Photo: Toxic toys for sale this holiday season in New York City. Credit: WE ACT for Environmental Justice, New York, NY.
It’s 36 hours before I go to a Christmas dinner, where I plan to bring gifts to two lovely girls. After buying books for the occasion, I had second thoughts, thinking that books might bore them. So I added in an inexpensive, make-your-own jewelry kit and another kit with lots of paint. Then this happened. Those girls will never see those kits because I fear that they are probably toxic. I worry about the people who manufactured them, who will surely have longlasting toxic effects like the “radium girls,” who made radium watches. The toys look a lot like some of the items pictured above, demonstrated to be loaded with toxic metals, by WE ACT for Environmental Justice, the Center for Environmental Health. The toys are for sale in New York City stores this holiday season and they are toxic. A coalition of these groups, together with parents, and business representatives released their report Dec. 17 on New York City’s City Hall. I applaud them. It’s likely toxic toys are for sale in your community too.
I am making a tax-deductible charitable donation to WE ACT for Environmental Justice. You can donate here.
Readers, this post is not something that I planned with them at all, but stems from considering forward-thinking groups that engage the public and communities around important issues in the public’s health. You’ll be hearing about other groups from me here until the end of the year. I suggest that you poke around WE ACT’s website to see what valuable work that they do. You can read about their theory of change here. WE ACT is far from a single issue group. Its work encompasses environmental justice in the broadest sense: clean air, indoor exposures, reducing waste, pests, and pesticides, affordable, equitable transit, good food in schools, open and green space, as well as stopping toxic products from going to our communities. WE ACT’s work extends to Washington DC, where they are making a dent on the national dialogue on the public’s health.
It’s time we gave back to the groups that have been organizing for the public’s health and protecting the public’s health. If we don’t join forces for change, we are going to be living with more toxicity than we can stand. The Flint Michigan water supply never should have poisoned kids with lead. Donating is love, I read somewhere this week.
Enjoy the holidays! Make your tax-deductible donation to WE ACT here.