Human Rights Online Philippines

Asian NGOs Call on Governments to Regulate Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) in Products

Non-government organizations (NGOs) from South, Southeast, and East Asia, including the Philippines, have called on national governments to adopt and strictly implement regulations to address endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in products. The NGOs are participating organizations of the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), a global civil society network working for a toxics-free world.

At a recently held EDC- Free Asia Conference, the NGOs discussed the results of a regional study undertaken in partnership with the Wonjin Institute for Occupational and Environmental Health (WIOEH), with support from the Financial Industry Public Interest Foundation (FIPIF), Korea to determine the presence of phthalates in erasers and bisphenol-A (BPA) in thermal papers and to promote regulatory reforms.

“The detection of EDCs in erasers (a product commonly used by schoolchildren) and in thermal paper receipts (a material typically handled by store cashiers who are mostly women) obtained from the Philippines should serve as a cue for governmental authorities to urgently fix policy gaps to protect vulnerable populations like women, children and babies in the womb from the adverse effects of exposure to EDCs,” said the Quezon City-based EcoWaste Coalition and the Davao City-based Interfacing Development Interventions for Sustainability (IDIS) which participated in the study.

WIOEH and FIPIF co-organized the said conference to publicize the study results and call on the governments to ensure that all citizens of Asia, not just Korea, are safe from hazardous chemicals substances, particularly EDCs which are substances that interfere with the ways the body’s hormones work causing adverse health outcomes.

A total of 341 sample erasers were purchased from eight countries and forwarded to the WIOEH laboratory for testing. The total amount of phthalates exceeded the Korean limit of 0.1% in 104 (30.5%) of the samples analyzed. DEHP was the phthalate most frequently found in the samples, followed by DBP and DiBP. DEHP and DBP are known EDCs, and their use in children’s products has already been restricted in the European Union (EU) and the USA.

Read complete article @ecowastecoalition.blogspot.com

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