Pizza boxes to pans: The Netherlands proposes EU-wide ban on PFAS

DutchNews, December 19, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

The Netherlands is calling for an EU-wide ban on products containing PFAS – toxic chemicals used in a wide range of manufacturing processes, from pizza boxes to non-stick frying pans. 

PFAS do not break down naturally and have been linked to several types of cancer and other health problems. Most, according to EU documents, are considered moderately to highly toxic, particularly for children’s development.

Junior environment minister Stientje van Veldhoven will formally present her proposal to EU ministers on Thursday afternoon, and has already won the support of Germany, Denmark and Sweden, the Volkskrant reported on Thursday. 

The presence of high amounts of PFAS in Dutch soil and water had led to a number of building projects being halted since the introduction of new limits in July. 

However, officials have since increased the maximum permitted concentration up from 0.1 microgrammes per kilo to 0.8 microgrammes in an effort to get construction moving again. 

According to broadcaster NOS, the Netherlands is not calling for maximum limits to the amount of PFAS permitted in soil. 

Rather, the aim of the proposal is to stop the production of PFAS at source and the stimulate the development of alternatives, NOS said.

Related Articles:

Ministers aim to relax PFAS pollution rules after new limit halts earth-moving work


“Afraid of Love” + “What’s Wrong Today”, Laguna Hills, California, US(2), Dec 9, 2018 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

• Stagnation of the current US Politics: Compassioned (US) leaders will arise in the future
• Shortage of fresh/drinking water: Invention to make salt from salt water magnetic and remove it with water desalination process in high volumes
• Pollution on Earth: 1 - Stop killing the environment! / 2 - The rise of temperature on Earth is “temporary” and is part of the "regular" Watercycle.
• Replacement of current fossil energy source: Use of magnetics based (small/big) engines to produces electricity / free energy
• Plastic pollution in the oceans: Invention to remove the plastics gradually from the oceans

Dutch inventors roll out river plastic clean-up barge
Ocean Cleanup move to the Pacific, ‘a milestone’ says Dutch inventor

Photo: The Ocean Cleanup

Contaminated eggs scandal spreads from Europe to Asia

Yahoo - AFP, Danny KEMP, August 11, 2017

Contaminated eggs have been found in at least 11 countries since the scare
went public on August 1, with millions of eggs and egg-based products being
pulled from supermarket shelves

A scandal involving eggs contaminated with insecticide spread to 15 EU countries, Switzerland and as far away as Hong Kong on Friday as the European Commission called for a special meeting on the growing crisis.

Ministers and food safety chiefs from around the European Union are set to meet on September 26 in a bid to get countries to stop "blaming and shaming" each other over the scare involving the chemical fipronil.

Millions of eggs have been pulled from supermarket shelves across Europe and dozens of poultry farms closed since the discovery of fipronil, which can harm human health, was made public on August 1.

The issue has sparked a row between Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, the three countries at the epicentre of the crisis, about how long they knew about the problem.

"Blaming and shaming will bring us nowhere and I want to stop this," Vytenis Andriukaitis, the European Commissioner for health and food safety, told AFP as he announced the meeting.

"We need to work together to draw the necessary lessons and move forward instead."

European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said that "this is not, let's be clear, a crisis meeting" and it is being held next month to get "distance to the events".

Fipronil is commonly used to get rid of fleas, lice and ticks from animals but is banned by the European Union from use in the food industry.

The EU insists there is no threat to human health, but the World Health Organization (WHO) says that when eaten in large quantities it can harm people's kidneys, liver and thyroid glands.

Dutch admit 'errors'

Brussels said the 15 affected EU countries were Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Sweden, Britain, Austria, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Denmark, along with non-EU Switzerland.

But in a sign the crisis is going global, Brussels also announced that Hong Kong had received some tainted eggs from the Netherlands, with the southern Chinese city becoming the first place in Asia known to be affected.

As well as dealing with the immediate food safety issue, the EU is also seeking to calm tempers over the egg row after a series of divisive crises in the bloc in recent years, from Brexit to migration.

Belgium earlier this week accused the Netherlands of knowing about the fipronil eggs since November 2016 and failing to notify other countries.

On Thursday Dutch Health Minister Edith Schippers admitted the government had made "errors" but denied a cover-up.

Dutch Health Minister Edith Schippers has admitted that 

mistakes were made in handling the eggs crisis

"We were well aware of a report of the presence of fipronil in the pens of egg-laying hens in November 2016, but there was no indication at the time that fipronil itself was found in the eggs," said Schippers.

A Dutch whistleblower separately said he had told the authorities that Chickfriend, the Dutch company at the centre of the scandal, was illegally using fipronil in the treatment of lice in chicken pens in The Netherlands.

"I am the anonymous whistleblower," Nick Hermens told the NPO public broadcaster.

A Belgian company, Poultry Vision, has said it provided Chickfriend with the chemical.

Dutch and Belgian investigators carried out coordinated raids on several premises on Thursday, arresting two people at Chickfriend.

However, Belgium itself has been forced to admit that it knew about fipronil in eggs back in June but kept it secret for nearly two months because of a criminal investigation.

Fresh discoveries

Fresh discoveries of contaminated eggs have continued daily.

Denmark said on Friday it had found two tonnes of fipronil-tainted scrambled eggs, bringing the total of contaminated eggs to 22 tonnes, mainly from Belgium.

Poland said it had discovered about 40,000 eggs imported from Germany.

French Agriculture Minister Stephane Travert said that since April the country had sold nearly 250,000 contaminated eggs, imported from Belgium and the Netherlands, but the risk for consumers was "very low" given French eating habits.

The food scare is one of the biggest to hit Europe since the 2013 horsemeat scandal when equine meat was falsely labelled and mis-sold.

Previous food scandals include contamination of chickens and eggs by dioxin in 1999, which began in Belgium, and mad-cow disease -- cattle feed contaminated by the ground-up carcasses of animals infected with a deadly brain disorder -- which ran from roughly 1986-1998 and started in Britain.

Related Article:

Dutch egg probe widens to chicken meat tests

Diesel cars break emission limits in real-world tests: TNO

DutchNews, September 27, 2015

A 2013 report by Dutch research institute TNO showed that diesel car systems in the Netherlands were adapted to appear as if the vehicles were less polluting than they actually were, current affairs programme Nieuwsuur said on Sunday. 

The report, which did not name the manufacturers involved, said the nitrogen oxide emissions from ‘a number’ of diesel cars which officially met Euro 6 emission standards were higher than would have been expected in practical situations. 

The reports said that systems had been installed so that ‘they operated during functional driving conditions in a test but in real-world situations were (partly) switches off for economic reasons’, Nieuwsuur reported. 

The TNO research was carried out on behalf the transport ministry. A ministry spokesman told Nieuwsuur that the ministry was not aware of the deliberate manipulation of the emissions data. In addition, the ministry had not read into the report the claim that the systems had been adapted or switched off, the spokesman said. 

Real world

In a 2015 English-language summary of four reports into diesel car emissions, TNO stated: ‘almost all Euro 6 vehicles that were measured emitted significantly more NOx in real-world conditions on the road than during a type-approval test in the laboratory.’ 

The report continued: ‘It is striking that in real-world conditions the NOx emissions are more than eight times higher than the type-approval value.’ TNO is campaigning to have real-world conditions incorporated into official emissions tests, which are currently lab based. 

Two German newspapers said on Sunday Volkswagen’s own staff and one of its suppliers warned years ago about software designed to thwart emissions tests. Last week, Volkswagen acknowledged installing software in diesel engines designed to hide their true emissions of toxic gasses.

US government has expanded its investigation of pollution-skirting devices in

 diesel vehicles to other manufacturers after Volkswagen admitted it used them

to thwart environmental standards (AFP Photo/Thomas Samson)

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German nuclear fuel to USA?

Germany authorities are contemplating the return of unused nuclear fuel kept in 152 containers to the United States. A storage permit at the former Jülich research facility in western Germany is nearing expiry.

Deutsche Welle, 8 July 2014

The German DPA news agency said on Tuesday that Chancellor Angela Merkel's government was considering the "likely option" of sending leftover nuclear fuel back to the US. The fuel would go specifically to the Savannah River reprocessing site in South Carolina.

In the wake of Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Germany reaffirmed its plan to phase out German nuclear power generation by 2022 and switch to renewable methods such as solar and wind power generation.

Last week, the atomic supervisory agency of Germany's regional state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) ordered the removal of the fuel - 288,161 tennis-ball-sized units - from interim storage at Jülich by September.

The small but controversial "pebble" reactor, located between Aachen and Cologne, operated from 1967 until it was deactivated in 1988 - in a period when industry decided in favor of other nuclear plant designs.

In April, the German news magazine Spiegel reported that the dismantling of the Jülich "pebble" reactor was difficult because it was contaminated with cesium and strontium, making it one of the highest ever contaminated reactors.

Storage permit nearing expiry

Approval for the current on-site storage expires on July 31.

DPA said Germany's federal research ministry was instrumental in the April signing of a statement-of-intent with the US Department of Energy for the fuel's return to the US.

The Department of Energy told DPA that the US was not obligated to take back the Jülich fuel but could do so to prevent the proliferation of nuclear-capable material.

'Systematic secrecy,' say Greens

On Tuesday, the spokeswoman of nuclear issues among opposition Greens in the German Bundestag parliament, Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, accused the federal research ministry of practicising systematic secrecy on the issue.

Greenpeace nuclear expert Heinz Smital said shipping the fuel would be too risky and would undermine a cross-party consensus turned into law in January that Germany must find its own geologically suitable disposal site rather than using one abroad.

The order to vacate the interim storage site [at Jülich] was an unlawful attempt by Germany to "discard its responsibility," Smital said.

US watchdog rejects Jülich leftovers

DPA quoted Tom Clements of the Organization Savannah River Site Watch as saying that it did not want foreign atomic waste in South Carolina. The "correct way for Germany" was to use its law to find its own local means of disposal, he said.

In 2010, former German environment minister Norbert Röttgen stopped the transfer of 951 fuel rods from a former East German research reactor to Majak in Russia. Those rods remain at another NRW interim storage site, Ahaus.

Related Articles:

"Fast-Tracking" - Feb 8, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Reference to Fukushima / H-bomb nuclear pollution and a warning about nuclear  (> 20 Min)

Member states back new EU tobacco rules

Law will come into force in May.

European Voice, Cynthia Kroet, 14 March 2014

The European Union's member states today (14 March) gave final approval to a revision of rules on tobacco products that tighten the content and marketing of both cigarettes and electronic cigarettes.

The European Parliament had already given its approval in a vote last month so today's decision by the Council of Ministers – given without discussion at a meeting of transport ministers – means the new law can enter into force in May. Member states will then have two years to bring their national legislation into line with the revised EU law. This means that most of the new rules will apply from early 2016.

Tonio Borg, the European commissioner for health, said: “By ensuring that tobacco products look and taste like tobacco products, the new rules will help to reduce the number of people who start smoking in the EU.”

The tobacco manufacturer Philip Morris countered that: “The new rules will do little to improve public health and will make the EU less competitive, pushing even more consumers to the unregulated black market in tobacco.”

The new legislation requires bigger health warnings on packets of cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco. All characterising flavours, such as menthol, will be prohibited as will the sale of packs with fewer than 20 cigarettes.

The most controversial update concerned electronic cigarettes. Under the revised law, it is up to member states to decide whether to regulate e-cigarettes as medicinal (if they help smokers to quit) or as tobacco products. If the latter is the case, they will be restricted to the same rules as normal cigarettes.

Member states can prohibit internet sales of tobacco and related products. The new legislation introduces an EU-wide tracking and tracing system to help authorities fight illegal trade.

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13 million deaths avoidable in China by 2050 with smoking ban: report

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy,Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) -(Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Swedish salmon sales 'breached EU ban' over dioxins

BBC News, 8 May 2013

Related Stories 

• Horse DNA in 5% of EU-tested beef

The salmon issue again highlights the
complexity of Europe's food chain

Firms in Sweden have sold about 200 tonnes of Baltic salmon in Europe despite an EU ban targeting toxic chemicals in fish, officials say.

The ban does not apply to Baltic salmon sold to domestic consumers in Sweden, Finland and Latvia. But the sellers are required to give advice about safe limits for consumption, set by the EU.

Dioxins found in Baltic herring and salmon prompted the EU ban in 2002.

A French firm imported 103 tonnes of Swedish salmon, but no longer does so.

Pecheries Nordiques told the AFP news agency that its tests had found no problems with the fish, imported in 2011 and 2012. "Nobody told us it was illegal," chief executive Francois Agussol said.

Jan Sjoegren of Sweden's National Food Agency told the BBC that Baltic salmon had also been exported illegally to Denmark and the Netherlands from Sweden.

The agency has alerted the European Commission, which deals with national food safety authorities.

A firm in Karlskrona has been reported to the Swedish customs authorities over the salmon exports, and a firm in Hammaroe is also being investigated, Mr Sjoegren said.

Dioxin hazard

The latest alert about Baltic salmon exports follows a horsemeat contamination scandal in the EU which affected many countries.

"We don't think more salmon is being exported now, but because of the horsemeat scandal we are stepping up action on food fraud," Mr Sjoegren said.

Sweden's National Food Agency says the average intake of dioxins among adult Swedes is well below the "tolerable weekly intake" set by the EU.

Children and young women, it adds, should especially limit their consumption of wild Baltic fish because dioxins pose the most risk to babies and young children.

Dioxins spread by incineration and chemical pollution can accumulate in the body over years and can trigger cancer or reproductive abnormalities.

The European Food Safety Authority says that, on average, Baltic herring and wild Baltic salmon are respectively 3.5 and five times more contaminated with dioxins than non-Baltic herring and farmed salmon.

EU freezes approval of GM crops to 2014

Google – AFP, 22 January 2013 

Genetically modified corn cobs are seen at a field, west of Cairo, on

September 21, 2008 (AFP/File, Khaled Desouki)

BRUSSELS — The European Commission has decided to freeze the approval process for genetically modified food crops through the end of its mandate next year while it works towards an agreement with EU member states.

"The Commission, if it wants, could launch a procedure to authorise the farming of one GM soya and six corn strains... but it won't do so," said Frederic Vincent, a spokesman for Health Commissioner Tonio Borg.

"The authorisations for farming are frozen," he added.

Vincent said the priority of Borg, who only recently took up the post of health commissioner, was to relaunch discussions with member states.

The Commission's approval of GM crops has poisoned relations with a number of the 27 EU members.

Eight countries -- Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Poland -- have adopted provisions that allow them to block the cultivation of GM crops on their territory.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso has not forced the countries to lift their safeguards.

In 14 years, the EU has approved the cultivation of just two types of genetically altered food crops for humans, the Amflora potato developed by German group BASF and MON810 maize developed by global seeds giant Monsanto.

The Amflora potato was a commercial flop, while the renewal of the authorisation of MON810 has been dragging along since 2007.

Vincent said renewal of MON810 was being held up by the Commission's freeze.

However the MON810 can continue to be cultivated in states which allow it until the Commission takes a decision.

Some 50 different genetically modified crops for animal consumption have been approved for use in the EU.

France opens enquiry into claims of Arafat poisoning

Yahoo, Pauline Talagrand, AFP, 28 August 2012 

Palestinian leader Yasser.

(AFP Photo/Abbas Momani)

French prosecutors have opened a murder enquiry into Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's 2004 death near Paris following claims he may have died of polonium poisoning, sources close to the matter told AFP Tuesday.

The probe comes after Arafat's family launched legal action in France last month following reports the veteran Palestinian leader may have died from radioactive polonium.

Arafat's widow Suha and his daughter Zawra lodged a murder complaint on July 31 in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Arafat died at age 75 at a military hospital near Paris in 2004.

"A judicial murder enquiry has been opened, as expected following the complaint from Mrs. Arafat," a source close to the matter told AFP. Another source confirmed the probe had been opened.

The Palestinian Authority hailed the move.

"We welcome this decision and (Palestinian) president Mahmud Abbas has officially asked French President Francois Hollande to help us to investigate the circumstances of the martyrdom of late president Arafat," senior Palestinian official Saeb Erakat told AFP in Ramallah.

Allegations that the Nobel Peace laureate was poisoned were resurrected last month after Al-Jazeera news channel broadcast an investigation in which experts said they found high levels of polonium on his personal effects.

Polonium is a highly toxic substance which is rarely found outside military and scientific circles, and was used to kill former Russian spy turned Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 shortly after drinking tea laced with the poison.

Suha Arafat has said she backs exhuming her late husband's remains from his mausoleum in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

A Swiss radiology lab at the Lausanne University Hospital Centre said on Friday it has received Suha Arafat's go-ahead to test his remains for poisoning by polonium.

French news website Slate.fr on Tuesday published a copy of the medical report into Arafat's death and said his symptoms were not consistent with polonium poisoning.

Arafat was sent to the Percy military hospital in Clamart outside Paris after suffering from nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, acute diarrhea and thrombocytopenia -- an abnormally low amount of platelets in the blood.

Doctors at the hospital conducted a wide range of tests but were unable to determine the exact cause of his illness.

A few days after his arrival in France, Arafat lapsed into a coma and he died on November 11, 2004. No autopsy was conducted.

"The hypothesis of polonium does not stand up to scrutiny," Marcel Francis-Kahn, the former chief of rheumatology at Paris's Bichat hospital, told Slate.fr.

"All experts know that poisoning by radioactive material does not lead to the symptoms seen in Arafat," he said, noting that he also suffered no traditional effects of radiation poisoning such as hair loss and a massive drop in white blood cells.

At the time of Arafat's death, Palestinian officials alleged he had been poisoned by long-time foe Israel, but an inconclusive Palestinian investigation in 2005 ruled out poisoning, as well as cancer and AIDS.

Israel has consistently denied the allegations, accusing Suha Arafat and Palestinian officials of covering up the real reasons for the death of the former leader, who led the struggle for Palestinian statehood for nearly four decades.

Related Articles:

Former Official Denies Israel Poisoned Arafat 

'Polonium would be hardly detectable'

A coffin for Chernobyl

Deutsche Welle, 24 April 2012

The existing sarcophagus on the Chernobyl nuclear power station has long been insecure. Now a new coffin is intended to ensure that the reactor remains safe for centuries.

The official date for the start of construction is April 26, the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl reactor disaster. That's when work should start on a new sarcophagus for Block 4 of the nuclear power station. The existing one was put up in a hurry in the first few months after the accident. 

The explosion in 1986 caused the
world's worst nuclear accident

In April 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant suffered a melt-down and an explosion which led to the release of several tons of radioactive material. The accident was caused by an experiment which went wrong, as well as by a number of serious construction faults in the Soviet RBMK-type reactor.

It is still not known how many people died as a result. The International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Health Organization talk of 4,000 fatal cancers among the emergency staff as a result of exposure to radiation. Environmental organizations like Greenpeace say that this is a trivialization: they estimate the death toll is ten times greater.

Sarcophagus to last 100 years

The existing concrete mantle was already considered to be in danger of collapse in the 90s. The new one should last at least 100 years. A new consortium, Novarka, was founded to carry out the project, including the French Vinci and Bouygues, the German Nukem and Hochtief, and several Ukrainian companies. Novarka won the Ukrainian government contract in 2007, for a project which is expected to cost around a billion euros ($1.32 billion). Much of the money for the "Chernobyl Shelter Fund" (CSF) comes from the European Union, but the US, Canada, Japan, Ukraine and other countries are also contributing. 

The existing mantle is no longer secure

The new sarcophagus will measure 257 meters (281 yards) across and be 109 meters high, and it will weigh 29,000 tonnes. Because of the high level of radiation, the new containment cannot be built directly over the existing one. It will have to be built on a neighboring plot of land and then shunted into its final position.

Construction is set to be completed in summer 2015, but the Ukrainian prime minister, Mykola Asarov, hopes that it will be ready earlier. He told journalists: "We want to solve the problem in one and half years."

Uncertainty about waste disposal

The administration of the power station says that the existing concrete mantle has to be stabilized before construction starts. It says that, once the new sarcophagus is ready, radioactive material from inside the ruined reactor will be recovered and removed.

But the Ukrainian nuclear expert Vladimir Usatenko is skeptical. He points out that no-one has the slightest idea how dangerous the power station and its ruined Block 4 really are. "The information about the amount of remaining fissile material in Block 4 was falsified after the accident," he told DW, "as was all the data about the situation in the power station." All the plans to make the power station safe, he says, are based on uncertain data.

Just a cover up? 

Yuriy Kostenko thinks that the
 new mantle will merely cover up
the problems

Originally all that was intended was to stabilize the existing mantle and remove the radioactive material from Block 4, according to Yuriy Kostenko, former environment minister and head of the Ukrainian delegation which negotiated with the G7 countries in the 90s. That is when talks about securing the reactor started. He told DW that Ukraine had had neither the funding nor the technology to do that. "It's ended up so that, now, all the problems will simply be covered with a new sarcophagus," he says.

In fact, the plan includes the possibility of removing the old mantle sometime in the future, once the new one is in place. That's when the remaining radioactive material would be removed, without allowing any radiation to get into the environment.

Authors: Alexander Sawitzki, Markian Ostaptschuk / mll

Editor: Greg Wiser

Related Article:

Japanese government criticized for downplaying nuclear disaster

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo sever ties with group behind stand-your-ground laws

American Legislative Exchange Council is known for helping to pass laws favoring gun owners and voter ID requirements

guardian.co.uk, Karen McVeigh, Thursday 5 April 2012

Color of Change had criticised both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola over their
 ties to the America Legislative Exchange Council. Photograph: David Levene
 for the Guardian

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have ended their partnerships with a conservative group that supports the spread of restrictive voting laws and stand-your-ground legislation.

The announcements came after campaigners urged consumers to boycott companies linked with the the the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec).

PepsiCo ended its membership in the group in January, but it was first reported by NPR on Thursday

Coca-Cola's announcement that it had also severed ties with the organisation came on Wednesday after Color of Change, the nation's largest African-American advocacy group, urged its members to boycott the company and other member corporations over their links with Alec.

Alec is a nonprofit member organisation whose stated purpose is the advancement of free-market principles, limited government, federalism and individual liberty. It drafts legislation on behalf of its individual and corporate members to develop what it calls "model laws" and sends them to lawmakers.

Its critics, including Color of Change, accuse it of working to disenfranchise minority and low-income voters by supporting the co-ordinated proliferation of voter ID laws which affect these groups.

It is also accused of encouraging up to 20 other states to enact similar measures to Florida's controversial stand-your-ground law.

Rashad Robinson, executive director of Color of Change, said it had been in dialogue with Coca-Cola since last year over the issue. He said: "We welcome Coca-Cola's decision to stop supporting the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization which has worked to disenfranchise African-Americans, Latinos, students, the elderly, the disabled and the poor. We confirmed with Coca-Cola that they are no longer a member of Alec and no longer fund the group in any capacity."

Robinson said that hundreds of their members began calling Coca-Cola on Wednesday morning, and "the company listened to their voices".

"We continue to call on all major corporations to stop supporting voter suppression through Alec. Our members are prepared to hold accountable companies that continue to participate in Alec's attack on voting rights."

More than 85,000 members signed a petition targeting Alec's corporate partners for their role in suppressing the black vote, and 170,000 have signed a petition calling on the department of justice to take over the case of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager fatally shot by a neighbourhood watch volunteer who claimed self defence, arrest his killer and review the police investigation of the case.

In a statement emailed to the Guardian, Coca-Cola confirmed it was ending its relationship with Alec.

Diana Garza Ciarlante, a Coca-Cola spokeswoman, said in the statement: "The Coca-Cola company has elected to discontinue its membership with the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec). Our involvement with Alec was focused on efforts to oppose discriminatory food and beverage taxes, not on issues that have no direct bearing on our business. We have a long-standing policy of only taking positions on issues that impact our company and industry."

On Wednesday, the Center for American Progress published a report on the proliferation of voter ID laws which it said were "hindering voting rights in a manner not seen since the era of Jim Crow".

Last month, leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called on the UN human rights council to investigate the proliferation of restrictive electoral laws.

PepsiCo was a member of Alec for 10 years. In January, according to NPR, a company vice-president told Color Of Change that it would not renew its membership for 2012.

Alec did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

On its website it acknowledges that Florida's stand-your-ground law was a basis for its model legislation but expressed scepticism that the law could apply in the Martin case.

"Florida's 'Stand Your Ground' law was the basis for the American Legislative Exchange Council's model legislation, not the other way around. Moreover, it is unclear whether that law could apply to this case at all. 'Stand Your Ground' or the 'Castle Doctrine' is designed to protect people who defend themselves from imminent death and great bodily harm.

"It does not allow you to pursue another person. It does not allow you to seek confrontation. It does not allow you to attack someone who does not pose an imminent threat. What it does is allow you to defend yourself and your family from immediate and real danger."

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 The Large Families that rule the world