Kockazatos.hu (“hazardous.hu”) - information on hazardous substances
In 2010 we launched a large-scale project, also new in the life of Ökotárs: to create the Kockazatos.hu – Information Portal on Environmental Health. The website was created with the aim to provide accurate and authoritative information in plain language about hazardous (or so believed) chemicals occurring in our everyday environment (construction materials, furniture, clothing, technical articles, and food). The centerpiece of the portal is a database, which collects and presents information about the most commonly occurring materials in a question-and-answer format. These info-sheets, among others, answer the following questions:
- What is the substance used for, where and why it occurs in our environment?
- What kind of health effects does it have, what are the supporting scientific findings?
- How dangerous is the substance, taking into account exposure and risk levels?
- How can it be avoided? What are (if there are) the less harmful alternatives?
The broader public should be informed about hazardous chemicals and their effects, and there is an obvious interest in them, however, until now there has been no reliable information available in Hungarian, beyond those aimed at (and comprehensible only for) the narrow expert circles. At the same time, several foreign and domestic institutes and organizations are dealing with the effects of chemicals, and they are operating public databases as well. Thus, our descriptions about the chemicals were compiled based on these international and local databases and other professional resources. The content was developed in a unique civic-state-academic cooperation: the collection and processing of the raw information was conducted by students and professors of the St István University, while their checking and editing of the professional content was done by experts of the National Institute of Chemical Safety, the National Institute of Environmental Health and the Clean Air Action Group.
Besides providing articulate information online, our program aimed to help in other ways too. In cooperation with The National Institute of Chemical Safety, we organized a nationwide roadshow for health visitors to provide information on the subject for the most affected social groups, too.