Manufacturers sued for ingredient disclosure

NEW YORK — Environmental and health activists announced plans for a lawsuit to make four major firms reveal the chemical ingredients of their cleaning products and their research on the products' effects, according to the Los Angeles Times.


The suit, to be filed today in New York by six state and national environmental and health groups, including the Sierra Club and American Lung Association, seeks to use a little-known 1976 New York law passed to combat phosphates in detergent, the story stated.


The Soap and Detergent Association (SDA) said the following about the suit: "Activist groups are using an arcane New York state regulation as a way to disparage cleaning product formulators whose products are used safely and effectively by millions of people every day."


Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble; New York-based Colgate-Palmolive; Princeton, N.J.-based Church & Dwight Co.; and Britain-based Reckitt Benckiser Group are all mentioned in the lawsuit, the story noted.


In California, two laws were approved in 2008 that require the state to identify "chemicals of concern," to evaluate safer alternatives and to create a scientific clearinghouse for information on chemicals' effects, the story added.


According to the story, The Consumer Product Safety Commission is the federal agency charged with overseeing home cleaning products, but it doesn't require cleaning product manufacturers to provide comprehensive ingredient lists, so few companies do.