Will Disclosure Requirements Make Chemicals Safer?

Laws requiring the chemical ingredients of cleaning products to be disclosed in a transparent fashion have been an issues for those who make these products. In the past few years, both California and New York have passed legislation featuring more comprehensive ingredient disclosure requirements. Now, the CEO of one the largest environmental certification organizations in the world is asking how much safer cleaners will become.

With the new ingredient disclosure law going into effect in California in 2020, Green Seal CEO Doug Gatlin discussed how difficult it can be to interpret a complicated list of ingredients in a column for Green Biz.

Decades of research has led Gatlin and other to conclude that proper ingredient disclosure will be hard to come by because even cleaning product manufacturers themselves often don’t know what is exactly in their products. Gatlin says that’s because manufacturers are purchasing the ingredients from other manufacturers who don’t disclose what their raw materials feature.

Gatlin is also concerned by the fact that the byproducts developed when ingredients are mixed with each other can develop an unintended reaction that is hard to detect. Furthermore, Gatlin says the lists of chemicals that are deemed problematic is constantly changing, making it hard for manufacturers to ensure their products are compliant with these changes.

To read the rest of what Gatlin has to say, click here.