# Presentation: 016401

## Design for the Environment – Recognition for Safer Products

- Federal Environmental Symposium East
- Breakout Session 2.8:  “Developing, Testing, and Deploying Biobased Substitutes for Toxic Chemicals”
- June 4, 2008
- Libby Sommer
- Design for the Environment (DfE)
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- Washington, DC

## What is ‘DfE’?

- Like Energy Star recognizes energy efficient products,
- DfE recognizes safer chemical products and alternatives

## DfE’s Current Projects

- Product
- Recognition
- (Formulator)

- SDSI

- Flame Retardants
-  in PCBs

- Wire & Cable LCA

- Best Practices
- Auto Re-finishing

## Presentation Outline

**DfE Program Overview**
**Product Recognition Program**
- Overview and purpose
- Continuum of Improvement
- Example of Recognized Products
**CleanGredientsTM**
- Overview and purpose
- DfE Screens for Safer Chemicals
- Screenshots

## DfE Program Overview

- Focus
- Chemicals of concern
- Informed Substitution
- OPPT technical tools and expertise
- Considerations
- Business client
- Multi-stakeholder participation
- Business realities
- Potential benefits for industry and the environment
- Results
- Industry partners reduced about 160 million pounds of chemicals of concern last year

## DfE Product Recognition ProgramGoals and Purpose

- Level the Playing Field
- Information on chemicals of concern currently in commerce used to regulate new, pre-commerce chemicals.
- Suggest Safer, Green-Chemistry Alternatives
- Use Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics chemical knowledge and expertise to guide formulators toward safer substitutes.
- Recognize Innovation
- Many leading raw material manufacturers and formulators are innovators, using safer alternatives to develop new technologies.
- They deserve ratification and recognition for their success.
- Recognition encourages further innovation across the industry.

## DfE Product Recognition ProgramBackground

- DfE Product Recognition ProgramBackground

- Expert Chemical Evaluation
- Chemists, Biologists, Toxicologists & Engineers
- Toxicity, fate, function, alternatives
- Review every ingredient by functional use
- Developing ‘screens’ that provide specific criteria and program transparency
- Use hazard oriented, green chemistry approaches to promote the safest options (continuous improvement)

**Notes:**
So, how does one gain recognition and use of the DfE logo?
Partners can achieve recognition for their formulas by submitting an ingredient profile that is reviewing by our technical workgroup of EPA scientists who interpret experimental studies and Structure Activity Relationships to determine the relative safety of chemical ingredients.
In the Formulator Program, we review every ingredient in the formulation in the context of the product class and the functional use of the ingredient, i.e. as a surfactant, solvent, etc. 
In each functional use class, we focus our review on the distinguishing hazard endpoints of concern in order to compare chemicals in the same class, and identify those ingredients with the best human health and environmental profile. 
Our program is especially interested in first-time innovations, and with increased demand for our program, we also try to make our technical workgroup’s expertise more widely available through tools such as CleanGredients and third-party profiling. 
We are developing screens for different  chemical classes that will provide transparency and defined criteria for attaining recognition
Our approaches are green chemistry oriented

## Continuous Improvement
Driven by Green Chemistry – As Innovation Occurs Continua May Shift
Acknowledges Business Realities
Encourage developmentof safer chemical formulations. For example...
Cleaning products
Holding tank treatments
Aircraft conversion coatings
Inks

- Driven by Green Chemistry – *As Innovation Occurs **Continua May Shift*
- Acknowledges Business Realities
- Encourage developmentof safer chemical formulations. For example...
- Cleaning products
- Holding tank treatments
- Aircraft conversion coatings
- Inks

- DfE Product Recognition ProgramIncorporating Continuous Improvement

## When you see the DfE logo on a product, what does it mean?

- It means that the DfE technical workgroup has screened each ingredient in the product for potential human health and environmental effects and that – based on currently available information, predictive models, and expert judgment – **the product contains only those ingredients that pose the least concern among chemicals in their class.**

## DfE Partners

- DfE has more than 80 Partners representing nearly 500 recognized products

## Environmentally Preferable Purchasing

- Several states and municipalities include DfE recognition in their procurement standards
- State of New Jersey
- State of Oregon
- State of Colorado
- State of Washington
- State of Utah
- State of Hawaii
- State of Illinois
- Additional states and entities are considering DfE recognition for inclusion in their purchasing programs
- North American Green Purchasing Initiative’s Fact Sheet on Green Cleaners
- Executive Order 13423
- DfE recognition is part of EPA’s goals under this EO
- Implemented internally through the EPA’s Environmental Management System
- Home Depot Eco Options

## DfE Recognized Products and the Soy Products Guide

- United Soybean Board’s Soy Products Guide
- DfE recognized products are included
- Examples:
- Bi-O-Kleen Industries’ Soy Cream Cleaner
- Soy Technologies’ SoyFast, SoyFast 1000, SoyFast 5000

## DfE Recognized Products and Bio-Based Ingredients

- Clorox Green WorksTM
- First new brand from Clorox in 20 years
- (Most) ingredients “come from renewable resources, are biodegradable, and free of petrochemicals”
- Major ingredients include:
- Safer Surfactants
- Degrade quickly and to less toxic degradates
- Safer Solvents
- Low concerns for human health toxicity including internal organ toxicity, reproductive toxicity, and neurotoxicity
- Safer Chelating Agents
- Degrade quickly, no concern for carcinogenicity or metal loading to the environment

***	******Is there a list of safer chemicals we can use in making our ingredient choices?***

- #1 Formulator Question

## CleanGredientsTM and the DfE Screens are Defining Safer Chemistry

- CleanGredientsTM is a marketplace...
- for suppliers to showcase safer chemical ingredients for cleaning products, and
- for formulators to find those ingredients.
- CleanGredientsTM is at the intersection of safer chemistry and high performance ingredients
- DfE Screens for Safer Chemical Ingredients
- Defined for functional classes of ingredients (e.g. surfactants, solvents)
- “As green as it can be and still get the job done well”.

## DfE Screen for Surfactants

- Safer surfactants degrade quickly to low toxicity degradates.

| Acute Aquatic Toxicity (L/E/IC50 Value) | Rate of Biodegradation |
| --- | --- |
| ≤1 ppm | May be acceptable if biodegradation1 occurs within a 10-day window |
| >1 ppm and ≤10 ppm | Biodegradation1 occurs within a 10-day window |
| >10 ppm  | Biodegradation1 occurs within 28 days without products of concern2 |

**1**** Generally, >60% mineralization (to CO2 and water) in 28 days. ****2**** Products of concern are compounds with high acute aquatic toxicity (L/E/IC50 ≤ 10ppm) and a slow rate of biodegradation (greater than 28 days). **

## DfE Screen for Solvents (draft)

| General Attributes of Concern for All Solvents | Carcinogenicity
Reproductive and Developmental Toxicity
Persistence, Bioaccumulation and Aquatic Toxicity (PBaT)
Acute Mammalian Toxicity |
| --- | --- |
| Key Attributes of Concern for 4 Solvent Classes* | Repeated-Dose Toxicity
Reproductive and Developmental Toxicity (covered above)
Neurotoxicity |

- * Ethylene Glycol Ethers (EGEs), Propylene Glycol Ethers (PGEs), Alcohols, Esters

- Safer solvents demonstrate low impacts to human health and the environment.

## CleanGredientsTMSearch by Performance/P-Chem/Tox Properties

## CleanGredientsTMSearch Results

## CleanGredientsTMDetailed Ingredient View

**CleanGredientsTM****Detailed Ingredient View**

## CleanGredientsTMDetailed Ingredient View

**CleanGredientsTM****Detailed Ingredient View**

## Libby Sommer sommer.elizabeth@epa.govwww.epa.gov/dfewww.cleangredients.org