phthalates+2-silver+class+'09

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=PHTHALATES=

Nahid Karim

ABSTRACT
Phthalates is a compound that is mixed with other substance to make plastic durable, flexible and low costing. But phthalates is however potentially harmful to the health and the systems of the human body, because of its pros many companies and industries are against banning the compound.

Phthalates has been internationally traded from Asia, Europe and America. So to ban phthalates would cause huge losses. And since the compound can be found in practically every thing it will be hard to find individual alternatives for all the products out there. Phthalates is potentially harmful for health and causes complications, and also it can be recycled easily because of its toughness, so its not really Ecologically friendly products. Phthalates has been traded from Europe To different parts of America for years, and it very hard to ban it under thoses circumstances.

I personally am against phthalates and would want it any where near me. But I am not in a position where I can pick, because phthalate can be traced in our drinking water and food. But I am for banning phthalates and I am willing to pay extra for phthalate free products. The compound has been proven many times that it is very harmful but it is still not banned. Because of its low cost and international trading value. But there is ways that we can slow down the use in our community by, not bying certain plastics and products that contain Phthalates ( e.g. food wrappings, babies toy and cosmetics?.

BACKGROUND
Phthalate is a class of widely used industrial compounds. Phthalates first produced in the 1920’s and since then 1 billion pounds of phthalate is produced worldwide every year. Phthalate is used for a variety of things such as softening plastic, the oily substance in perfumes, additives to hairsprays, also in lubricants and wood finishers and because of its oily texture it is mixed with plastic to give the plastic the flexibility, durability and low cost. Phthalates is also used in the car finish, which gives the car that “new car smell”. There are also other uses of phthalates in every day products such as: pharmaceutical pills, gelling agents, sex toys made from “jelly rubber”, Phthalates can also be traced in many cosmetics, candy, body wash, medicine and even in children’s toy. In the early 80s most part of Europe and some parts of Asia has been using phthalates. But in recent years the European Union has banned all use of Phthalate or any item containing Phthalate in it. Children toys in America still contained Phthalate until early 2009, before California banned all the toys containing the compound and following former President Bush signed a bill banning the toys containing phthalates.



HUMAN APPLICATION
Phthalate has been proven harmful by many researchers; people are commonly exposed to phthalates through a lot of everyday products although phthalate can also be taken by inhaling the air where there is phthalate residue, but it could also be ingested, when the wrapper on the food contains the harmful compound. Tests on rodents have proven that phthalates can cause liver, kidney and testes failure, mothers pregnant with boys with the highest level of phthalates in their system/urine are prone to deliver the baby boy with a shortened anogenital. Phthalate can be found in everything these days, starting from water to scented oils. Phthalates can also be found in dust particals, which is very harmful because infints spend 90% of the time is spent in their home. Phthalates is being discovered more and more know that people are being exposed to it and getting various mutation and pregnancy complication form the harmful compound. Also researchers found out that phthalates can delay puberty in some girls, if the dose/ level of phthalates is high in the system or surroundings. Phthalate can be found in urine of some girls, which may play a role of when they hit in Puberty and for males irregularities in male sexual differentiation. Others also believe that phthalates can cause asthma form all the plastics that contain the compound.

ECONOMIC /POLITICAL IMPACT[[image:Phthalates.jpg]]
The European union was the first to act against the ban of phthalates since the early 1990s because of some phthalates in children’s toy products after it caused health complications. Since the ban in the European Union, other countries like, Japan, Argentina and Mexico have also banned the use of phthalates in their children’s toy. The United States were slow to act, but in 2009 after California banned phthalates, President bush signed the bill which would ban all of the children’s toy containing the harmful compound Phthalates. The use of Phthalates production is high because it is very cheap to manufacture, but companies have been researching alternatives for Phthalates since the ban. So if there were alternative for phthalates then the prices of plastic items would increase drastically. China and Europe are the producers of cosmetic that are exported to The United States that contain Phthalates. But if all product were banned that contain the compound, the most probable hit financial would be the packing and cosmetics industries. So if the all products containing phthalates were banned then the European cosmetic manufacturers and the department stores would lose a lot of money, so neither side would agree with the banning of phthalates. And also many men and women are against Phthalates being banned because alot of cosmetics and sextoys containing the compound.

SUMMARY
So the debate over phthalate is still going on, on weather the government should ban the poetically harmful compound or not. If they do ban it then the harmful products wouldn’t be in the shelves of America, but if you don’t then people will use the products containing the compound with out knowing of its harmful properties. So in conclusion I would suggest that people at least have the common knowledge of what products contain phthalates, and to prevent the use of phthalates on children’s toy. But if they find some other alternatives to phthalate then the price of selective plastic items would go up. But the companies that produce phthalates must show their eagerness to find an alternative and for the people to use.

HYPERLINKS
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Phthalate** www.ourstolenfuture.org/NEWSCIENCE/oncompounds/**phthalates**/**phthalates** .htm www.**phthalates**.org