As schools look toward re-opening amid COVID-19, a new toolkit from Women's Voices for the Earth helps parents talk to  teachers and school officials about harmful disinfectants — while also promoting safer and effective product alternatives and best-practices, aimed to reduce toxic exposures, and help keep not only our kids, but also our educators and school staff, healthy and safe.

Key questions: what is the difference between "disinfecting" and "cleaning" and why does this difference matter? (It DOES.) 

This toolkit promote safety, health, and sensible use of product and their chemicals - and dialogue among stakeholder humans! Maria Ignacia Miranda Santis, WVE Program and Outreach Manager, details this campaign and it's "parent" project, Parents Against Quats, a campaign supporting parental leverage with schools to eliminate products using quartenary ammonia. 

The science based grass-roots organizing power of Women' Voice for the Earth, and WVE's consumer-savvy campaigns, have been taking on corporate and government interests for 25 years. Efforts to amplify concerns specific to women - from moms to workers in nail salons. Successes include pressuring Johnson & Johnson to remove a carcinogenic ingredient from (are you ready for this?) Baby Shampoo in 2011, when Earthworms first met WVE. WVE's Detox the Box campaign takes aim at manufactures of tampons and other menstrual products that harbor toxic ingredients. This is a powerful, focused group!

THANKS to Andy Coco and Jon Valley, engineers for this Earthworms edition.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Applying Eco-Logic to Protect Streams AND Roads with Danelle Haake (July 2018) 

Peoples' Pocket Guide to Enviro-Action with Caitlin Zera (July 2018)