This month is Breast Cancer Awareness month, when you’ll see pink ribbons on everything from razors to raisins. These pink ribbons are supposed to raise awareness and show support for women with breast cancer, but not all of those pink ribbon products are really looking out for women’s health. 

That’s why we’ve joined our friends at Breast Cancer Action in their 2016 Think Before You Pink® campaign, “Toxic Isn’t Tasty,”¹ calling on Bee Sweet Citrus (the makers of Sweetheart mandarins®)  and Wonderful Citrus (the U.S.’s largest citrus grower and the company behind Halos® mandarins), to stop using oil wastewater to irrigate their citrus.

Using oil wastewater to irrigate our food has not been proven safe—neither for the health of the public nor for the health of farm workers, who are exposed firsthand to these chemicals. Oil companies use toxic, cancer-causing chemicals in their operations and then supply their wastewater to irrigate crops.² Yet companies like Bee Sweet and Wonderful continue to use it!

Both of these companies claim to care about women with breast cancer and are using pink ribbons to sell their products—all while failing to protect farm workers and the public from the potential health risks of using oil wastewater to irrigate their citrus. Breast Cancer Action calls this pinkwashing.

This has to stop. Tell Bee Sweet and Wonderful Company to ditch oil wastewater now >>

Big Oil has taken advantage of California farmers’ desperate need for water and is selling them oil wastewater at a cheap rate for irrigation. The use of oil wastewater for food irrigation is expanding rapidly in California,³ which is the U.S.’s third largest oil-extracting state and produces over a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits.⁴

This is an urgent food safety and public health issue because of the potentially hazardous chemicals associated with all oil extraction processes. Companies shouldn’t put their profits before our health. 

Tell Bee Sweet Citrus and Wonderful Company to stop watering our food with oil wastewater >>

Thanks for everything you do,
The Center for Food Safety team

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1. http://thinkbeforeyoupink.org/past-campaigns/toxic-isnt-tasty/ 
2. http://www.psehealthyenergy.org/site/view/1306 
3. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/07/oil-wastewater-fruits-vegetables-farms 
4. https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/

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