Why Technology Addiction Steals Your Time and Focus
- Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against major household cleaning product manufacturers including Reckitt-Benckiser, Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, and Church and Dwight, according to court documents cited by Earthjustice.
- Ingredient disclosure requirements for cleaning products remain virtually non-existent across the United States, except for a long-forgotten New York state statute enacted in 1976, according to Earthjustice reporting.
- Independent scientific studies into chemicals present in everyday cleaning products consistently identify health effects ranging from asthma to hormone disruption, according to Earthjustice.
Earthjustice filed a lawsuit against major household cleaning product manufacturers including Reckitt-Benckiser, Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, and Church and Dwight, according to court documents cited by Earthjustice. The legal action targets the consumer goods giants for failing to disclose the chemical ingredients contained in their products and the health risks those substances pose to consumers, as reported by Earthjustice.
Enforcing a Decades-Old New York State Cleaning Product Law
Ingredient disclosure requirements for cleaning products remain virtually non-existent across the United States, except for a long-forgotten New York state statute enacted in 1976, according to Earthjustice reporting. That historical law requires household and commercial cleaner companies selling products in New York to file semi-annual reports with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, listing product chemicals and describing corporate research regarding health and environmental effects. Keri Powell, an attorney in Earthjustice’s Northeast office, discovered the dormant regulation while reviewing her personal copy of the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations, as detailed by Earthjustice. An inquiry by Earthjustice revealed that the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation did not have a single report on record in the three decades since the statute was passed, according to source findings. Consequently, Earthjustice filed the lawsuit on behalf of a coalition consisting of Women’s Voices for the Earth, Environmental Advocates of New York, New York Public Interest Research Group, Riverkeeper, the Sierra Club, and the American Lung Association in New York, as noted by Earthjustice.
Health Impacts and Industry Deficiencies
Independent scientific studies into chemicals present in everyday cleaning products consistently identify health effects ranging from asthma to hormone disruption, according to Earthjustice. The coalition’s legal action aims to enforce transparency so consumers know whether products used for washing dishes, laundering clothes, and cleaning homes carry harmful properties, as stated by Earthjustice. The UK-based Reckitt-Benckiser, maker of Lysol, faces direct targeting in the lawsuit alongside Procter & Gamble, maker of Mr. Clean; Colgate-Palmolive, maker of Ajax; and Church and Dwight, maker of Brillo, according to court filings cited by Earthjustice.
Historical Origins of the Phrase Sunlight Is the Best Disinfectant
The legal challenge invokes a famous philosophical and legal maxim regarding transparency, mirroring the history of the phrase sunlight is the best disinfectant. Transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson published an essay titled Worship in his 1860 collection The Conduct of Life, using an analogy that equated nocturnal police gas-light with the protective information provided by publicity, according to research by Quote Investigator. The exact non-metaphorical phrase appeared in 1879 within the journal The Laws of Health, edited by Robert Walter, in an article stating that sunlight is the best disinfectant and noting that malaria is dissipated when the sun shines, as documented by Quote Investigator. Lawyer Louis Brandeis subsequently popularized a metaphorical application of the concept in a 1913 Harper’s Weekly article titled What Publicity Can Do, writing that publicity acts as a remedy for social and industrial diseases and that sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants, according to Quote Investigator records. Brandeis later republished the essay in his 1914 book Other People’s Money: And How the Bankers Use It, as reported by Quote Investigator.