The Chlorine Chemistry Council has developed classroom materials to "improve the way science and environmental issues are discussed in the classroom". These include a newsletter for teachers, curriculum materials, and a module for 9th and 10th graders on Understanding Environmental Health Risks that encourages children to "weigh risks and benefits so they can make sound decisions about environmental hazards." A package entitled Welcome to Building Block City! has been described by the a Consumers Union study of environmental materials as "Commercial and incomplete with several inaccuracies and strong bias for chlorine compounds... Fosters false sense of how safe chlorinated chemicals are." (CUES, 1995, p. 47).

The Chemistry Council also has teaching materials on the internet which stress the benefits of chlorine and ask students to list all the products that they use at home and at school which use chlorine. They are given a check list of such items to start with. In discussing risk on its internet pages, the Council presents taking risks as an everyday part of life such as driving a car or flying in a plane: "Risk accompanies virtually everything we do. Even seemingly 'safe' activities, such as taking a bath or climbing stairs, sometimes result in injury or death." The implied message is "why even bother about the risk of chlorine products when the benefits are so obvious?"

Parent Teacher Associations

An example of how the Chlorine Chemistry Council has been operating at the local level is the battle over anti-dioxin resolutions at a Texas Parent Teacher Association (PTA) convention in 1995. A number of local PTAs had passed such resolutions without too much fuss prior to the state convention. Then less than two weeks before the convention a number of industry groups including the Chlorine Chemistry Council, the Texas Chemical Council, the Texas Association of Business and Chambers of Commerce and various others became involved in a pre-convention battle to thwart the resolutions (King 1996). One of the resolutions stated that the PTA "supports legislation and actions that decrease, phase-out and eliminate the creation, release and exposure of dioxins...[and] the use of alternative processes, technologies, and products that avoid exposure to Dioxin, especially those that are chlorine-free." (Lester 1995)

A front group of six PTA members who posed as 'concerned parents' sent a letter with a package of information "from leading citizen and business organizations, academic scientists and public officials" to PTA members and convention delegates. In the letter they labelled the resolutions as "one-sided... inaccurate and misleading." They described the resolution calling for the elimination of dioxin as a ban on chlorine and chlorine-derived products. The second resolution, which opposed the use of hazardous waste as fuel in a local cement kiln run by TXI, was characterised as a threat to legitimate business. Three of these 'ordinary parents' were members of the Chemical Council, one of them an employee of Du Pont; a fourth parent was TXI's director of communications; and a fifth was a "government affairs consultant" for mining companies and married to the director of the front group Texas Citizens for a Sound Economy. (King 1996)

Parents also received a letter from the President of the Texas Institute for the Advancement of Chemical Technology which claimed that "the use of waste-derived fuel by cement kilns has been proven safe by state and federal studies" and that "no scientific evidence exists connecting the process with any negative effects". The letter also cited the beneficial uses of chlorine and the jobs the chlorine industry provided (Lester 1995).

Before the convention, five professional chemical industry representatives met with the proposer of the motion for three days, persuading her to change the wording of the anti-dioxin resolution. In the end she accepted their reworded resolution which avoided all mention of chlorine and called for further research and "voluntary reductions" of dioxin. That resolution was passed but the second resolution on the cement kiln was postponed indefinitely in a procedural motion before discussion could take place (King 1996).

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References:

Chlorine Chemistry Council Classroom Materials

The Science Centre - Sponsored by the Chlorine Chemistry Council

CUES, 1995, 'Captive Kids: Commercial Pressures on Kids at School', (New York: Consumers Union Education Services)

King, Michael, 1996, 'The Chemical Industry and the TNRCC Lay Siege to Texas Moms', The Texas Observer, 26 January.

Lester, S. 1995, Dioxin Politics with the Texas PTA, Archive of dioxin-l discussion list, 19 October.

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