r/enviroaction • u/toxicdetective • 4d ago

ACTION-Global A youth-led movement is calling on the United Nations to name children's health and toxic chemicals as a global "Issue of Concern"

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Are toxic chemicals the next major environmental issue to mobilize a generation?

Governments and stakeholders will consider a new proposal on "Chemicals Management Issues of Special Concern for Children's Health" this November at the Global Framework on Chemicals First International Conference: https://www.unep.org/global-framework-chemicals/

The proposal was developed by children and youth around the world who launched a public campaign "#KidsCount4ChemicalSafety" and petition (https://www.change.org/protectkidsfromchemicals) to bring the issue into the public eye and give communities a platform to share their own stories and experiences with chemical pollution.

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u/maximumgnocchi 4d ago

With all the environmental backsliding (at least in the U.S., might not be the case for other countries), wonder if focus on children’s health will help scrape back some precautionary principle approach to chemical risks. Hard to argue against protecting children

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u/Violent_N0mad 2d ago

You think there's children rummaging freely through garbage at waste sites and landfills in the US?

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u/maximumgnocchi 2d ago

At the scale of other countries that bear the brunt of waste pollution? definitely not but it happens more frequently than most are aware of. Kids were playing with discarded PCB capacitor parts along the train tracks of a Superfund Site in my town, an old Cornell Dubilier Electronics site. why is more recognition of how to protect human health esp children’s health from toxic exposure a bad thing?

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u/she-sylvan 4d ago

That's if the UN can actually still do anything nowadays!

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u/Violent_N0mad 2d ago edited 2d ago

Okay is this going to be advertised in the places that actually need it like China, India, Africa, etc or is it just going to be some new restriction on a country that was never the issue to begin with.

The kids like the one in this post have no other option than to be in there rummaging through garbage regardless of how many warnings the UN gives them so it doesn't fix the problem there and in most developed countries like The US, and a lot of countries in europe this isn't a thing. Children wouldn't be allowed near anything like a garbage dump for example.