SURFING’S CHEMICAL SISTERS TACKLE TOXIC CHEMICAL THREAT AT EUROPEAN
PARLIAMENT
Male SAS campaigners in wetsuits and carrying surfboards cross dress at
European Parliament to highlight the hormone disrupting nature of many of
today’s toxic chemicals.
A delegation of surfers from clean and safe water campaigners Surfers
Against Sewage (SAS) were in Strasbourg yesterday for a key European
Parliament vote on new legislation that would better protect both human
health and the water environment from toxic chemicals used in everyday
household products.
The European Parliament is to vote on a proposed new law known as REACH,
which stands for Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals.
The new law, which would apply to all EU countries, will determine a new
regulatory system that ensures a safer future for people and wildlife from
the toxic threats of certain chemicals.
SAS campaigners travelled from Cornwall to join other European environment
groups in a large action co-ordinated by WWF to ensure politicians did not
attempt to water down the proposed legislation by reducing the lack of
control in properly regulating the most hazardous of chemicals – those that
are very persistent, very bioaccumulative or hormone disrupting.
Many of these chemicals are found in everyday household cleaning products
such as handwash, washing detergent and shampoos. Not only do chemicals in
these products cause wildlife chaos bypassing sewage treatment works to
become ‘bioaccumulating toxic cocktails’ in the water environment but they
have also been found to be hormone disruptors and linked to reproductive
abnormalities in boys.
Richard Hardy, SAS Campaigns Director says: “SAS were delighted to be part
of a huge pan-European ‘No to Toxic Chemicals’ campaign force in Strasbourg
this week. We hope the European Parliament will recognise widespread public
support for a phase out of toxic chemicals and implement a far reaching
Chemicals Directive that both protects public health and the water
environment from the destructive nature of such chemicals”.
