The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Girl, 11, leads fights for environment
A glob of liquid white glue, a dash of borax and warm water makes slime, Madhvi Chittoor knows. A bit of dye — blue and yellow makes green, of course — doesn’t hurt either.
Hydrogen sulfate and tin chloride mixed in a petri dish will grow tin dendrites — metallic, crystalline structures — if there’s a bit of electricity to spark the chemical reaction.
“It’s literally growing right in front of your eyes,” Chittoor said, sliding the petri dish across her family’s tile floor, her eyes wide behind protective goggles.
But what’s the recipe to phase out the sale of PFAS — forever chemicals linked to cancer and birth defects — in Colorado? The 11-year-old Chittoor is still learning and working with lawmakers to find out.
Chittoor, who lives with her mother and father in Arvada, is among proponents of House Bill 1345, currently under consideration by the state legislature, and one of the reasons state Rep. Lisa Cutter said she introduced it in the first place.
Before speaking with Chittoor earlier last summer, Cutter said in a March announcement that she was familiar with the chemicals, found in cookware, fabrics, cosmetics, firefighting foams and more. But Chittoor strongly encouraged the lawmaker to draft and propose legislation on the topic.
Cutter said that she often works with people who want her to introduce legislation, but when someone as young as Chittoor approaches her, that stands out.
“I do this work, particularly environmental work, largely
because of young people like Madhvi,” Cutter said during a House committee hearing earlier this month.
“She really, really does believe in doing these things for the planet and does have that light inside her,” Cutter said.
Already the sixth grader has enjoyed some success at the statehouse. Previously she supported a law phasing in a ban of single-use plastics, like plastic bags, and polystyrene containers from most retail businesses and restaurants. Gov. Jared Polis gave her a pen he used last summer to sign that bill.
She’s also currently supporting another proposal — House Bill 1348 — that would tighten chemical regulations for the oil and gas industry.
“Children like me, we do not want products and conveniences that pollute our aquifers, drinking water, soil, air, food and cause dangerous diseases,” Chittoor
said to a House committee this month. “What we want is a happy, healthy life.”
Chittoor has always been a bright and precocious child, her mother, Lalitha Chittoor, said.
She gravitates toward whatever catches her eye. She’s less interested in competing than learning, creating, exercising her mind.
Then, a 2016 documentary from CNN, called “Plastic island” caught her attention. The 14-minute documentary focuses on the Midway Atoll, littered with plastic, and the albatrosses that live there, sometimes mistaking the trash for food.
Madhvi Chittoor, far from 10 at the time, dove into environmental activism.
She describes her vision of a world without pollution and contamination. Serene waters.
“It’s almost a perfect world,” Madhvi Chittoor said.
She has not only met and worked with Colorado lawmakers and governors — she worked with former Gov. John Hickenlooper to declare April 2018 as Plastic and Styrofoam Pollution Awareness Month — but she’s also met with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Sometimes she’ll hit a speed bump. Or legislation she supports will be voted down. That happened last year when lawmakers killed a bill that would have forced manufacturers to support consumers looking to repair things like phones or electronic wheelchairs rather than buying new ones.
“That’s when I go take a break, walk outside, go to a park, meditate,” Madhvi Chittoor said.
Although it failed last year, that bill is once more under consideration by the legislature.
“I’m discouraged temporarily but I come back,” she said.
And she’ll continue to come back. After all she’s fighting for her future, for the future of her classmates, for those that haven’t yet been born.