Legal News

Should Household-Cleaner Makers Have to Disclose Their Ingredients?

By Vanessa O'Connell

Are you one of those people eager to know more about the ingredients in household cleaning products? Like, you know the difference between Isopropylamine Dodecylbenzene Sulfonate and Polyquart Ampho 149?

Well, depending on how a New York state court rules, you might be in for some good news.

A group of six environmental and public-safety groups, including the Sierra Club, the American Lung Association, and Earthjustice are awaiting a judge's ruling in a lawsuit that seeks to force makers of a range of household cleaners to reveal the chemical ingredients of all of their products and any research about them. Their lawsuit was filed last year against Procter & Gamble, Church & Dwight, Reckitt Benckiser and Colgate-Palmolive Co.

Their complaint alleges that a 1971 law that's often not enforced gives the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation the power to force manufacturers to disclose the ingredients of their products as well as any health or safety studies. Although the plaintiffs are targeting just those four companies, the New York regulation requires all manufacturers who sell their products in New York to disclose their product ingredients, they contend.

Keri Powell, staff attorney with Earthjustice, who is handling the case for the groups, says she filed a bunch of notices to cleaning-product manufacturers in fall 2008, saying they had a legal responsibility under the law to disclose ingredients. Some manufacturers– such as Seventh Generation and Method Products, both of which market environmentally-friendly lines of cleaners-filed reports of their ingredients with the states right away. The four defendants resisted.

Lawyers for the four manufacturers argued in court filings that the activists have no right to bring the lawsuit in part because a private right of action is unavailable under the Environmental Conservation Law. The Soap and Detergent Association, a trade group, weighed in informally, issuing a statement describing the lawsuit as unfounded, and saying it lacks legal standing and makes claims that aren't supported by state law.

In January, the trade group launched a Web site intended to help satisfy the desire among some people to know more about what's in cleaning products.

Activist Powell of Earthjustice says she remains concerned because the manufacturers aren't volunteering as much ingredient information as required by New York's regulation-they don't go down to as small of an amount, for instance. She also points out that the companies aren't disclosing information about the research they have done into the health and environmental impacts of the ingredients.

Currently there's no requirement that chemicals be tested and proven safe before they go in consumer products. However, earlier this month, New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg introduced a bill to require manufacturers to provide information about chemicals in consumer products instead of presuming substances are safe until proven dangerous.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 22, 2010 (boomark / email).