Recently in California Green Chemistry Initiative Category

California Department of Toxic Substances Control Director Maureen Gorsen explains how, by using wiki technology, California shares with the public at large its mandate to create Green Chemistry regulations.

Director Gorsen also instructs wiki users on how to participate in this innovative approach to advancing California's green product revolution. California is implementing the first body of green chemistry law in the world and DTSC, the agency charged with its implementation is making history by writing the regulations on real time along with stakeholders and the people of the State of California.


Wiki for Green Chemistry

The Green Chemistry Revolution: A New Paradigm for Reducing and Managing Hazardous Wastes - 2008
 
An hour long panel discussion about the manufacture of goods and affect chemical waste. The linkages of product design, production, distribution and use around the world.

California's green chemistry initiative grew out of a legislative mandate based on a worker poisoning problem in 1977-78.

Problems that lead to clarification of the chemical issues facing us:

• Chemical regulatory policies and controls
• Safety problems for workers
• European Union has directives (hazardous substances, cosmetics, REACH initiative) for chemical policies that have brought economic ties and impact to the US

Motivations for rethinking chemical policies

• Total daily California sales of chemicals
• Total tanker trucks rolling through the state
• Product waste is a huge problem
• Global transport of hazards
• Hazardous waste sites leaking into groundwater
• 600 new waste sites will be needed every month until 2033
• 94% of hazardous waste sites pose health hazards
• Chemicals are found in breast milk
• Global chemical production is doubling very 25 years
• Accountability gaps
• Difficulty to find what's in chemicals
• Very little incentive for investment in green chemical alternatives
• Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 has some data gaps and regulatory gaps.
  

The release of the California Green Chemistry Initiative Final Report in December 2008 signified the beginning of the Department of Toxic Substances Control's efforts to implement a comprehensive green chemistry program in California. The Final Report for the California Green Chemistry Initiative culminated in six policy recommendations that are aimed at ushering in a new consumer products economy that will focus on inventing, manufacturing and using toxic-free, sustainable products. These landmark policy recommendations will continue California's leadership in fostering innovation, prompting market changes, and building on current environmental protection laws.

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