some 15 moms and their children met for a rain-relocated rally at an East Side church to show support for federal legislation to regulate toxic chemicals in everyday products. 

Dubbed "Stroller Brigade," the event was one of 12 organized around the United States by Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families. The national nonprofit wants products such as toys, carpets and food to eliminate toxins like bisphenal A, formaldehyde and flame retardants.

The youngsters and their parents donned red super-hero capes and decorated posters urging Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., to support the 2011 Safe Chemicals Act. So far, Whitehouse, a co-sponsor of the act, has strongly supported the legislation. Reed has yet to offer his stance on the reform policy.

The bill seeks to give more teeth to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 by requiring manufactures to supply more information to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the public about the hazards of exposure to potentially harmful chemicals. Consumers, workers and at-risk groups such as children, the elderly and pregnant women are especially at-risk, according to Katie Silberman, a local mother and first-time leader of the Providence Stroller Brigade.

“When buying a product for your child you shouldn’t have to make a choice between something that is safe and something that could be dangerous," she said. "Every parent should have access to greener products."

During a Nov. 17 hearing, Whitehouse and other members of the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works were highly critical of the stall tactics used by opponents of the bill, such as the powerful American Chemistry Council (ACC), which represents Dow, Dupont and ExxonMobil Chemical.

To get a sense of the corporate influence in crafting this legislation, see Whitehouse's engagement with ACC CEO Cal Dooley, which starts at minute 107.

An unexpected sign of support for the Safe Chemicals Act from the business sector came from the Consumer Specialty Product Association, which represents Proctor & Gamble and SC Johnson.

Progress on curbing harmful chemicals also was celebrated recently after Johnson & Johnson announced it was removing formaldehyde-releasing preservatives from products such as its famous baby shampoo.

“The recent news from Johnson & Johnson was a huge victory for parents, and showed that the market is capable of change," Silberman said. "It isn’t just the way it is; we can make changes happen.”

ecoRI News contributor Rachel Chiartas contributed to this article.

WARWICK — The state of Rhode Island is opening a new store that will specialize in a vital product many lack: health insurance. This virtual storefront, a federal requirement, will cater to individuals and small-business owners, and will help shoppers make informed decisions for what is arguably life’s most complex purchase.

“We need to make it a place that people understand and find valuable. It’s the biggest purchase you make that you don’t understand until you are very sick,” Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts said Wednesday evening during a Rhode Island Foundation-sponsored forum that focused on what these new health-insurance exchanges mean.

The Oct. 19 panel discussion at the Crowne Plaza also featured state Health Insurance Commissioner Chris Koller, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island President Peter Andruszkiewicz and Glen Shor, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Insurance Connector. They were all provided with at least one plastic bottle of water.

State health-insurance exchanges are the centerpieces of last year’s controversial federal health-care law. Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, each state is required to create such a program, which will allow insurance buyers to select from a variety of plans — all of which will be administered by private insurance companies.

The exchanges also will provide subsidies to those who might need financial assistance in order to buy health insurance. For example, a family of four with a household income of $89,000 or less a year or an individual making $43,000 or less annually will receive a stipend from the federal government to help defray some of the cost.

Three years before this piece of federal legislation became law, Massachusetts had already opened such an online store. The Massachusetts exchange initially offered customers 30 plans, but that proved too confusing and frustrating to customers, according to Shor.

The Massachusetts exchange was quickly streamlined and now features six plans for adults and four plans for young adults. It has an enrollment of 215,000 Bay State residents, Shor said.

Rhode Island’s health-insurance exchange needs to be open by 2014 at the latest, according to the federal health-care law. Gov. Lincoln Chafee has appointed a 200-plus-member Rhode Island Healthcare Reform Commission, which Roberts and Koller co-chair, that is responsible for setting up this online store and stocking its virtual shelves.

The Rhode Island exchange will need to be affordable and understandable, feature health plans people and small businesses need, have a mechanism to advise customers and, most importantly, make it easy for shoppers to compare the different options, according to the four panelists.

Koller, who, in 2005, became the state’s first health commissioner, said the exchange will act as a bridge between private insurers and Medicaid.

Andruszkiewicz, who has been in the health-insurance business for 30 years, said the creation of exchange is a good thing, provided it’s not just about low-cost plans that don’t offer a variety of options.

“The system is so complex now it’s hard for many people to understand it,” he said. “The exchange should simplify the process of buying insurance.”

All of the panelists agreed that health-insurance exchanges alone won’t solve the problem of rising health-care costs, but these online stores will make people more empowered, confident and educated when it comes to buying health insurance, they said.

The power of competition and public transparency can help make health insurance more affordable over time, Shor said. Massachusetts still has some of the highest health-care costs in the country, but since the exchange went online, those costs have started to come down, according to Shor.

Koller also said if the exchange helps more people obtain health insurance, that will relieve some of the financial burden on those already paying into the system — as healthy insurance buyers fund the 5 percent of people who use 50 percent of the country’s health-care costs.

Recent estimates put Rhode Island’s uninsured population at 140,000, nearly 16 percent of the state’s younger-than-65 population.

Ellie Leonardsmith of Clean Water Action uses photography to raise awareness about producer responsibility. (Photo courtesy of Kelsey Leonardsmith)NEWPORT — Ellie Leonardsmith, Clean Water Action organizer and photographer, put together the photo exhibit “Paint the Town Green” to capture the attention of the local community and to give a more dynamic look into the toxic and money-eating issue of hazardous household products.

Leonardsmith visited basements, mostly on Aquidneck Island, to photograph residents with their sometimes-ceiling-high piles of paint cans. Through art, her goal is to unveil the major issue at hand: passing producer responsibility regulations for industries that sell everyday products containing hazardous waste.

“We are not just fighting something bad, we’re trying to find a creative and proactive way to make systemic change,” said Leonardsmith during the recent opening of her exhibit at Channing Memorial Church on Pelham Street.

Producer responsibility, as defined by Clean Water Action, is the process by which manufacturers take back the products they make at the end of their use and either recycle, refurbish or dispose of them properly. This gives manufacturers, or producers, the incentive to make things that are less toxic, more durable and more easily recyclable.

The organization's goal is to eventually create framework producer responsibility legislation, according to Leonardsmith. Legislation seeking producer responsibility regulations on the makers of mattresses, paint and medical waste never made it out of committee in the most recent General Assembly session.

Currently, Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation (RIRRC), operators of the Johnston landfill, offers collections for toxic waste such as paint and lawn chemicals, but only monthly and not always at locations and times convenient to residents. RIRRC pays the bill for this disposal, which costs it — and indirectly, taxpayers — $495,000 last year in paint disposal alone.

Aside from the economic impact on the state and ease for residents, producer responsibility legislation will also save those manufacturers money over time by repurposing already made products, instead of continually creating new ones, according to supporters of such legislation.

Kristin Littlefield, coordinator of Newport's Clean City program, said, "The ideal producer responsibility take-back program for paint would be if residents could visit one of the many paint stores and hardware stores on Aquidneck Island, at their convenience, to take back paint, no matter the age or where it was bought.”

Three state laws have already been passed in favor of producer responsibility regarding mercury thermostats, auto switches and e-waste. Other municipalities in the state have already jumped on board to add paint to that list, and if passed, Newport would be the 13th municipality to accept this resolution.

“It’s just natural to try to help the city save money and do the right thing,” said Beth Milham of the Newport Energy and Environment Commission. “If they can pull both of those off at the same time, it’s a win-win.”

Council member Justin McLaughlin, a co-sponsor of this resolution, backs the idea of assigning the responsibility to the person who produced it. “It is good public policy. It saves the municipality and state money,” he said. “It resonates with me.”

A handful of other city officials also support the resolution.

“Producers influence the design, marketing and packaging and they should be held responsible,” Leonardsmith said. “Policy can really drive design change in an exciting way.”

Click here to learn more about about producer responsibility and legislation in your area.

About 4,000 runners and hundreds of volunteers and race spectators were greeted Sunday morning by warning signs sticking out of the lawns at the Statehouse and Station Park in Providence. (Tim Faulkner/ecoRI News staff)PROVIDENCE — The day before one of Rhode Island’s most successful and popular road races, the CVS Caremark Downtown 5K, chemicals were applied to the lawns at the Statehouse and across the street at Station Park just in time for thousands of people to enjoy the toxicity.

Tiny, flimsy warning signs that read, "Date of Chemical Application 9/17," were sparsely placed and thus often unnoticed by those participating in pre-race gatherings or post-race picnics on both expanses of green. Babies crawled and dogs romped on the freshly fertilized green carpets.

Synthetic fertilizers and weed killers like those marketed by Scotts, ChemLawn and TruGreen are considered hazardous waste and must be disposed of properly. The products’ high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorous and pesticides and herbicides render them toxic, even in small quantities — hence the posted warning signs after treatments.

These substances shouldn’t be poured down a sink or into a storm drain. Sewage treatment facilities can’t treat toxic chemicals, and many storm drains, including the ones near the Statehouse and the Amtrak train station, flow directly into Narragansett Bay or other natural ecosystems.

In those sacks of mass-produced fertilizers and in commercial sprayers are pesticides, herbicides and fungicides designed to kill bugs and weeds. “Weed and feed” products like those with 2,4-D also are bad for other organisms such as people and pets. Pesticides such as 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, dicamba, diuron, glyphosate, linuron, MCPP, pendimethalin, triclopyr BEE, captan and chlorothalonil are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) because most are carcinogens or suspected carcinogens.

In fact, a 2008 report by the state’s own Department of Environmental Management (DEM) deals with the topic of lawn-care maintenance and the dangers of using products that contain pesticides. The 16-page report noted that: “Pesticides can be harmful to humans, especially children. They are often used in school and childcare buildings and on playing fields. Pesticide exposure has been linked to a number of chronic health problems that include cancer, birth defects, endocrine disruption, asthma, neurological disorders, and immune system deficiencies. Acute symptoms such as nausea, headaches and asthma attacks can occur in the short term when children and adults are exposed to pesticides.”

The DEM website even touts environmentally friendly lawn-care practices.

Tons of toxic chemicals are dumped on lawns and public grounds annually to jolt grass to life. But much of these artificial fertilizers also seep into the water table, or turn to dust and blow through the air. They even cling to pets and people who walk, run and play on chemically treated grass — like those on Sunday, many of whom, unknowingly rolled, laid and sat upon the chemically doused lawns of the Statehouse and Station Park.

Flavored milk, such as chocolate, strawberry and Rhode Island’s own coffee milk, are slowly being kicked out of public school cafeterias.Should chocolate, strawberry and the state's official beverage, coffee milk, be taken out of public schools? It seems the trend against flavored milk is moving in that direction.

Some of the largest school districts in the country, such as Los Angeles County, have already done it. Massachusetts is ordering all public schools to eliminate flavored milk by 2013. Norton, Mass., did it this year, and locally West Warwick is getting rid of it too.

The big knock against flavored milk is the sugar. Once thought of as empty calories, sugar — both glucose and fructose — has recently been linked to some serious illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and even cancer. The studies aren't definitive, but some school districts are taking a precautionary approach and not waiting for vetting from the U.S. Departmennt of Agriculture (USDA) or other health organizations.

The USDA is updating its school food guidelines as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. Early drafts of the document don't eliminate added sugar from milk but reduce it to about 4 grams per ounce.

Rhode Island already follows that limit and doesn't have immediate plans to further restrict flavored milk's sugar content, according to Becky K. Bessette, the administrator for the state's Child Nutrition Program. 

"There is a discussion across the state on this," she said. "Right now, we think the Rhode Island nutrition requirements ... put us in a good position."

Rhode Island had one of the most progressive public school food programs when it came out with its 2009 nutrition criteria. Gone are the lunches comprised of french fries, fish sticks and desserts of brownies and ice cream cups. Artificial sweeteners have been banned; fruit juices must be 100 percent juice. Rice can only be brown, cooked legumes must be served at least once a week, and there must be at least three fruit or veggie servings at every lunch. Milk is limited to 1 percent or skim and sugar was capped at 4 grams per ounce. 

Donna Walker, food services director for the West Warwick school district, took flavored milk off the menu this year in anticipation of USDA rules that would only allow flavored skim milk, a product that doesn't yet exist. The new regulations have since been pushed back, but Walker went ahead with removing flavored milk.

"I said, 'You know what, let's not bring it in at all and see what happens,'" Walker said.

She heard no complaints from kids and received two calls from parents Monday saying their kids would only drink flavored milk.

"I want to keep the parents content, but I want to keep in compliance," Walker said.

While the specifics guidelines are being worked out, the current milk rules still allow for a hearty serving of the sweet stuff. The maximum sugar allowance adds up to 32 grams of sugar for an 8-ounce milk carton, the standard half-pint school container. That's a bit less than 3 tablespoons of sugar. Coke by comparison contains 26 grams of sugar per 8-ounce serving, or a bit more than 2 tablespoons of sugar.

Bessette called the chocolate milk-to-Coke analysis "an awful comparison." Nutrient-dense milk, she said, packs many healthy benefits, such as calcium and vitamins A and D.

Coke is all added high-fructose corn syrup, while about 30 percent of the sugar in milk is naturally occurring and perhaps less damaging to vital organs than pure granulated sugar.

Nevertheless, chocolate, coffee and strawberry milk can have up to 22 grams, or about 2 tablespoon of sugar, added for flavoring. That's the same as a Kit-Kat chocolate bar.

But health officials and the milk industry worry that fewer milk choices will mean fewer kids drinking the beverage. 

"It's kind of a trade-off," said Annmarie Beardsworth of the state Department of Health. "(Flavored milk) helps get more milk into the diet."

Jime Hines, a dairy farmer and executive of the Rhody Fresh milk collaborative, agreed. "Any sugars that are added with flavorings are more than offset with the health qualities of the product."

Flavored milk or not, school food has gotten a lot healthier in recent years, said Walker, who has 22 years of food-service experience.  

"I want what's best for the kids," she said. "We don't just put food on the plate. It's the whole big picture."

ecoRI News contributor Rachel Chiartas contributed to this article.

PGPR is short for polyglycerol polyricinoleate, a goopy yellowish liquid made from castor beans that reduces the viscosity of chocolate.A kiss is just a kiss — unless it’s a Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate Kiss. In which case, pucker up for a mouthful of PGPR.

PGPR, which began showing up on the ingredient list of drugstore chocolate several years ago, is short for polyglycerol polyricinoleate, a goopy yellowish liquid made from castor beans that reduces the viscosity of chocolate. Since 2006, big chocolate manufacturers such as Hershey’s have been replacing the expensive raw ingredient cocoa butter with PGPR in their recipes.

In many ways, the story of PGPR in chocolate is but a small chapter in a larger narrative about how convoluted our industrial food system has become: an alphabet soup of fillers and cheap ingredients that challenge the original definition of the product they seek to emulate, questionably sourced raw materials, and a cast of large corporations attempting to appeal to the lowest common denominator acceptable for human consumption to keep costs low and profits high.

PGPR and AMP 4448, OMG!
PGPR is manufactured by Danisco, which DuPont is negotiations to buy, and by Palsgaard, an international corporation specializing in emulsifiers and stabilizers for the food-processing industry. A statement regarding PGPR on that company’s website reads, “Cocoa butter is an expensive raw material for chocolate manufacturers. By using Palsgaard4150 (PGPR) the chocolate recipe has lower costs in terms of less cocoa butter.”

In other words, PGPR is a way for chocolate manufacturers to get around the hassle and expense of actually putting chocolate in their chocolate.

A quick survey of the candy aisle at a local CVS revealed PGPR in most chocolate products: Reese’s, Mounds, Kit Kat, Cadbury Dairy Milk and Hershey's Special Dark, among many others.

But is wasn't always this way. The story of chocolate starts with a cacao pod, which is harvested from a cacao tree — a tropical plant that grows only within 20 degrees latitude of the equator. Once harvested, the pod is split, and the cocoa beans are scraped out and left to ferment in the sun for up to eight days.

After fermentation, the beans are dried, roasted, winnowed and shelled to reveal the cacao nib, the essential ingredient in chocolate. Real chocolate is made when these dried, roasted cacao nibs are ground and processed into a thick paste called cocoa liquor, which contains cocoa butter and cocoa solids. The cocoa liquor is then pressed to remove the cocoa butter, yielding a powdery disk of cocoa solids known as a presscake. Cocoa butter is then added back into the cocoa solids and the resulting amalgam gets a hit of sugar and, perhaps, vanilla and is then conched, or kneaded, in a conical-shaped piece of machinery to further refine the product.

Many companies are still making chocolate this way, including the Massachusetts-based worker-owned cooperative Equal Exchange.

When asked recently about PGPR, Equal Exchange’s Rodney North replied, “Yes we’ve heard of it, and no we don’t use it. We don’t use any of those additives.

“There are two main motivations for those polysyllabic ingredients. One, to cut costs. Two, to create something that’s incredibly shelf stable. That stuff can sit on a gas station shelf for months. We’re not interested in that. We’re interested in honest ingredients that taste great and do right by the farmers and the farmland.”

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has officially deemed PGPR safe for human consumption, setting the accepted daily intake from 0 to 7.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Short-term studies on rats and chickens showed reversible liver enlargement as a result of higher doses of PGPR, but those were deemed a result of increased hepatic workload.

Soy lecithin, the darling of the food-processing industry, has long been used as an emulsifier in chocolate, but it recently began to increase in cost, as the demand for the non-GMO version has increased worldwide.

Palsgaard, seeing an opportunity, responded with a new emulsifying agent. A press release dated last March and posted on foodingredientsfirst.com touts a new product that seeks to replace soy lecithin: AAMP 4448, or ammonium photosphatide, which is produced from ammonia and phosphorylated fatty acids from rapeseed oil. It was approved by the FDA in 2007.

“Palsgaard AMP 4448 … can be used in all cocoa based applications. Being able to reduce the cocoa butter content by up to 4 percent opens up for great innovation potential. … Even more radical recipe adjustments are possible when combining Palsgaard AMP 4448 with PGPR and other Palsgaard chocolate emulsifiers. In this way it is possible to achieve even greater cost savings,” according to the March 2010 press release.

The release also states that AMP 4448 has the benefit of being non-GMO.

And so the plot thickens, so to speak. Take out raw ingredients and replace them with additives and then replace those additives with other less-expensive additives when the first generation of additives becomes too expensive.

Greasing palms
Big Chocolate has historically tried many ways to reduce cocoa butter in its products, not just with emulsifiers, but also with other oils, including palm oil — the production of which has been documented as a cause of deforestation and habitat loss of critically endangered species, such as the orangutan and Sumatran tiger.

In 2007, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, of which Hershey’s is a member, petitioned the FDA to change the legal definition of chocolate to enable producers to use partially hydrogenated vegetable oils in their products in place of cocoa butter.

The FDA ultimately denied the request, and as a result, Hershey’s was forced to re-label some of its products as “chocolatey” or “made with chocolate.” In the United States, when a chocolate bar doesn’t include cocoa butter or includes other oils, it can’t actually be labeled chocolate.

Currently, the federal government requires a 10 percent concentration of chocolate liquor in order for a product to qualify as milk chocolate. The more-stringent guidelines of the European Union require a 25 percent concentration of chocolate liquor.

The use of oil in place of cocoa butter not only degrades the quality and definition of chocolate, but it also eats into the profits of vulnerable cocoa farmers who are at the bottom of the food chain in the chocolate production process, which brings us to one of the darkest ingredients of Big Chocolate: forced labor.

Toothless laws and toothsome profits
In 2001, the use of child labor in the cocoa sector in West African countries, which supply roughly 70 percent of the world’s cocoa, came under increasing scrutiny, with reports that the industry was profiting from the use of child labor and forced labor on cocoa farms.

In response, U.S. lawmakers initially proposed a bill to require chocolate manufacturers to participate in a “child labor free” labeling system. Under pressure from industry, the major chocolate companies instead signed a voluntary agreement in 2001 known as the Harkin-Engel Protocol, which laid out a July 2005 deadline for major chocolate companies to establish a public certification system to ensure that their cocoa was grown and/or processed without child labor.

But, in the end, the voluntary and non-binding Harkin-Engel Protocol had no teeth and left the chocolate industry to police their own actions. The July 2005 deadline came and went with the key promises of the protocol left unmet.

The International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit against Nestle, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland on behalf of a class of Malian children who were trafficked to the Ivory Coast and forced to work on cocoa farms for up to 14 hours a day with no pay.

As recently as 2009, a report from the U.S. Department of Labor included cacao grown in Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea and Cameroon on the “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor and Forced Labor.”

According to Hershey’s 2009 Corporate and Social Responsibility Report, the company asserts that it has taken steps “to increase farm-level incomes, build community sustainability and address the troubling issue of child labor in cocoa-producing regions. As a founding member of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) and the WCF’s ECHOES (Empowering Cocoa Households with Opportunities and Education Solutions) Alliance, we work with industry peers to address these challenges in a collaborative manner.”

The report cites the Harkin-Engel Protocol as one of the achievements in this area.

Currently, TransFair and the Institute for Marketecology (IMO) are the only third-party certifiers of fair-trade products in the United States. Such a certification ensures the consumer that no forced or abusive child labor was used in manufacturing a product. The fair-trade certification system also attempts to promote long-term business relationships between buyers and sellers, crop pre-financing and greater transparency throughout the supply chain.

'BPA-free' is a market driven label with no legal standing. There are no regulations surrounding the term, so consumers should be cautious of BPA free claims.Amidst the litany of adverse health effects linked to bisphenol A (BPA), local supermarkets and drugstores are making strides to rid their stores of the toxin. 

Shaw's supermarkets plans to phase out BPA-coated receipts this spring at its 20 Rhode Island stores. Whole Foods has already switched to BPA alternatives. Stop & Shop also says its register tape is BPA-free at its 25 stores. CVS Caremark, however, continues to handout BPA-coated receipts at its check-out counter.

The Woonsocket-based national drugstore chain with about 65 stores in Rhode Island cites various studies, as well as a report by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) — a group funded by the chemical industry — that downplay the concern over BPA. 

"While exposure to BPA from receipt paper is extremely low, we are continuing to monitor this issue since the health and safety of our customers is our top priority," CVS explained in a written response. 

CVS, however, recognizes BPA as enough of a health risk to stock its shelves with "BPA-free" products, such as baby bottles and bottle liners. 

The ACC, however, shows no such concern. In November, the group successfully lobbied Congress to kill a provision in a food safety bill that would have banned BPA from baby bottles.

BPA lines plastic bottles and bottle tops, aluminum soda cans, as well as steel cans of soup, vegetables and fruit. Plastic products made with BPA display a #7 recycling symbol, or contain the letters “PC” near the recycling symbol. BPA does not need to be listed under ingredients if used in food and beverage cans.

The substance is highly concentrated as a coating in cash register receipts. And handling receipts with BPA thermal paper easily transfers it to the skin, studies show. So far, none of the data has led to safety regulations here in Rhode Island. Vermont, Washington, Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Minnesota have BPA restrictions. The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has offered guidance for addressing "concerns" with BPA.

"Pregnant women should avoid BPA vigilantly," said Yale University professor Hugh Taylor, an obstetrician who specializes in reproductive services, specifically endocrinology and infertility. "I always advise my patients to avoid canned goods, hard plastic containers, and any dental work until after their pregnancy." 

Taylor said many industry-related studies look only at immediate birth defects in babies, while long-term effects are often ignored. And the harm BPA can cause during the life cycle is most definitely on a long-term scale. A baby exposed to BPA may seem perfectly healthy upon birth and through childhood, he explained, but in reaching adulthood they may be much more vulnerable to cancers and other health risks. 

Daniel Schmidt, a researcher and professor in the department of plastics engineering at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, agreed that BPA, classified as an endocrine disruptor, is most harmful to women and children, contributing to behavioral and developmental disorders among other side effects.

BPA exists, he said, as a powder coating on thermal-paper receipts, making it simple to ingest and absorb through the skin. "The potential for exposure to larger amounts (of BPA), I would say, is high because it's not part of a plastic." 

Schmidt is studying BPA alternatives in steel cans where it is used to prevent rust. He acknowledges that some studies may show BPA exposure in receipts and food packaging below the danger threshold. But the manmade chemical shows up in most everyone, contributing to a cocktail of toxins that increase the likelihood of illnesses.

Studies can only prove so much, Schmidt said, but he believes there is plenty evidence to support the need for a replacement for BPA, and other bisphenol derivatives.

"At the end of the day when we get alternatives that are safer, that's a good thing," Schmidt said. 

"So far, finding healthier substitutes for BPA has been a challenge. A large barrier stands in the way of anyone endeavoring to come up with a replacement for an endocrine disruptor like bisphenol A," said Terrence J. Collins, professor at the Institute for Green Science Department of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University. "That scientist or group must ensure to the highest scientific standards achievable that the alternative does not disrupt normal development as BPA does."

You may want to think twice the next time a cashier hands over a receipt. 

Advocacy groups are warning that cash register receipts printed on thermal paper, which is used by most major grocery stores and retailers, are coated with bisphenol A, or BPA, the chemical suspected of contributing to health problems in women and children. 

BPA hardens plastic water bottles and the lining of metal food and soda cans, but is also considered a synthetic estrogen and an endocrine disruptor. Canada declared BPA a toxic substance in September and banned its use in baby bottles, as did Europe. 

Animal tests have linked BPA to reproductive and behavioral abnormalities and lower intellectual ability, as well as contributing to cancer, heart disease and asthma.

Research by the Environmental Working Group showed that BPA from thermal paper receipts is easily transferred and ingested by cashiers and shoppers.

The EWG also says you can perform an at home test to see if your receipt is printed on thermal paper by simply rubbing it with a coin. If the paper becomes discolored, then it is most likely thermal paper.  If there is no discoloring then it is conventional paper. They recommend not to recycle thermal paper receipts because the BPA residues can contaminate the recycled paper.

The group, Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center also strongly advises not to put thermal paper receipts into the recycling bin. Although, BPA breakdown is slightly restricted in landfills, they say the consequences of recycling it are far worse. While, the production of thermal paper accounts for the smallest percentage of BPA uses, recycling it creates the largest source of BPA entering wastewater treatment facilities. And the chemical cannot be removed when treated, so large volumes of it find its way into surface water, disrupting marine organisms and ecosystems. 

Also, recycling BPA coated materials can contribute to the contamination of paper recycling plants and new paper products. These recycled new products, which have been found to contain more BPA than non-recycled new products, are then often made into food packaging containers, thereby increasing the risk of crossover into foods. Even though BPA will breakdown quickly in soil through aerobic processes, the group also suggests keeping receipts out of composts as a way to reduce exposure levels. Their final recommendation is that thermal paper receipts should be placed in the trash to reduce the release of BPA, because, at least in landfills, there will be some opportunity for the chemical to breakdown. 

As of yet, no cities or towns offer specific instructions as to the proper disposal of thermal paper receipts. Including the state’s recycling center, Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation.

Sarah Kite, the director of recycling services at RIRRC, said none or the paper mills that receive collected paper from Rhode Island have rules regarding the suspect receipts. “No, thermal paper isn't an issue with our customers, as far as we know.” She added, “none of our paper customers have reported any issues with store receipts. If people take them, they can, and should, be recycled.”

Few people enter a building thinking about air quality, but for Liberty Goodwin, it’s part of the job. As director of the Toxics Information Project — a Providence-based nonprofit that aims to make Rhode Islanders aware of the chemicals around them and promote the use of alternatives — Goodwin spends a lot of her time considering the atmosphere she’s breathing in.

And with the Toxics Information Project’s proposed 2010 school green cleaning legislation, set to be introduced at the Statehouse soon, she hopes to make others think about it, too.

The bill would require Rhode Island schools — public and private — to use only cleaning products that have been certified “green” by an independent agency. Goodwin said the goal of the legislation is to improve air quality in Rhode Island schools by standardizing the products used to clean them.

“What it would create in my view is a floor,” she said. “You can’t get any worse than this.”

Currently, there are no state laws regulating which cleaning products can be used in Rhode Island schools. The choice of cleaning products falls to the managers of individual facilities. However, all public school districts receiving reimbursement for construction — effectively every district — are required by the state Department of Education to implement the recommendations of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Tools for Schools program.

First released in 1995, and updated as recently as last year, the Tools for Schools program is designed to help schools improve and maintain their indoor air quality. Some critics of the Toxics Information Project’s legislation suggest that because the Tools for Schools program is required in Rhode Island schools, such a law would be redundant.

Goodwin said the EPA’s Tools for Schools program is too broad, because it doesn’t address the contribution of cleaning products to overall indoor air quality.

Products used for cleaning might seem to be the opposite of air-quality contaminants, but chemicals that are added to a cleaning solution for things as insignificant as fragrance can trigger asthma attacks and exacerbate learning disabilities, according to Goodwin.

“There’s a spectrum of sensitivity,” she said. “Everybody doesn’t react the same way, but the bottom line is these chemicals are bad for everyone.”

Perhaps the strongest anecdotal evidence for Goodwin’s claim is the Kingston Hill Academy in South Kingstown, which no longer uses any chemicals after a parent claimed her children were adversely affected by the school’s environment.

“The nurse at Kingston Hill Academy said since they stopped using all of the chemicals, the health of the children has been as good, or better,” said Chris Suchmann, facilities manager for the Groden Network, which includes the South Kingstown school. “In other words, you don’t need those chemicals to keep a building clean and healthy.”

In place of chemicals, Suchmann said the school now uses cleaning solutions made from natural ingredients by a local woman.

Despite his positive experiences with green and chemical-free cleaning, Suchmann is not without concerns about the Toxics Information Project’s proposed legislation. He said meetings he has attended about the topic have gotten contentious at times.

“There are a lot of different concerns,” he said. “The general consensus is ‘you don’t want to reinvent the wheel.’”

Suchmann said that while he wants to be greener, he has a lot of questions about the third-party certification process. Because there are thousands of cleaning products to certify, and potentially hundreds of individual chemicals in each product, there is no single test to determine if a product is “green” or not.

In one case, Suchmann said, a certified “green” floor sealer contained the same chemical as its conventional counterpart, presumably in a different combination that made it better for the environment, but he couldn’t be sure.

For her part, Goodwin doesn’t view third-party certification as a cure-all, but rather as a jumping-off point, a baseline from which to start the conversation.

Department of Education spokesman Elliot Krieger said the department could support the legislation depending on the specifics.

“A baseline is a good idea,” he said. “(The Department of Education) does not oppose the use of third-party certifiers regarding green cleaning products.”

“By requiring third-party certification, we’re at least requiring a minimum,” Goodwin said. “Our bodies are wonderful and they can handle a lot of stuff, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to minimize our exposure.”