Post on 26-Dec-2015
Industry Adjusts to Environmental Concerns
Industry Adjusts to Environmental Concerns
Richard Sedlak
The Soap and Detergent Association
A Colloquium to Celebrate Fifty Years of Environmental Engineering
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
March 29, 2005
SDA/Industry Program
Assess environmental fate and effects
1950s: WWTPs
1970s: Hazard and exposure data sets
1980s: On-site Wastewater Treatment Systems
1980s: Sediments
1990s: Water reuse
Surfactants & Biodegradability
1940s
“Synthetic” detergents developed
Surfactant / “Builder” system
Surfactants - primarily branched alkylbenzene sulfonates
Industry Response
Early 1960s
Public reaction and legislative/regulatory pressures
Biodegradable “linear” alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS) brought into marketplace
New Tools Developed
Test methods developed to predict fate in wastewater treatment
Removal
Ultimate Biodegradability
Modelling of removal
Support pre-market investigations
The Change to Looking Ahead
Mid-1970s
Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) Created mechanisms for Federal review of
substances
Industry concern: High volume chemicals would be targeted
While under review, public could be concerned with safety
The Change to Looking Ahead
Mid- to Late 1970s: Surfactant Safety Reviews
Comprehensive summaries of public and in-house human and environmental hazard and exposure data Seven classes of surfactants: LAS, AS, AE, AES,
APE, AOS & SAS
Placed in public domain
Gap analysis facilitated
Updated through mid-1990s
Late 1990s: Voluntary Initiatives High Production Volume Chemicals
Programs
Countries handling programs too slow Major voluntary shift of burden to industry
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
U.S. EPA Challenge
Comprehensive compilations of public and in-house physical-chemical and hazard data 1000’s of substances
Late 1990s: Voluntary Initiatives
High Production Volume Chemicals Programs
SDA manages 9 chemical families
Extended commitment:
Disclosure of exposure information
Screening level risk assessments
Sediments
Surfactants attach to solids
Higher concentrations in sediment than in water column
EPA sediment quality criteria
1980s
Multi-phase approach
Modeling Laboratory Field
On-site Wastewater Treatment Systems
1960s: Limited work on on-site wastewater treatment systems
1980s
25% of U.S. population
Compatibility
Treatability
Water Reuse
Reuse of greywater and wastewater could put pressure on ingredients
Irrigation - salts
Drinking water - closed loop systems
1990s
Extent of residential greywater reuse
Assess environmental impacts
Monitoring/Biomonitoring
Analytical tools allow very low level detection
Environmental matrices: U.S. Geological Survey
Human fluids and tissues: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Exposure information issued without risk context
Information Flow
Increasingly larger volumes of hazard and exposure data will be available to the public
Capacity of public to understand will be challenged
Capacity of industry & governments to place in context will be challenged
Information Flow
Internet: ingredient information
NGOs
Business
Consumer-oriented databases
National Library of Medicine
Green Peace database
Risk Communication
Lack of ability to properly communicate risk will:
Damage public confidence in institutions
Belgium contamination of dairy products, BSE in England, pthalates in US
Damage reputation of products/chemicals
Misdirect resources
Collaboration
Suppliers (hazard data) and formulators (information relevant to exposure) need to cooperate
No single company will be able to do an acceptable chemical risk assessment
Disparate industries will have to cooperate to do risk assessments, particularly for the environment
Collaboration
Role for third parties
Bring stakeholders together (industry, chemical users, governments, researchers, etc.)
Pool limited resources
Extended Producer Responsibility
Industry will increasingly be asked/mandated to foot the bill for managing all stages of a product’s life cycle (e.g., waste disposal)
Expansion of Chemical Management Systems
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
Categorization of Domestic Substances List: 23,000 substances
European Union’s REACH
Development of Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals systems
65,000 chemicals in commerce
Modeling
Models needed to fill knowledge gaps
(Quantitative) Structure Activity Relationships
Exposure models
Chronic low level exposures
Non-regulatory Approaches
Increased focus on non-regulatory approaches to chemical management
Industry:
Product stewardship programs
HPV-like chemical programs
Increased focus on products and ingredients to drive upstream changes
NGO campaigns
Increased protection of sensitive populations
e.g., children, elderly, immunocompromised, asthmatic, in-home healthcare