Women Leading the Way – The Fight for Safer Products, Safer Chemicals, and a Healthier Future for All featuring Mia Davis and Cindy Luppi

In this podcast episode, Jenny Vickers interviews Mia Davis and Cindy Luppi, two environmental advocates working to keep toxic chemicals out of everyday products. They discuss their backgrounds in environmental activism and what drew them to this work. They also talk about their experiences working on the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, the importance of transparency and disclosure in the beauty industry, and the need for safer alternatives to toxic chemicals. They also touch on the issue of PFAS contamination and the efforts to address it. Mia Davis shares her recent shift to working in sustainability issues for companies adopting environmental and ethical approaches, particularly in the pet food industry. They end the podcast with a call to action, encouraging people to vote with their dollars by supporting brands that prioritize safer ingredients and packaging, and to stay informed and engaged in the fight for a healthier and more just world.  www.cleanwater.org/podcast

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Transcript

0:01

There's a lot of women based knowledge and thinking and values that drive this discussion. It's a feminist discussion. It's a discussion about how we use our power to shape the world that our values demand end. Hello. Everyone. Welcome to We All Live Downstream, a Clean Water Action podcast. In each episode, we will be interviewing leading environmental and their work in the field. We'll dive deep into topics from drinking water and climate change to environmental justice, plastic pollution, and toxic chemicals. I'm your host, Jenny Vickers, the National Communications Manager for Clean Water Action. Well, I am just so thrilled for today's podcast. I am excited to chat with two incredible leaders that I'm so inspired by. They're environmental advocates fighting to keep toxic chemicals out of the everyday products that we use. Mia Davis has been a leader in the movement for safer, more sustainable materials and processes since 2006. We also have with us Cindy Loopy of Clean Water Action. Cindy helps to coordinate several coalitions and community-based efforts to reduce pollution reform, national chemical policy and promote an equitable sustainable economy. Welcome to we All Live downstream. I'm so happy to have you both here. Thanks, Jenny. Yeah, thrilled to be here. So before we get started, I want to learn a little bit more about you and your background, where you're from, what first drew you to environmental activism and what excites you about it today? Sure. This is Mia. I'll start. Thank you again for having me. I'm thrilled to be here and talk with one of my favorite human beings in the world, Cindy Lupe. I'm originally from upstate New York and my mom was a AP bio teacher, a high school biology teacher, and I think early on really instilled in me just the importance and not only the scientific importance, but just the majestic quality of nature of animals, of ecosystems. So it was something that I appreciated from a very early age. I don't have a distinct moment where that was turned on for me. It was kind of in the water for me, and I became an activist really young. I was talking about the dangers of climate change on the school bus in fourth grade, and so this would've been early nineties. I was using a reusable water bottle then to two, which we can talk about later. It was plastic, but just really kind of an early consciousness. And then when I got to Clark University, I learned more about environmental justice and I had been kind of raised in a white suburban environment and thinking about the environment as something out there, something that was absolutely Worth protecting and loving and investing in and being in awe of and recognizing the ecosystem connections. But it was still kind of away from me or away from human beings over there, a glacier, a mountain, a river animal life. And when I got to Clark and started to learn more about how especially toxic chemicals were affecting not only the environment and building up in the food chain but were affecting human beings, it was a real light switch moment for me. And thankfully I've never been in the same sense now the rest of my career was really focused on the environment for all of us and including environmental health and human beings as the first environment for our offspring. Wow. Well, that's really inspiring Mia. And my story is kind of similar. One of the things y'all should know about me is it's swimming is one of my favorite things to do, and that has been the case from when I was little, little, little. So that was kind of my entry point to oceans and rivers and streams. And it'd be spring and I'd be begging to take my shoes off and just go wait in the river next door and you can't do that. Or at least I couldn't do that and not see the interconnectedness of all of us. And I think my light bulb moment was probably more of a longer experience of working with women village leaders in Africa around just solving a problem that they felt was really important in their lives. And it was essentially they were spending a lot of time gathering wood for the fires that they had going 24 7 by their huts. And we were able to do some tree plantings and build some clay-based wood conserving stoves. And just being part of that empowering and problem solving community push for a better world on a very small level, I got addicted. I got really committed to it and have been in this space really ever since. And a deep set of motivators to me has to do with helping people I love not get sick. Thinking about people who I've worked with at the grassroots level who have kids with asthma living near big smoke stacks, or my mom's experience with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and knowing it's one of those cancers that is directly linked in the literature to environmental exposures as part of the disease pathway, that those are things. When you go through things like that and see that some of that suffering is preventable, it becomes a driving force. So that's where I'm at these days. Thank you that both of you are so inspiring to me and your background. I feel similar. I feel like I was environmentalist at a very young age as well. Growing up in Germany I felt like, and then I moved to America. I felt like I moved backwards in time because sustainability always a little bit ahead over there. But yeah, my aha moment was canvassing where it just really changed my life. I met families with kids who were in the Toms River Cancer cluster. Then I later read that book Toms River, and now I have a five-year-old daughter. So it's just like you just start thinking, how is this happening? How are so many kids dying of cancer? And it's so scary. So thank you both for all the work that you do to protect our health. It's incredible. And Cindy, you both have worked together on several toxics campaigns. How did you both meet and what was one of your most challenging moments working together? I had the good fortune of meeting Cindy pretty early in my career. After I finished my master's degree, I knew I wanted to work in environmental health and started doing some nonprofit organizing. And early on knew that I wanted to use the market as a tool for positive change. So I was searching out ways that I could get involved, especially locally in Boston where I was living with environmental organizations who were interested in doing that. So when we say using the market as a positive tool for change or thinking about environmental impacts of the market, we mean how can businesses essentially be more triple bottom line instead of only thinking about the profit and only giving a return to the shareholders? Also taking into account people and planet and Benefit Corporation is one way that we're seeing increasingly more and more companies showing their corporate DNA taking this triple bottom line approach. But when I started this work in the early two thousands after I finished my grad school, B Corp was maybe just starting and we really had Ben and Jerry's and Patagonia and a few of course small independent brands that had really strong values, but there wasn't a big corporate movement. So I wanted to work with a nonprofit organization that would allow me to grow and explore that space. And really early on met Cindy and other colleagues at Clean Water and started to work on the campaign for Safe Cosmetics with Cindy and a group of really amazing women nationally. And I know we're probably going to talk more about the campaign, but that's how I met Cindy and how we started our work. And I agree it is equally true that Mia Davis is one of my favorite people on the planet. I think she brings with her this clear cutting analysis tools in incredible charm and sense of humor that helps get through tough moments. And all environmental campaigns are frustrating and challenging at some point. I think usually for me, it has to do with how long it takes to get policy to move forward and knowing that people are in harm's way currently. And just knowing that persistence is the key we have to keep fighting. But one of the things that's great about working with Mia is that she really keeps your eyes open about outside the box ways of making impact and both and organizing so that you're keeping on the higher ground of getting strong laws that will protect everyone while also incentivizing change. Right now that helps with the frustration of how long formal policy, how long it takes to pass a law essentially and get it implemented. So that's the thing about Mia Davis is a big inspiring force in the world. Well, before we get into more pointed questions, if I could go for one more minute about this fabulous relationship. Cindy was my ball. So when I joined the campaign for Safe Cosmetics and joined Clean Water, I reported directly to Cindy. And then we had this national network of other organizations and leaders that were working on the campaign for Safe Cosmetics with us. But to have, Cindy is still my favorite boss, and I've been working now for 20 years, and what an amazing tutelage and just, I don't love the word mentor because I feel like it's gotten really kind of loaded, but just to lead by example and to have an ally, clearly your boss, someone who is the leader, but just, yeah, Cindy not only does amazing work on the ground, but in the organization and raising up some amazing leaders. I mean, a lot of the people in the environmental health space I think could have a dotted line, if not a direct line back to Cindy. So thank you, Cindy. You're so welcome. Cindy's definitely a light at all of our meetings at everything that we do. And also very funny, and I think that's what you need some humor to get through some of these campaigns. We can't win these campaigns alone. And how awesome is it to have someone, not just an ally, but someone you get along with, right, to work together. So that's an awesome, if. Only we're all in the same room right now, there would be hugs flying. Yeah. What did you like best about some of your earliest days working on projects like detox Nalgene. That you're really digging deep in the animal and history with the new technology now, with my first corporate campaign where we, again, a coalition was reaching out to Nalgene, the maker of these sort of iconic plastic, polycarbonate reusable water bottles to say, Hey, we've learned that the building block of this plastic is called Bisphenol A and that it's an endocrine disruptor and that it's pretty unstable. It's going to bleach from this bottle into whatever the vessel is holding. And we know that that's a concern because even low doses of Bisphenol A and other hormone disrupting chemicals can lead to really negative impacts over time. So we contacted Nalgene and said, we would love to work with you to find a safer alternative to these hormone disrupting chemicals. And we've got a very dismissive response like, that's never going to happen. No one knows what BPA is, and it's not on anyone's radar and it's not a concern. We think that it's safe kind of move along. And that only made us double down. And after several years of working, not only to engage them, but baby bottle companies, sippy Cupsole is also used to line or was prominently very commonly used to line tin cans. We were targeting a bunch of different applications and companies and saying, we have to do better than this. And we have seen largely that BI now has been largely removed. Not to say that the replacements are always so great, and it's worth noting that very early on in that campaign we said, replace it with a safer alternative. Show us the data, do the work to find things that are safer and benign for human beings in the environment, not just kind of this whack-a-mole idea. We'll replace BIS LE with bis less. That's obviously not the goal. We learned a lot. It was challenging, and we learned a lot about not only the science and the potential outcomes for the exposures, but about how to have that conversation with companies that were honestly at the time laggards, they were not interested in having that dialogue. I'm glad to say that for the most part, I think that companies are seeing that they need to come to the table. It can still take a really long time. It doesn't mean that someone else from the company might also be blocking the halls of Congress at the exact same time that they're having a conversation with environmental health advocates. But I think we've seen some progress in that overall kind of dynamic. So why do most people assume that products are safe? It just seems like people will just go and buy. I mean, I'm a label reader, right? I am in this field of work, but some people just assume that why would anyone be making poisonous products and you're buying it when in fact we're exposed to harmful chemicals every day and the makeup we wear, the food we eat, the soap we use to clean our children's hands, how can we help to shift perspectives and what will the lasting impact of this shift on our health be? I'll start and say, from my perspective, this is just a lot about common sense and working for both forward thinking companies to head in a direction that better protects our health and for decision makers at every level of government to embrace this idea that we should reduce contact with toxic chemicals because there are safer alternatives. So it's a sort of one two punch working for safer laws that will protect everyone and working to incentivize and imagine personal care product companies and others who will truly embed health and safety and sustainability in their thinking as well. And that is some of the work that MIA has led and frankly revolutionized. So it's a hopeful space because laws take a while, but we're certainly seeing change at the state level. We're certainly seeing companies stand up for stronger laws at the state level, and federal policy is moving forward bit by bit, but not as comprehensively as we'd like. So I think it's one of those moments where you grasp opportunities where you find them, and part of this is sadly right now, being an educated consumer will definitely help in, as you're thinking about your five-year-old daughter, there's definitely resources out there that will help you choose products that don't have harmful chemicals to the greatest extent possible. Yeah. And Jenny, you said, why do most people assume that products are safe? Well, why wouldn't most people assume that products are safe? I think that there's kind of this vibe that, or I don't know, there's something out in the zeitgeist of the United States that there's a lot of regulation and that there's a lot of oversight and that there's anything from state and federal bodies and laws that are passed and agencies and certifications. So surely things that we have here in this uber developed marketplace must be safe, and there certainly are some categories for which that is true. I would say a lot of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, not saying it's perfect, not saying there isn't a lot of corporate interest there, but there is an incredible amount of oversight. And then there are other consumer categories with the and put in our bodies and take into our homes that have either historically been under-regulated and or there's a few loopholes. There's a few ways in which these things that we interact with all the time, every day, our electronics, our personal care products, our food and water, and the packaging that the food comes in, it is legal to use very toxic materials or materials that have never been assessed for safety and or materials that are highly unsustainable in that I just mentioned. It's totally legal, so companies aren't breaking the law. You're allowed to use PFAS, which we might talk about in more detail in a bunch of these products that I just mentioned, or to not disclose the chemicals that you're using in, for example, a fragrance blend in a personal care product, even though it might be plasticizing chemicals, sensitizers chemicals linked to asthma, chemicals linked to hormone disruption. You just don't get the right to know that unless the company decides to disclose it to you. So lack of regulation, but this is a fixable problem, which is good news both on the market and the policy side. This is not something that we can't work our way out of with. Yeah, I see people every day just drinking water out of plastic water bottles when I'm like, why are you doing that? I guess it just frustrates me because we know the problems. We know the problems with plastic, and we know that it leaks into water, but yet people are still doing it. So I really appreciate the work that you're doing. I feel like it's going to help shift perspectives and help people really think about what they're putting into their bodies. So that leads me into my next conversation. You mentioned the campaign for Safe cosmetics earlier, and that has had incredible impacts on shifting perspectives, but also getting toxic chemicals out of product. So what were some of the biggest or most important victories in this campaign and what elements of work felt particularly important from a clean water action perspective? Well, I'll start. This campaign was a lot of fun to work on, and it's about 20 years old, which is amazing. I came in a couple years after I had been kickstarted by a group of environmental health nonprofit organizations, including Clean Water breast Cancer prevention partners, environmental working Group, women's Voices for the Earth, and a couple of other member organizations really showing up for this project and the campaign for Safe Cosmetics. Our primary goal was to really show the lack of regulation and the need for state and federal policy, but also market leadership. And that's why I was so fortunate to be able to do this work with Cindy and others because I really wanted to do the organizing piece and the market side of things in support, in total support. I think of it as a three-legged stool, right? You have an education leg, a market leg, and a policy regulatory policy leg, and you need all of them in order to really shift an industry away from toxic and unsustainable practices into a better direction. The campaign was really dynamic and fun and interesting. I learned a ton from my peers and I learned a lot about the complexities of supply chain, how so many companies in an industry can actually not know what they're using in the product, and it's kind of like this, whether it's willful ignorance or just true ignorance getting passed up and down the value chain and people just pointing fingers in different directions about who would be accountable for what. A lot of companies, especially the smaller companies that we were working with as a part of the campaign leadership, basically a business leadership circle where we were working with these independent beauty and personal care product brands, they would come to us and teach us about how many chemicals can be hiding in fragrance. It was kind of reciprocity like we were learning from our allies who were doing the scientific studies to find out, God, our alls really hiding in nail polish and fragrance. And then we would hear on the market side, yeah, we can't find out what's in fragrance. We're doing our best to push up against the fragrance suppliers so that we can disclose and we can't. We're hamstrung. So that was a big challenge, but a huge learning opportunity, and I think for me really shaped how I approached the work, not only in beauty, the beauty industry, which I went into after I left the campaign. I became the first hire at Beautycounter and developed the ingredient selection process, the restricted substance list that we called the never list, but also just our work on advocacy and on all things mission related. And then I continued that work in other places after Beautycounter as well. But it really helped me to understand how complicated this is and how much transparency disclosure is related to the conversation. And I think Mia's insights are unique because I don't know very many other people who have walked a mile in the shoes of organizers and advocates and chain makers on the public advocacy side, and also helped to be a leader within the industry. So that perspective is really important and really unique. And for me, this was an amazing campaign because I am drawn to conversations that help bring new people into the movement as clean water is a mantra. Jenny, you'll probably smile when I say this. There's strength in numbers, and of course there's strength in diversity and there's strength in a public voice and bringing more people to that conversation who really had no idea that there might possibly be lead in lipstick or formaldehyde and baby shampoo, making that very concrete, very accessible and fun. This was really some of the things that I liked best about the work because it was a way to personalize the message everybody use. Everybody uses soap or toothpaste or not everybody uses makeup, and there's a whole section we could talk about around the intersections with society's views on beauty, and that's also very compelling to think about. But for me, it was the fact that this work was such a clear pathway for young people, for people who have gone through a cancer experience and are really concerned about being exposed to toxic chemicals for people who know that say BPA is a rough chemical and are just looking for tools to avoid exposure and to raise their voices for a healthier tomorrow, a sane or future where people don't have to be reading labels to avoid health threats. So for me, it was the intersections with all of those creative chemistry tools. I saw this meme the other day that it said that everything is art. What you choose to wear, how you choose to frame a sentence, the postage stamps you choose, if you're sending out a letter, all of that is art. I think it's art to think about how you connect with people in a post covid world around issues, that it will take a movement and a mountain to make change with figuring out how to build that people power is I learn something new every day still about that. So this campaign really fit that model, and it was also so clearly intersecting with materials that we're putting on our bodies and also flushing down the drain and entering the aquatic system right away. So concerns about particularly persistent and long lasting chemicals and what that does to our health and how it can enter the aquatic food chain and the web of life really, that was a uniquely cool thing about this project. Yeah, I agree with all that, and I would add that the other two things that are not uncommon in other campaigns, but that I think were made particularly salient in the campaign for Safe cosmetics work was exposures to women of color and the unequal exposures that they face because not only the kind of, as Cindy was kind of I think alluding to the toxic messaging around what is beautiful, but there was, when we started this work, it was around 2000 6, 7, 8, and it was still not commonplace to talk about why natural hair is a right and is beautiful, and the workplace was still kind of expecting people to be straightening their hair or even potentially lightening their skin, maybe not the workplace, but there was a stronger cultural assumption, and this very doubly toxic, toxic messaging and toxic chemical usage that was really much more prevalent. It's still something that we all need to be addressing, but the campaign and the work of a lot of other women of color that have been organizing on the issue, I think really helped to make a dent in that, and that is definitely a big win, or we're on the way to that win. Then the other thing is the exposure to vulnerable populations. We know Cindy has mentioned people who are diagnosed with cancer, living with cancer as one very vulnerable population. You mentioned Jenny, your daughter, right? Five-year-old daughter. There are times in life, regardless of where you live or your race, where you are going to be more vulnerable to exposures, and in the womb is one of those times we were talking about exposures to low doses of toxic chemicals or understudied chemicals in a way that was really new, I think. I don't know that anyone else was doing that in the way that we were, which was science backed, but also conversational and importantly without any shame. So you're exposed to toxic chemicals and it is not your fault. Now, that's hard to stomach. That really sucks, but what do we do about it now that we know we worked to pass policy and we worked to move the market? So that was, I think, really important. Yeah, I think you're spot on. I remember, well, one of my favorite moments as I look back on this work was building off of this idea of different people take in information in different ways and vulnerable populations, no exception, obviously really concerned about people who work in the beauty industry, salon workers and what they're exposed to each and every day, different cultures and different products that are really common and used for some cultures and not for others. I remember having a blast working with a Chinese speaking Episcopal church crowd, and we had this very fun, healthy spa party model that I think Mia created and really spearheaded. And one of the things we did in addition to teaching people about toxic chemicals and ways to get involved with changing our laws was to actually have fun and have a spa party, and we worked with men and women on, I think avocado and ginger base face masks that felt culturally to them, like, oh, let's do these because I'm familiar with these ingredients, and opened up this situation where we were in a church with five or six Chinese elder men and women with these green masks on and speaking. I think it was Mandarin in a Chinese dialect, and it is a slice of life and just more ways to meet people where they're at. I think I learned on this campaign than many others. Yeah, it's all about that connection. Of course, from a communications perspective, these are some of my favorite campaigns to work on. Whenever I get an email from Cindy that says, can we do this? I'm like, yes. Whether it was Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, safer Mind, the Store, I loved the communications aspect and just love sharing everything out into the world, and I agree with you. It was serious work, but also a lot of fun. Talk about something else serious right now. PFAS per and polyfluorinated been all over the news lately. P ffo, S contaminates, rainwater drinking Water, breast milk, cosmetics, and more. Can you both talk about your efforts about PFAS and why this is important? So my work has been very specific to the beauty industry on this topic. When I was at Beauty Counter and then more recently at Credo leading Impact work for that clean beauty retailer, we found out that PFAS were contaminating a couple of the products in our assortment via the supply chain. So they were not used as an intentional ingredients. It was always prohibited as an intentional ingredient at Beautycounter and ACC Credo as well wasn't something we were seeing listed or intentionally used, but it's everywhere. Like you just said, Jenny, it's showing up in all of these places that it shouldn't be, and that's because they are so persistent and bioaccumulative. So I worked with brands. These are independent brands that Credo sells. I worked with brands, I worked with scientists, I worked with environmental health advocates and others in the space, including Beautycounter, my colleague at Beautycounter, to really come together in a way that felt urgent. We came together urgently to say, what do we know about where these might be showing up and what can we actually control for? Let's be honest about, we can't say that we're going to be PFAS free. You can't say that. No one can say that in this world because you can find PFAS almost anywhere, unfortunately. So how do we both take responsibility for our industry, but also let everybody know this is not unique to us. This is not just a mascara problem or a foundation problem. You can test your drinking water, your furniture, your house dust. I mean, it's everywhere. That does not absolve us of a responsibility and a possibly can to prevent contamination. But it kind of gets back to, and hopefully this is a good setup for your answer, Cindy. It gets back to the need to turn off the taps in the first place. We need to stop making and using this stuff from the get go. And clean water has been very active on this issue. It's one of those. PFAS is a forever chemical. It's very persistent, so it's an example of something that is hard to clean up and once detected knowledge is power. So there's help there. The bottom line is exactly what Mia said. We need to get PFAS out of commerce, get PFAS out of products, and then we will begin to see reductions in exposure, reductions in contact with the chemical, both inside our workplaces and homes and schools and out in the environment. And there's a lot of hopeful places where work is going on. Just last year, the Clean Water team with many others, including the Strandy family in Minnesota, helped to pass the strongest PFAS phase out bill in the nation and in the world, and that was powered by direct stories of people in Minnesota who had been exposed to PFAS without their consent, without their knowledge, and had devastating personal loss. Amara Strandy fought with her last breath to get this law passed as she was dying from this very rare liver cancer. And the people who love her and were inspired by her have formed a nation of activists who want to make sure that young people like Amara have a healthier future and have a future period. So it's really kind of gut wrenching, and it's also very personal. There are justice elements of this that certainly people shouldn't be exposed to these chemicals just because of their zip code, because of the neighborhood that they're living in that has become a dumping ground for toxic pollution. We have to make sure to be covering all aspects of this, but if y'all remember nothing else about today's discussion, the number one priority is getting safer alternatives into products so that we can dump PFAS because it is a bad actor chemical. It is a chemical that harms all of us at some level, and that's got to stop. Yeah. If you are interested in learning more about the Minnesota PFAS victory, I do have a podcast with Ivana and Jennifer and others, women, women, the Mama Bears, they're called, that worked on this campaign, and you could go to cle.org/podcast or search for Realdo downstream if you want to listen to that episode. It was fantastic chatting with them as it is chatting with you. Both, I think, Jenny, you really hit it. I think one of the things that is most powerful about this work and also most satisfying for me is that there's a lot of women based knowledge and thinking and values that drive this discussion. It's a feminist discussion. It's a discussion about how we use our power to shape the world that our values demand, and it is a life's journey for many of us, and the people we meet along the way are big parts of why we can persist because it is in many ways a sisterhood. A sisterhood of the heart and soul, and that's absolutely how I feel about Mia and about you, Jenny, these amazing lights pushing for change for our families and for everyone's family. Yeah. And now Nora Strand is interning with clean water. And Ana, yeah, I don't know if you've ever met Nora, but Nora is am Mara's sister. She's, I think a senior in high school, and she is one of the bravest, most powerful voices for cancer prevention and for justice that I've seen in a long while. It's a spot of hope for me to see more and more people speaking out and being courageous and brave about their family stories. I mean, it's devastating to lose a sister at any age. It's devastating to lose a sister when you're this young and there's so much of life you should get a chance to experience together that you won't. And I think Nora is a force of nature and will continue to make change as she continues this path. It's incredibly heart wrenching, for sure. Mia, I want to talk a little bit about, you made a big shift at a certain point to work in sustainability issues for companies adopting environmental and ethical approaches. What advances have you been able to lead in these companies making voluntary commitments to safer ingredients and packaging? Yeah, I guess that might've felt like a big shift moving from the nonprofit advocacy side to market side, but for me, it felt like a very natural progression, and it's where I've spent the vast majority of my career. So really finding startups or relatively early stage companies that have an appetite to really be industry leaders, and then creating that strategy and that culture that will allow for that to evolve. That's what I have been doing mostly in beauty and personal care, but also regarding packaging. And more recently, I just accepted a new opportunity at a pet food company, which definitely feels like a big departure from beauty, but for me, so much of the same. So much of the same challenges and opportunities and passions are there. Yes, it's a very different space, but it's even more, even less regulated beauty was or is. It's interestingly similar to beauty in that it's really diverse and really ranges across the country, across demographics, red, blue, coastal, Midwest. A lot of people are using these products, and I've learned I'm super new to this role as the Chief Impact officer at Ollie, which is a human grade fresh dog food company with a really incredible attention to quality ingredients that are human grade and really clean. But now I'm there to add these other layers around safety, as we've talked about, and paying attention to needing more of a restricted substances point of view and operations, and also most importantly, the sustainability issues. Most, I don't say most importantly because it trumps it, but because it's so material for this space, there are 70 million dog households in the United States. I'm one of them. Me too, me too. Huge number. Here we go. And a lot of the people buying the food for these animals have no idea if the claims mean anything, if it's nutritionally accurate, what does this seal mean on the side of the bag? Is there any sort of animal welfare, safety, sustainability, commitment? Can I recycle this thing when I'm done? The gamut of questions from the beginning of sourcing the ingredients all the way to the end of disposal. There's a lot of environmental impact and there's a lot of questions about the stuff you're buying and feeding to your furry family member. So I'm really excited to be in that space and to bring all the passion and the insights that I've gained in the work that we've already talked about in this podcast together, bring that to a new space. So yeah, it's exciting. That's awesome. Congratulations. Yeah. I have a pet, she's actually her birthday's this weekend. She'll be eight. She's a big black golden retriever, but I'll check out your company. I'm always interested. Yeah, Ali is the name of the company and I'm super excited about what we're going to make happen. And. There's so many name pets with cancer, so I mean, there's clearly something going on, right? I mean, it's just kind of terrifying. We actually are launching for Earth Month, which is when this podcast is airing a pets for clean water. So we focused on our Earth Month campaign talking about our furry friends and how important our focus is on clean water for our pets. But yeah, obviously food as well. So what's next for you? Both? What are some exciting things you'll be working on ahead? Well, for me, we are diving forward on efforts to continue to fight toxic chemicals. I think one of the big spaces that Mia referenced is looking at packaging and particularly poison plastics. There's a big campaign that we've just launched in partnership with mine store that's calling on Home Depot to phase out PVC packaging, PVC, poly vinyl chloride being considered the poison plastic because of the particularly harmful chemicals that make it up and to begin looking at phasing out PVC based products. So that's one of the big passions for me right now is looking at packaging and plastics and toxic chemicals and where they all come together and how we can push for safer alternatives together and reduce single use plastics. Yeah, those are really important next steps. I think that that's amazing and important. I can't believe we're still talking about PVC needing to get PVC out of the chain, but yes, let's do it. Let's make it happen. And I've already shared that I, I'm, I hope to disrupt the pet industry. That's what I have access to. Woo. Go Mia. Woohoo. Bri and I are cheering you on. Edith and I as well. My dog's Edith. So we like to end our podcast with a quick call to action. How can people get involved and take action right now? Well, I would have a general call to action, and that is really voting with your dollars to support brands that are really trying to do a better job when it comes to reducing the use of toxic or untested mystery chemicals. This can be really hard sometimes to navigate, but clean water is obviously one great source of information, but regarding toxic chemical use and unsustainable materials, there are a lot of claims, there's a lot of greenwashing. But with some practice and using some online tools and just some sleuthing about seeing when ingredients are disclosed or if claims are backed up by seals certifications, if they have the endorsement of nonprofit organizations that you care about, those are some helpful ways. And we hear often you can't shop your way out of this problem. And I totally agree. It's not like if you have the access and the financial means to buy only organic produce or only X certified personal care products, it doesn't mean that you're somehow better or superior or that you've shopped your way into a place where you're not going to be exposed to toxic chemicals. We're all exposed, but if we don't show, if we don't, not only do our very best to reduce our exposure where we do have control in food, personal care products, pet food, that's an important piece of the puzzle to reducing our own exposure. But then also we have to continue to show the momentum for these products and these brands that are putting in that extra effort because it's just traditional supply and demand. Those segments of the market will continue to grow when we reward them with our business and vote with our dollars. And Cindy mentioned earlier that we need to show innovation and we need to show the need and the use case for safer materials. We're not going to be able to do that if we don't have a strong market story. And chemical companies are still right now, they're incentivized by, unfortunately, by government policies, but also by like, Hey, I've been making this thing this chemical for a long time and it's really highly functional and it does a great job. And most of my clients still like it because it's case is. They're going to continue to do that and have business be status quo. And then fortunately, status quo is often toxic until we really show not only consumer demand by people raising their voices, but the actual market demand, the dollars need to be there. Yeah, I could not agree more. I think the other on-ramp for taking action would be to go to Clean Water's website and click on the sign up button. This is an election year. It is going to matter more than ever to be an informed voter and to know who are the pro environment candidates in your world, in your community, who are standing up for the values you care about. And we'd really like to help make sure that this election season, everyone knows how to vote for pro-environment candidates. So please sign up and be part of the conversation and you'll learn more about some of the exciting work that is happening along the way. We're going to stay in touch with Mia Davis and other folks who are changing the course of history for our safety and for those we love. Well, thank you so much, Cindy and Mia. It's been such a pleasure learning all about you, your work, your stories, your inspiring Women power. Of course, we're recording during Women's History month, so it's fitting that we're here right now. So like Cindy said, to learn more about Clean Water Action, visit clean water.org and you can support our work as well. We are a nonprofit. You can click on Donate to become a member of Clean Water Action. You'll get emails from us, like Cindy said, it's election year. We can email you our campaigns, our actions, your support, helps to keep our engines running and allows us to continue to fight for healthier communities, clean water, and a more just world. For all, be sure to subscribe to Clean Water Actions podcast. We all live downstream available on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, wherever all your favorite podcast streaming up are. That's where we are. Just search for we all live downstream. Mia and Cindy, thank you so much. This was one of my favorite podcasts. Just want to say a quick goodbye to you both and bye to everyone listening. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jenny. Thank you, Mia. Bye now.