Jessica Alba on Babies and Chemicals

Q: Why did you go to D.C. to lobby for the Safe Chemicals Act last year?

A: Basically, it’s leg­is­la­tion that hasn’t been reformed in more than 30 years. It’s about reg­u­lat­ing chem­i­cals in every­day prod­ucts. There are more than 80,000 chem­i­cals in the U.S. mar­ket­place right now — only five have been banned. In Europe, 1,100 are banned because they’re not safe for humans. When they’re cre­at­ing and sell­ing new chem­i­cals, com­pa­nies aren’t think­ing about how they affect people’s health — it’s about their bot­tom line.

Q: You had asthma as a kid, right? Does that make you worry more about air pollution?

A: I grew up with asthma and aller­gies, among other health issues. That forced me from a very early age to look at my envi­ron­ment in a dif­fer­ent way. I don’t take things at face value. I don’t auto­mat­i­cally trust the con­glom­er­ates. I ques­tion processes, I ques­tion ingre­di­ents, I look for a bet­ter way. I always try to find a more nat­ural and holis­tic approach before just slap­ping on a Band-Aid. Better to pre­vent some­thing bad from hap­pen­ing in the first place.

Q: We assume that you’re the only woman who’s topped Maxim’s ”Hot 100″ list and also tes­ti­fied before Congress about envi­ron­men­tal leg­is­la­tion. How do you walk that balance?

A: [Laughs] I don’t know. I don’t even really think about it in those terms. The mar­ket­ing I’ve done to pro­mote TV and film has been won­der­ful because it’s given me a plat­form to be able to speak about things that are impor­tant to me. 

Q: What’s the main mes­sage you try to deliver about the environment?

A: That there’s a cause and effect to every action you take. So all of your pur­chas­ing and con­sum­ing choices are going to affect the planet and the peo­ple around you in some way, be it pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive. Just being a thought­ful, con­sci­en­tious con­sumer is the first step. 

Q: Do you get over­whelmed think­ing about how many chem­i­cals kids are exposed to?

A: I felt over­whelmed as a par­ent at first. But now I know that there are steps we can take. You can really change the health of your envi­ron­ment by doing any­thing from buy­ing fresh, organic food to choos­ing the paint and car­pet­ing in your home. Just under­stand­ing the qual­ity of those prod­ucts and what the poten­tial haz­ards are. I’ve taken steps to elim­i­nate as much that’s haz­ardous as I could from my home. So I feel great about the envi­ron­ment now that I’ve been able to cre­ate for my fam­ily. I know it’s possible.

Click here to read the rest of this arti­cle at Sierra magazine.