Laundry
Already banned by the European Union and Canada, nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPE) are used in many cleaning argents. Extensive research indicates that even tiny concentrations of NPE metabolites interfere with the ability of fish and shellfish to grow, reproduce and survive. By mimicking the natural hormone estradiol and disrupting the endocrine system, these chemical compounds cause organisms to develop both male and female sex organs; increase mortality and damage to the liver and kidney; decrease testicular growth, the formation of sperm, and testosterone levels in male fish; and disrupt normal male-to-female sex-ratios, metabolism, development, growth and reproduction.
Procter & Gamble has already stopped using NPEs in their products, but because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has failed to take action to protect against NPE contamination, there have not been many more companies who have taken action. Safer alternatives exist.
Sierra Club and UNITE HERE, a labor union that represents laundry workers, are working together to end the use of NPE and encourage the use of safer detergents.
News & Reports
News: Sierra Club Applies for Recognition by US EPA's Safer Detergent's Stewardship Initiative
The Sierra Club has led an effort to highlight the problems associated with nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs). THrough research, education, and advocacy, the Sierra Club has remained a leader in the effort to keep pressure on the government and industry to move to safer alternatives to NPE in laundry detergents.
News: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency improperly denies Sierra Club and their partner's petition.
The Sierra Club organizes a legal challenge to the decision. The case is currently in mediation.
News: The Sierra Club in partnership with Physicians for Social Responsibility, UNITE HERE!, Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations, and the Environmental Law and Policy Center petitions EPA to require industry to conduct testing to fill information gaps and to restrict the use of NPEs. This petition was sparked because EPA failed to set protective Water Quality Criteria.
News: Sierra Club comments on EPA's proposed Water Quality Criteria for NPE.
News: Cintas Corporation Misuses Sierra Club's Name to Greenwash Its Bad Environmental Record (including link)
News: A Laundry Makes the Switch: The Sierra Club won a victory in August, 2005, when a laundry in Branford, Connecticut, owned by Cintas Corporation, one of the nation's biggest commercial laundries, agreed to use a safer laundry detergent. We plan to press Cintas and other NPE users and manufacturers to stop using NPE cleaning agents.
Report: Manufacturers and users of nonylphenol ethoxylates protect this chemical with misleading statements and deceptive information. Read The Truth about Toxic Cleaning Agents: Responses to Industry's Misinformation about Nonylphenol Ethoxylates.
Report: Read Sierra Club's white paper, Nonlyphenol Ethoxylates: A Safer Alternative Exists to This Toxic Cleaning Agent.
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