FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Toxic wastes have no place in our food supply
PCC Natural Markets "sounds the alarm"
Seattle, WA (Sept. 28, 2001) — PCC Natural Markets is petitioning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to close the loopholes that allow toxic wastes to be "recycled" into fertilizer used on food crops.
PCC's petition follows revelations by Seattle Times reporter and five-time Pulitizer Prize nominee, Duff Wilson, in his new book "Fateful Harvest." Wilson chronicles how toxic wastes from mining, steel mills, pulp mills, and other industries are repackaged as fertilizer and used on food crops and backyard gardens across the nation. These wastes contain dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, dioxin, and other poisons. Currently, it's legal to dump toxic waste this way. Wilson hopes "Fateful Harvest" will begin a movement to demand strict regulation of fertilizers.
PCC Natural Markets is hosting a three-store tour by Wilson to help "sound the alarm." Each two-hour appearance encourages shoppers to engage in discussion and become involved. To launch Wilson's PCC tour and to celebrate his first PCC appearance Saturday morning, October 13 at PCC Greenlake, nine free review copies of "Fateful Harvest" will be given to the first nine people in line at 9 a.m. to read and review for PCC. PCC Natural Markets will serve complimentary coffee, tea, and fresh-baked scones to those waiting in line beginning at 8:45 a.m.
As a consumer-owned natural foods cooperative, PCC advocates the consumer's right to know what's in our food and the right to an informed choice. As part of Wilson's PCC tour, PCC Natural Markets is encouraging concerned consumers to send letters to the EPA urging:
- Nationwide hearings on the practice of recycling hazardous wastes into fertilizers.
- A ban on the use of any hazardous wastes, including dioxin-laden waste, in any fertilizer.
- Eliminate a loophole that allows hazardous steel-mill waste to be turned into any fertilizer.
- Eliminate an exemption for mining wastes used to make micro-nutrient or any fertilizer product.
- Adopt full reporting and tracking systems, including labeling requirements so consumers know what hazardous wastes are being made into fertilizer and what toxics they may contain.
Wilson's PCC book tour, personal appearances and discussions are scheduled for:
- Saturday morning October 13, 9 a.m. to 12 noon at PCC Greenlake
- Sunday afternoon October 14, 12 to 2 p.m. at PCC Issaquah
- Friday evening October 26, 7 to 9 p.m. at PCC Kirkland
Comments on "Fateful Harvest"
"This is Erin Brockovich squared. An industry behaves with supreme irresponsibility, and a local resident sets out to do something about it. Read it now so you'll be ready for the movie.
— Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
"Duff Wilson has documented a horrifying tale of toxic waste turned into fertilizer that is contaminating the food supply. This is efficiency gone mad. Coupled with a corrupt system willing to turn poisons into profit, it makes unwitting victims of us all. What I always wonder is what the bosses of these companies eat. Perhaps they are more highly evolved and simply live on their own press releases. Woe to the rest of us who need clean food."
— Nichols Fox, author of Spoiled: Why Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It