One day after California became the first state in the nation to ban toys containing toxic plastic softeners, supporters of the measure announced plans Monday to help at least nine other states - and perhaps even Congress - enact similar laws reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
The movement to ban phthalates began in San Francisco last year when the city’s Board of Supervisors imposed the nation’s first restrictions on consumer products that contain the chemical compounds, which have been linked to hormone problems in laboratory animals.
On Sunday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the state law, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2009.
Lawmakers in Texas, Illinois, Florida, Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington, Maine, Connecticut and New York are expected to introduce similar legislation in the coming months, according to environmental and breast cancer groups that sponsored the California measure.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wants to replicate the California prohibition nationally, although no time frame has been established, a spokesman for her office said Monday.
“We’ve been looking at this and saying, ‘If we can get this passed in California, can we get the ball rolling in these other states?’ ” said Dan Jacobson, legislative director for Environment California, a nonprofit advocacy group that was a key supporter of the state’s phthalates ban. “It’s the same pattern that we’ve seen with the global warming bills that have been passed.”
Widely used in a variety of consumer products, phthalates are a family of chemicals most often used as a softener of plastic. Some critics say the chemicals can make up as much as half of the material used to make plastic toys and are also used to make baby teethers.
Read it here: Nationwide Toy Ban