Goldman explains the choices we can make to improve the health of our business system, and our environment on which we depend for life support.
EPA maintains an extensive database of Design for the Environment approved products. These listings can be checked by consumers or business procurement buyers for products recognized under the DfE Formulator Program. DfE commends these
companies for their leadership in designing products that are good for
their business and for the environment.| Through
manufacture and use, virtually everyone comes in contact with the
chemicals in these products, which are ultimately released to the
environment--as effluents to water, off-gases to air, and solid wastes
to land. By forming partnerships
with the DfE Program, formulators can take part in an important
national effort to improve the human health and environmental profile
of chemical-based products, which will benefit the quality of aquatic
life and the environment, the biodegradability of waste streams, and
human health and safety. The basis for a DfE partnership rests on the selection of the safest possible ingredients that permit the formulation of high-performing, cost-effective products. DfE can provide formulators with information on chemical characteristics and toxicities of raw materials and additives, safer substitutes for chemicals of concern, and innovative new chemistries. The DfE document "Criteria for Safer Cleaning Products (CSCP) in the form of a Standard" (PDF) (28 pp, 157K) describes the program's unique approach to product review and formulation improvement. To view this criteria in matrix form, please click here [considerations for partnership (PDF) (12 pp, 161K)]. DfE Formulator partners enjoy Agency recognition, including the use of the DfE label on products with improved formulations. |
Look for the DfE Label! |
Each year, formulators blend billions of pounds of chemical ingredients
to create a wide variety of products used by businesses, institutions,
households, and others. Through manufacture and use, virtually everyone
comes in contact with the chemicals in these products, which are
ultimately released to the environment--as effluents to water,
off-gases to air, and solid wastes to land.
By forming partnerships with the DfE Program, formulators can take part in an important national effort to improve the human health and environmental profile of chemical-based products, which will benefit the quality of aquatic life and the environment, the biodegradability of waste streams, and human health and safety.
NSF INTERNATIONAL, Third Party Reviews for DfE Formulator Program
NSF International has partnered with the U.S. EPA's Design for the Environment program ("DfE") to perform third-party reviews for the DfE Formulator Program.
NSF International has been selected to prepare product ingredient profiles for partnership candidates. NSF reviews cleaning product formulations for its environmental and human health profiles using criteria developed by DfE. Once successfully reviewed, formulators may be recognized by DfE and use the DfE logo on their products.
DfE offers recognition to formulators who design products for the environment and human health by using safer chemicals.
SOURCE: NSF
NSF International is pleased to announce it has partnered with the GreenBlue Institute and CleanGredients® to perform third-party reviews of surfactant ingredients. Once successfully reviewed, surfactants may be listed on the CleanGredients website, the industry resource for formulators.
NSF reviews ingredient formulations for aquatic toxicity and biodegradability using criteria defined by the U.S. EPA DfE (Design for the Environment) Program, which designates surfactants with especially positive environmental characteristics.
CleanGredients.org is an online database of institutional and industrial (I&I) cleaning ingredients that:
Thirty years ago, a carcinogenic flame-retardant material was taken out of children's pajamas. In 2008 it was being used with frequency in products such as baby carriers and bassinetts. This was just one of several discoveries made by Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in their series, "Chemical Fallout."
The team exposed government programs that favored chemical makers over the public and conflicts of interests among regulators. Rust and Kissinger reported that there was no such thing as "microwave-safe" plastics. An outside laboratory tested containers labeled as such and found toxic levels of chemicals leached from every item.
The Journal Sentinel team did their homework: They reviewed hundreds of scientific journal articles and worked with scientists to determine that the federal government's assurances that bisphenol A (a chemical compound found in many plastics) is safe are based on outdated U.S. government studies and research heavily funded by the chemical industry. PBS broadcaster Bill Moyers compared the reporting to the legendary Upton Sinclair. David Kessler, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said that the Sentinel was doing the work that the agency should have been doing all along to protect the public.
Senior Reporter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Susanne Rust was part of a reporting team that won the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi award and the Society of American Business Writers and Editors award for detailing chemical dangers and lax regulations in Washington, D.C. The team also won the 2008 John B. Oakes Award. Rust has continued to break new ground throughout 2008 with more stories exposing the failures of the Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration. In her five years at the Sentinel, Rust has also trekked through the hills of Rwanda to cover stories on civil engineering and AIDS; hacked through the dense foliage of a Ugandan rain forest in search of mountain gorillas; poked around Scotland's Roslin Institute looking for clones; and written about eco-friendly agriculture in Costa Rica. Before joining the Sentinel, Rust pursued a doctorate in biological anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Investigative Reporter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Meg Kissinger is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's investigative
reporter focusing on health and welfare. She and two of her colleagues
won the 2008 Sigma Delta Chi award and the Society of American Business
Writers and Editors Award for a series of articles on the government's
failure to screen for dangerous chemicals in household products. The
series also won the 2008 John B. Oakes Award. Kissinger has spent the
last year breaking new ground on the failures of the Environmental
Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration to regulate toxic
chemicals. She was a finalist for the 2007 Selden Ring and
Investigative Reporters and Editors awards for her reports on the
filthy and dangerous housing conditions in Milwaukee County for people
with mental illness. That series won the Mental Health America Award
for best news repoting. In her 25 years in the newsroom, Kissinger has
written about abuses in the nursing home industry, the scam of the
door-to-door magazine sales industry and the travails of an oncologist
who unwittingly discovered his own end-stage cancer.
Children are regularly exposed to environmental toxins in and around schools and day care centers. These exposures generally come from cleaning products, pesticides and diesel exhaust from school buses while they are idling outside the school as well as in transit.
Grassroots Environmental Education provides a comprehensive ChildSafe School program designed to help parents, teachers and administrators reduce or eliminate toxins in schools.
CLEANING PRODUCTS
