How to expand use of safer, environmentally friendly cleaning products in disadvantaged communities

• Scott LaMar
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Scott LaMar has worked in both radio and television for more than four decades.
  
  Currently, LaMar is the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
  
  Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
  
  In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
  
  LaMar often emcees or moderates local events and has gone as far as California to emcee a national event.
  
  The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
  
  LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
  
  A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.

Man chooses and buys chemical products for a car in a store

aired; October 26th, 2023.

Disadvantaged communities sometimes struggle with making healthy or environmentally friendly choices. Often, it’s because there may not be better choices available to them.

Penn State Hershey’s College of Medicine has been awarded a nearly $1.2 million dollar grant by the Environmental Protection Agency to prevent pollution in disadvantaged areas in Pennsylvania and New York. Environmentally friendly or safer cleaning products will be the focus of the project.

The principal investigator for the project is Dr. Rebecca Bascom, a Professor of Medicine and Public Health Sciences at the Penn State College of Medicine and Theme Lead, Health and the Environment at the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment, who appeared on The Spark Thursday.

Dr. Bascom was asked what makes a product safe or unsafe,”The short answer are features like solubility and reactivity. That’s the chemical terms. We all notice that some things have a strong effect on us. Very irritating right away. So the EPA has done a long cataloging of cleaning products and ranking them by things that are toxic through usually through inhalation. You know, you breathe it in it, it hurts your lungs, hurt your eyes. And also how effective they are at cleaning. So they’re looking for the sweet spot for something that does the job and doesn’t hurt you. And and that’s the label. So the labeling is the safer choice label is a is a really good shorthand summary of a lot of work that’s been done. People just don’t know the label. They don’t know how to use the label. And so one of our projects is to see how people understand that label. When they see the label, what does it mean to them? What does it what does it tell them about choices they can make?”

Bascom described what a successful project will be,”Success will look like a person who doesn’t speak English or who doesn’t read, can be handed a product and do their job cleaning and it’ll be safer.”