What You Can Do
How Can Consumers Promote Life Cycle Thinking and Stimulate the Market for Cleaner Products?
Consumer pressure on retailers and manufacturers is often a more effective and faster way than regulation to move the market towards cleaner products. Government regulators should be accountable to the public and should work to protect the environment but attempts to phase out hazardous materials are increasingly being met by free trade restrictions and violations. Stimulating market demand for cleaner products by demanding direct accountability by the producer may be the public’s most effective tool.
You can contact producers directly through their toll free numbers, as well as e-mail, fax, phone, and website. Here are some suggestions for questions to ask of manufacturers and retailers, on such matters as genetically engineered food policy and or the chemicals used in everyday products. Public advocacy groups can link with other groups to focus on different parts of the same product chain.
Sample Questions to Ask Food Producers
