Identifying and Reducing Environmental Health Risks of Chemicals in Our Society Workshop Summary (2014) / Chapter Skim
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6 Current Efforts to Reduce the Risk of Chemicals in Our Society
6 Current Efforts to Reduce the Risk of Chemicals in Our Society
Pages 101-130
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From page 101... ...
, described the sustainability, eco-friendly, and green business practices at NIEHS. Castranio, who develops sustainability policies and environmental management goals for NIEHS and is responsible for evaluating the effectiveness of its stewardship initiatives, offered a detailed accounting of exactly how the institute works to reduce the amount of harmful chemicals that it uses and disposes of.
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From page 102... ...
The institute places a great deal of emphasis on sustainability issues and green business practices, and it has had success in those areas, Castranio said. "We have been awarded Green Championship awards from the Department of Health and Human Services for 3 of the last 4 years," she reported.
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From page 103... ...
"There will be some give and take. It is going to be on an individual basis." In looking to reduce the laboratory's use of toxic and harmful chemicals, it was important to not overlook common spaces, Castranio.
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From page 104... ...
To put her talk in context, Jordan explained that Johnson & Johnson has three major divisions -- the pharmaceutical products division, the medical devices division, and a consumer products division -- and that she works in the consumer products division. The goal of Johnson & Johnson's sustainability initiative, which was launched in 2011, is summed up by the slogan, "Caring for a healthy future." In particular, the company's sustainability initiative has three main aims: to promote healthy people and communities; to promote a healthy planet, minimizing waste and conserving finite resources; and to promote healthy business, which the company believes will follow naturally from focusing on healthy people and a healthy planet.
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From page 105... ...
Because the general standard is in the range of 100 to 1,000 parts per million, the company believes its approach to be at least 100 times more sensitive. For each of its suppliers Johnson & Johnson requires independent certification of various aspects of the firm's operations, from conditions on its production floor to its business practices before it will partner with that firm.
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From page 106... ...
"Each product is scored against these," Jordan said, and a product is awarded Earthwards certification if it shows significant improvement over existing products in at least three of the seven areas. "We do not have to achieve certification for every single product," she said, "but we have to score against these.
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From page 107... ...
It takes us 18 months to 2-and-a-half years to reformulate a single product because we go through that five-level safety assurance process for every product that we formulate. We are doing this on a global scale.
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From page 108... ...
We have been trying to work out how to solve that part of the problem. Our thinking is moving toward less about providing details on ingredients that can be misinterpreted and more in terms of driving behavior change and helping consumers ask the right questions as they choose products for themselves and their families." CASE STUDY: DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY The next speaker was Connie Deford, Director of Global Products, Sustainability, and Compliance at Dow Chemical Company.
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From page 109... ...
"We partner closely with our supply chain organization, looking at opportunities to relocate facilities nearer our facilities." They also examine the various ways their products are used, looking for opportunities to move in the direction of greater sustainability. To strengthen its product safety program -- which is another prong of the sustainability effort -- the company uses the prioritization tool developed by the American Chemistry Council (and described in the presentation by Christina Franz in Chapter 4)
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From page 110... ...
In particular, they can help formulators comply with regulations and more stringent health and environmental certification programs. It took significant investment to develop those new surfactants, she said.
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"There were many years of effort expended in looking at an alternative to HBCD," she said. "We screened commercially available products, but in the end, this was a unique chemistry that was identified to replace the material." Significant time, effort, and expense went into development and laboratory testing as well as conducting product certification testing to confirm performance.
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From page 112... ...
Their feedstocks are sometimes hazardous to human health or the environment, the intermediate materials in the processes can also be hazardous, the chemical processes that are used can be high risk, and there can be inappropriate engineering or process controls. Thus, despite the advantages of today's chemical building blocks, there are a variety of reasons to look for greener alternatives.
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For example, he said, people are very concerned about the toxic chemicals in the supply chain, even if the finished products are not hazardous. Green chemistry could remove that problem.
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Catalysis is used somewhere in the supply chain for probably 40 to 50 percent of the chemicals on the market, Constable said. "It is used everywhere, and everything that you use on a daily basis can usually be traced back to some catalytic process." The major metals of concern that are used in catalysis are platinum-group metals, which include metals like platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, osmium, and iridium.
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From page 115... ...
A related hurdle is the capital that is invested in doing things the traditional way. Furthermore, when financial analysts examine the costs of doing things the traditional way versus using green chemistry, the traditional measures of analysis they use generally point to the traditional ways of doing chemistry.
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The second was GreenScreen, a comparative chemical hazard assessment method for identifying safer chemical substitutions for chemicals of concern. Clean Production Action is a small nongovernmental organization (NGO)
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Sara Lee's Critical Ingredients Program integrates the SIN List, and Skanska, one of the largest construction firms in the world, has integrated SIN into its voluntary restricted substances list. Furthermore, Thorpe said, investors are also using the SIN List.
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From page 118... ...
"Using the GreenScreen benchmarks allows a company to not only tell suppliers what they do not want (e.g., their restricted substances list) but it allows a company to clearly identify the criteria of what they do want." For example, one of HP's goals is to phase out all halogenated flame retardants and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
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take action. Or, as Thorpe summarized it, "Our whole modus operandi is to move off of inherently hazardous materials to safer alternatives through informed substitution and more information." 2 The Common Principles for Alternatives Assessment are a set of common definitions and principles for chemicals alternative assessment to be shared and used in framing discussions about alternatives assessment and to guide decision making about safer chemical use.
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From page 120... ...
She discussed the toxics use reduction program and then offered two case studies in finding safer alternatives to toxic chemicals. The Toxics Use Reduction Act, which established TURI, is intended to sustain and promote the competitive position of Massachusetts industry while promoting a reduction in their use of toxic chemicals.
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SOURC CE: IC2 Safer Alternatives Assessment, A 20011. Reprintedd with permissiion from IC C2.
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From page 122... ...
TURI got involved in the search for alternatives in part because in 2011 the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement called for industry to come up with alternatives and to get those through the approval process. In one typical use of hex chrome, a conversion coating containing the material is applied to an aluminum substrate; then a sealant containing hex chrome is used to fill gaps and recesses around the fasteners and joints; a primer containing hex chrome is applied on top of the sealant; and a topcoat is applied on top of that.
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From page 123... ...
It is important to make sure that the new sealant remover is not something toxic. "In summary," she said, "our objective is to eliminate the hazard, to adopt safer alternatives where they are available, to do alternatives assessments to avoid regrettable substitutions, and to form these collaborations and partnerships with companies so that the supply chains can benefit from that assistance." CASE STUDY: BULLITT CENTER The session's last presenter was Joseph David, Sustainability Program Manager at Point32, a real estate company in Seattle, Washington, focusing on land use development and construction.
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From page 124... ...
It was the materials part of the standard that was most unfamiliar, David said. "We talk about green materials in the context of recycled content or where the product is sourced, but the issue of toxicity had not really come up." To adhere to the Living Building Challenge standard it was necessary to avoid using any materials from a list of 362 prohibited chemicals, including asbestos, chlorofluorocarbons, formaldehyde, halogenated flame retardants, lead, petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, phthalates, and PVC.
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From page 125... ...
"That is a pretty daunting task to figure out what red list chemicals might be present in something like that," David said. Thus, the vetting process was simplest for materials: Get the material safety data sheet, extract the CAS numbers, and run the numbers through the Pharos Project database.
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From page 126... ...
. Sometimes we were able to get a blanket statement saying, Yes, we can confirm that 10 percent by weight or volume of this product does not contain red list chemicals, but beyond that, it was difficult." This process was carried out for more than 1,000 products over the 3 years it took to design and construct the Bullitt Center.
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From page 127... ...
It is performing quite well." And that material is what is now installed in the Bullitt Center -- a reformulated, phthalatefree version of the original material. Seeing the success of that product, the manufacturer decided on a wholesale elimination of phthalates from its entire product line, and now all its products are phthalate-free and compliant with the Living Building Challenge red list, David said.
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From page 128... ...
Many new graduates coming into the company are drawn by its sustainability programs and are very supportive of the move to green chemistry, while the employees who have been there for a while recognize how very challenging and expensive it can be for the company to make the major changes in the materials that they produce and use. David Constable of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute observed that most companies have people who are working to institute green chemistry, but there are many competing demands, and many people worry that the move to green chemistry may affect the quality of their products or something else in a negative way.
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From page 129... ...
Thorpe suggested that, given the growing push for green products, the difficulty of proving that materials from other countries do not contain any hazardous chemicals might lead to a certain amount of relocation of the supply chain back to the United States. REFERENCE IC2 Safer Alternatives Assessments.
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