You can fight Oil Spills @ Home ... check your Bathroom

Saw this on Facebook today. Thanks Organic Consumers Association.

From this Huffington Post article "The Oil Spill in the Bathroom" :

Up to 40,000 barrels of oil have been pouring into the Gulf of Mexico each day since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig blew up and killed 11 BP workers on April 20. With U.S. liquid fuel consumption at about 20 million barrels a day, that's about 4 percent of U.S. oil consumption poisoning the oceans and washing up on our beaches every day. Coincidentally, that's also the same amount of U.S. daily oil consumption that is used to produce the petrochemicals common in conventional cosmetics.

The USDA's National Organic Program protects consumers from false organic claims on food. Only foods that are third-party certified to the USDA's organic standards can be advertised as organic.

Not so with non-food products. The USDA allows health and beauty products to be certified to USDA organic standards, but it doesn't require all products that are marketed as organic to be certified.

The result is that organic integrity varies from aisle to aisle in the grocery store. When shopping for health and beauty products, shoppers are bombarded with organic claims on products that aren't actually certified organic. Unless the product is certified organic, it's almost impossible to tell what percentage of the ingredients are organic and which ingredients are synthetic, petroleum-derived or dangerous. And, as our tests for 1,4 dioxane have shown, the petroleum-based formulations of some mislabeled "organic" products can even produce hidden toxins that don't appear on the label.

UPDATE June 17: Just saw this. Thanks Organic Consumers Association e-newsletter.

The new Whole Foods Market policy on "organic" labeling personal care products states: "We believe that the "organic" claim used on personal care products should have very similar meaning to the "organic" claim used on food products, which is currently regulated by the USDA's National Organic Program. Our shoppers do not expect the definition of "organic" to change substantially between the food and the non-food aisles of our stores."

Whole Foods new policy mandates that "Organic Product" or "Product made with Organic [specified ingredients]" claims must be certified under the USDA National Organic Program, just like food. A more limited "Contains Organic Ingredients" claim for personal care may be certified under the NSF ANSI 305 standard, which has additional allowances for personal care products. All organic claims which are not certified, including "Organics" in branding must otherwise be dropped. Brands have been told they have until August 1, 2010 to explain how they will change their labeling or formulations to comply with the new standard. Those that don't submit an explanation are expected to be dropped from store shelves over the coming year while those that comply will have until June 1, 2011 to be in full compliance with Whole Foods new policy.