Center for Environmental Health

06/21/2026

Happy Father's Day from CEH!

06/19/2026

Happy Juneteenth! Join us as we celebrate the progress this holiday represents as well as the reminder of the work still to be done.

06/17/2026

We were heartbroken to learn that our longtime partner and attorney, Eric Somers, passed away this past Spring.

CEH has held a nearly 30-year partnership with Eric’s firm, the Lexington Law Group (LLG) that continues to this day. Under Eric’s steadfast representation, CEH’s litigation efforts led to the elimination of lead in children’s products such as toys, lunchboxes, baby bibs, diaper rash cream, and countless other common sources of lead exposure for kids. Eric also helped CEH to reach agreements that required companies to remove lead from jewelry, hexavalent chromium from footwear, and arsenic from wood playground equipment.

Eric was instrumental in helping us change the world. We send our deepest condolences to Eric’s family, friends, and our colleagues at the Lexington Law Group.

A number of former CEH team members who worked closely with Eric shared their thoughts, which can be read here:

Eric Somers represented CEH for 27 years, securing transformational legal victories to protect people’s health and the environment.

06/16/2026

❓ Have you begun your reuse and refill journey? If not: why not start today, on World Refill Day? 🌎

Here are a few things you can do to reduce plastic pollution:

✅ Ditch the disposable cups! If you’re going to a coffee shop, don’t forget to bring your favorite reusable beverage container. You can hand it to the barista and ask them to make your coffee in your cup, and save a single-use cup in the process. A lot of coffee shops will even give you a discount for bringing your own cup, so everyone (especially the environment) wins!

✅ Did you just run out of shampoo and conditioner? Or laundry and dish detergent? Before you head to a big box store to resupply, you might want to check out your local reuse and refill store first. A lot of these stores sell personal care and other products that allow you to bring your own glass or stainless steel jars or containers (try to avoid plastic if you can), and simply refill there. Typically you pay by the ounce, and save a whole additional plastic package you’d typically get when resupplying on detergents or shampoos.

✅ Do you live in an area where it’s safe to drink tap water? If so, don’t forget to use our favorite stainless steel or glass reusable water bottle for filling up and hydrating. This is much better than purchasing huge packs of disposable plastic water bottles, which contain chemicals that are harmful when ingested, and also harm the environment after use.

While the responsibility to change business practices to become safer for public health and the environment should fall upon manufacturers, these three things will help make an impact on reducing plastic waste. Happy ! 💚

06/10/2026

New testing found BPA, BPS, melamine, cyanuric acid, and triclosan in breast milk samples, pointing to widespread exposure from everyday products and materials.

06/09/2026

We notified the EPA of our intent to sue the agency over the atrazine issue. We're proud to take this joint action alongside our colleagues at Center for Biological Diversity and Pesticide Action Network North America.

“While more than 60 countries have banned the herbicide outright as too dangerous, over 70 million pounds of atrazine are used annually in America, contaminating thousands of watersheds nationwide and inflicting widespread harm to aquatic life and human health."

Story by The New Lede:

Advocates for environmental and human health protections are seeking to challenge a decision by US regulators that they say will allow the continued use of atrazine, a commonly used herbicide linked to cancer and other health problems.

06/08/2026

🌊 Today is ! What better way to celebrate than to use our collective power to get an endocrine-disrupting chemical that's also bad for our oceans out of receipt paper?

The toxic chemical BPS is commonly found in the thermal paper used in the hard copies of receipts. The receipts we throw in the trash often wind up in landfills where contaminated liquid runoff can seep into local waterways. Receipts that have been littered wash into storm drains which discharge directly into marine ecosystems. Even receipts that we mistakenly put into paper recycling end up contaminating those recycling streams causing paper mills to discharge bisphenol-laden water into our oceans.

It’s clear that the only way to protect our oceans from the BPS in receipts is to head it off at the source and get BPS out of receipt paper in the first place. That’s why we’ve filed legal actions against nearly 200 companies with BPS in their receipts in hopes of using safer products for human health and aquatic life.

But nearly every industry uses paper receipts, so we’ve got a lot of ground to cover to change the industry. Will you help us make receipts safe for human health and our oceans? https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/its-world-ocean-day-protect-aquatic-life-from-the-bps-in-receipts-2/

06/05/2026

06/04/2026

"Wego Chemical Group is among the companies the Center for Environmental Health has targeted in citizen lawsuits filed under the Toxic Substances Control Act. These lawsuits require giving the EPA and alleged violators 60 days’ notice before filing."

Our work, covered by Bloomberg Law: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/wego-violated-requirement-to-report-chemical-imports-epa-says

Wego Chemical Group and related companies have violated statutory requirements by failing to report more than 200 chemicals, the EPA said in a complaint announced Monday.

06/03/2026

We are pleased to announce the completion of our enforcement against companies that failed to report chemical imports to the U.S. EPA, in violation of federal chemical safety law.

CEH achieved fifteen settlement agreements resulting in companies filing reports with the EPA for over 150 previously unreported chemicals, totaling more than 12 billion pounds.

CEH achieved fifteen settlement agreements resulting in companies filing reports with the EPA for over 150 previously unreported chemicals, totaling more than 12 billion pounds.