Governments Call On Manufacturers To Remove Toxic Chemicals Used In Their Products

Governments are demanding that manufacturers replace deadly chemicals in their products with non-toxic substitutes. While green-product vendors and some mainstream companies have been reducing their use of dangerous substances in their products, governments worldwide are concluding that self-regulation is not enough to address the problem. Regulations established by the European Union and California illustrate governments’ efforts to rein in the use of toxic chemicals by manufacturers and chemical suppliers. But manufacturers assert that governments should not create rules that are too strict and wide ranging: they should cover only potentially harmful chemicals. That view, however, is strongly opposed by environmentalists who want regulations to encompass a much wider variety of consumer and industrial products.