Anti-Teflon Campaign in the Montreal Region

The anti-teflon campaign was started out by two Management students as a project for a Social Context of Business Class.

My classmate and I have always felt strongly about the use of chemicals in everyday life, that cause serious illnesses and harm our environment. Recently a news story caught our eye about the illnesses experienced by workers in the DuPont factories, and in the communities around the production plant.

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124363

We both thought that in this day and age, especially with the scientific knowledge and research that is available to corporations there must be some awareness by the company about these effects, and surely there must be healthier and more sustainable alternatives. So when the it came to choosing a topic for this project we immediately chose to research Teflon, our main goal being to minimize the use of Teflon in restaurants and in everyday life, and to raise public awareness about the hazards of the substance.



In order to achieve this goal we created a plan for the semester:

1. Conduct extensive research on Teflon, and try to obtain an interview with a neutral healthcare professional.

- thus far in our research we have found that most studies are done by DuPont themselves, and their results are inconclusive.

2. Find out which restaurants in the Montreal area use Teflon cookware.

- internet, phone, personal interviews with managers

3. Contact local radio stations, and newspapers, as well as our school publications to get the word out

- the purpose is to educate the public about the health and environmental dangers that Teflon poses, because in reality most people who we have discussed this issue with had no idea how harmful Teflon really is.

4. Contact local government representatives to get an official emblem approved

- this emblem would appear on restaurants that do not use Teflon cookware, giving consumers the option to be more health and environmentally conscious

5. Once we have the emblem we would distribute it to restaurants in the Montreal area

It is our hope to expand this initiative to other Canadian cities in the future.