Recycling

Last week, in the President’s State of the Union address, he challenged the nation to tap into our entrepreneurial spirit so we can better compete against China, India, and other countries that have invested heavily in their own country’s future. He spoke of a role of government that is nuanced – one that can work with the market, where government can guide development through policies that make us more competitive.

Product stewardship seeks limited governance that sets broad parameters for market competition. It seeks a greater role for the private sector, shifting the management and financial burdens from often inefficient government practices to those driven by market forces. Managing products that we call “waste” is nothing but inefficiencies in the market. It is a market failure. And that failure has resulted in billions of dollars of taxpayer costs to subsidize businesses whose products are manufactured and sold without consideration for their social and environmental costs.

How is it possible that telephone directories are still produced and distributed across the United States at the current rate? No one knows for sure how many people still use them, although most people I talk to don’t, except perhaps my over-80 parents and a few die-hards. Over 660,000 tons of directories get plunked onto our doorsteps, pathways, driveways, and vestibules each year. Less than a quarter are recycled. All must be collected and recycled or disposed of by government and paid for by government, with complaints being dealt with by government. That is the same Government that Tea Party leaders want to get out of business and get out of the business of business. It is time to heed their call.

Phone books keep getting delivered at their current rate of excess because the external costs of managing the directories after they are kerplunked is paid for by taxpayers, all $64 million of it. Whether we use one or not, we are all subsidizing telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon, and independent directory publishers like Dex and Yellow Book. Not only are we paying financially for their inefficient ways, but these companies are not covering the true cost of their impacts on our environment. They do not pay for the greenhouse gas impacts that the production of directories causes, or the stress on our water or air as the result of factories producing books no one wants, or emissions from trucks that transport them, deliver them, and pick them up, or pollution from the facilities that recycle them or dispose of them.

I picked on phone books here because they are visible and a clear waste if no one wants them. But this argument can be made on all products produced worldwide. Some companies have taken steps to reduce the lifecycle impacts of their products, and these leaders should be applauded. Others have taken a lead on turning materials from used products into usable commodities.

The United States can be a global leader in competitiveness. We are still the world’s market powerhouse. Product stewardship can maintain this strength through the efficient use of our nation’s resources, whether they are mined from the earth or mined from our households and businesses after use. Product stewardship policies seek good governance, not NO governance. Government should not “get out of the way” and let business run rampant. Haven’t we seen that movie before with the crises from banking, housing, and credit card deregulation? The government’s role in good product stewardship programs is limited to setting parameters for industry, guiding it, enforcing against those who cheat and want a free ride, and encouraging companies that are the true leaders of innovation to succeed.

by Scott Cassel, CEO and Founder of PSI

Last week, I traveled aboard JetBlue to Florida for a family visit. I emerged unscathed through security and was greeted by friendly smiles by the flight attendants. After settling into my seat, the food and beverage service started. Anyone remotely sensitized to sustainability issues knows that the airlines need to step it up several notches in this area. Few of them even recycle their aluminum cans. The utensils, plates, and packaging are disposable. To be sure, airline sustainability takes the notion of “away from home” recycling challenges to a new (and higher) level. But NOT recycling aluminum cans is just plain lazy.

There I was on JetBlue headed to the promised land of sun, far from the cold of Boston. I was reciting my mantra-like reflection on environmental airline woes when I was struck by another blow to my environmental sensibilities. Those friendly flight attendants were passing out free samples…of disposable toothbrushes!

Don’t get me wrong. I will be the last person to tell some stinko-breathed person next to me NOT to use a toothbrush, even one of these mini 3-inch ones. But come on! Is this really what the Colgate-Palmolive Company should be inventing in this day and age? I was doubly surprised since the company is taking a leadership role in a national dialogue aimed at reducing packaging waste. Is Colgate’s mini toothbrush recyclable? Compostable? Biodegradeable? Is this the most sustainable solution to controlling bad breath? What about gum or breath mints? What about carrying a regular toothbrush with you?

People gobbled up these free samples, and I (somewhat sheepishly) requested one so I could write about it. With products like disposable toothbrushes coming onto the market, it is a signal that well-meaning companies are still heading in the wrong direction, at least on some of their products. They need to hear from us that such products are a thing of the past. As for me, for a product like this, I will support companies like Preserve, which makes a toothbrush that is made from recycled plastic and is recyclable. Speak up. And when you open your mouth to brush, think sustainability.

by Scott Cassel, CEO and Founder of PSI

Protecting vulnerable populations from environmental, health, and safety risks is a critical goal shared by many in the electronics recycling industry.  It is a cornerstone of the R2 Practices, one of the new certification standards for the electronics recycling industry.

Some have asked why, then, doesn’t R2 establish outright bans on exports of electronic scrap to developing countries and on the use of prison labor?

The answer has to do with economic opportunity.  The stakeholders that developed R2 designed a set of requirements that call for equal environmental, health and safety protections no matter the location or situation.  Importantly, the R2 requirements do so in a manner that does not curb the business opportunities of law-abiding, state-of-the-art companies and their workers in developing countries.  And, with respect to prison labor, they do so in a manner that does not diminish the vocational training opportunities of people that are incarcerated.

The R2 Practices

During the multi-stakeholder development of The Responsible Recycling “R2” Practices for use in Accredited Certification Programs for Electronics Recyclers, aka the “R2 Practices”, stakeholders addressed critically important issues relating to the environmental, health, safety (EHS), and security performance of electronics recyclers and their downstream vendors.  The comprehensive standard contains provisions for best practices in a number of operational areas including:  an EHS management system, downstream due diligence, adherence to legal requirements including those covering exports, and reuse and refurbishing activities.

The resulting document—the R2 Practices—serves as the basis for the R2 Certification Program.  Electronics recyclers can contract with one of a handful of registrars (certification bodies or CBs) to become certified to R2.  This rigorous, two-phase audit process requires the recycler to exhibit conformity to each of the R2 Practices’ many performance and management system requirements.

R2 and Exports of End-of-Life Electronics Equipment to Developing Countries

Developing countries can be home to both atrocious, and “state-of-the-art”, electronics recycling and refurbishing operations.  In these countries, as well as internationally, there is a desire to shift electronics recycling and refurbishing away from the former and into the latter types of operations.  This accomplishes environmental, health and safety goals while also promoting good jobs in some of the areas of the world most in need of economic opportunity.

To ensure exported electronic scrap ends up at state-of-the-art facilities, three key criteria need to be met.  First, shipments of exported electronic scrap must be sent and received in accordance with the laws of the exporting and importing countries.  Illegal shipments all too often end up causing serious harm to health and the environment in the worst of recycling and refurbishing operations.

Second, all receiving facilities must be evaluated on a regular basis to ensure that they are employing best technologies and practices. In Asia and other parts of the world, there are a number of state-of-the-art electronics recycling and refurbishing facilities that rival those in the U.S. in terms of technology and materials management.

Third, all equipment must be accurately characterized on the shipping manifest.  Too often, e-scrap exports are characterized as “reusable” to avoid the added scrutiny and legal requirements that apply to “waste”.  This creates a loophole which can allow scrap to be inappropriately sent to a facility that is not capable of safely handling it.

R2 effectively addresses each of these criteria.  It prohibits the shipment of end-of-life electronic equipment containing toxic materials to developing countries unless the shipment is legal under the laws of both the exporting and importing countries. It requires that the receiving facility conforms to key R2 requirements and employs technologies appropriate for the materials it processes.  Furthermore, “reusable” electronics equipment containing toxic materials is subject to these same requirements unless it has been tested and its key functions are working properly.  Finally, all shipments must be accurately labeled.

Through these requirements, the stakeholders that developed R2 achieve the goal of protecting vulnerable populations while supporting legal, safe, environmentally-sustainable, economic development in developing countries.

R2 and Prison Labor

UNICOR (also known as Federal Prison Industries) maintains operations in a number of manufacturing industries, including:  textiles, office furniture, industrial products, commercial fleet asset services (commercial vehicle remanufacturing), electronics manufacturing and electronics recycling.  The company was established by Congress “to create a voluntary real-world work program to train federal inmates” – thereby helping them obtain employment upon release from prison.  To this end, the UNICOR electronics recycling program has been successful, as electronics recycling firms have experience hiring formerly incarcerated people from the UNICOR program.

A few years ago, some prisoners at UNICOR worked in unsafe settings in electronics recycling facilities.  Unfortunately, employees of less sophisticated recycling operations in the private sector have, and may continue to be,  exposed to similar dangers.  More recently, in December, 2009, The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health issued a report that found no health problems linked to electronics recycling operations at the four UNICOR facilities it investigated.

Regarding the issue of prison labor, the stakeholder group that drafted the R2 Practices decided not to develop different requirements for different categories of workers.  Rather, the R2 Practices set forth extensive requirements covering on-site environmental, health, and safety; and they apply to all workers in a facility, be they employees, consultants, volunteers, or prisoners.  As a result, R2 does not prevent prisoners from safely learning new skills that will help them find employment upon their return to society.

The future of R2

R2 offers a practical and equitable approach to addressing the areas of exports and prison labor.  And as the industry continues to evolve, so too will the R2 Practices.  Similar to the spirit of the standards development process, R2 Solutions is inviting stakeholders from all industry sectors, including NGOs, to shape the future of the standard so it can continue to effectively address the needs and concerns of the industry.

by Scott Cassel, CEO and Founder of PSI

The Product Stewardship Institute turned 10 years old on December 6th!  Some of you might remember our very first national Product Stewardship Forum in 2000 in Boston when Secretary Bob Durand of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs launched PSI into existence.

The past three months have been a boom time for product stewardship.  Who would have known that in 10 short years we would be able to say that there are now over 60 producer responsibility laws in 32 states covering 9 products?  Key legislation passed at the local, state, and federal levels all in one week in October, with Seattle’s phone books law, California’s paint and carpet laws, and President Obama’s signing of revisions to the Controlled Substances Act.  The recent Resource Recycling conference witnessed numerous references to the relevance of product stewardship and its relation to traditional recycling and waste management.  And the Global Product Stewardship Council convened its inaugural conference in Sydney Australia.  We are definitely on a roll!

However, laws do not guarantee results.  As we continue to color in the PSI legislative map with more laws, we also need to shift our attention to program performance, and to move our bulls-eye target away from solely being on end-of-life management to the entire lifecycle of a product.  PSI’s mission is to reduce the health and environmental impacts of products all across a product’s lifecycle, with manufacturers, retailers, and consumers taking greater responsibility. That is what PSI means by product stewardship.  Extended producer responsibility, with its focus on end-of-life management, is just one tool to achieve this goal.  It is time to expand our horizons.

For now, we want to celebrate the success of the movement and acknowledge the thousands of individuals that have brought about this massive change in how we manage waste in America. Over the next few months, we will reach out to you on ways you can engage with us to recognize the progress we have made together, as well as to chart the path forward toward a sustainable future. There is certainly more to come!

Sincerely,

Scott Cassel
Executive Director / Founder

Product Stewardship Institute

by Marcia Deegler, Director of Environmental Purchasing for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 

Governor Deval Patrick signed an Executive Order in October, 2009 that Establishes an Environmental Purchasing Policy for the Commonwealth and directs all state agencies to procure goods and services that conserve natural resources, reduce waste, protect public health and the environment, and promote the use of clean technologies, recycled materials, and less toxic products. By purchasing Environmentally Preferable Products, Commonwealth agencies will reduce the environmental impact of state operations and use the state’s purchasing power to encourage manufacturers and service providers to adopt high environmental standards into their products and operations.

The Commonwealth purchases an estimated $600 million of goods and non-construction services per year, which result in environmental and public health impacts related to the production, transport, use, and disposal of these products and services. This new policy requires all Commonwealth Executive Departments to reduce their impact on the environment and enhance public health by procuring Environmentally Preferable Products and services (EPPs) whenever such products and services are readily available, perform to satisfactory standards, and represent best value to the Commonwealth. EPPs include products and services that: contain recycled materials; conserve energy or water; minimize waste; are less toxic and hazardous; reduce the generation, release, or disposal of toxic substances; protect open space; and/or otherwise lessen the impact of such products or services on public health and the environment. The consumption of EPPs as a result of this policy should also serve to lower life-cycle costs, promote local economic development of these industries, encourage product stewardship and serve as a model for businesses, institutions, and individual residents.

The Commonwealth’s central procurement office, the Operational Services Division, and its Environmentally Preferable Products Procurement Program (EPP Program) have already made progress in integrating environmental and sustainability considerations into the many statewide contracts used by Commonwealth agencies, cities, towns, schools and others to procure the majority of their products and services. The EPP Program conducts activities in partnership with the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA), Department of Energy Resources (DOER) and Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) and endeavors to green the purchasing practices of the state in recognition of the fact that procurement is an effective strategy for addressing environmental concerns and protecting public health.  Acknowledging their high rate of success over the years, the Executive Order specifically tasks the EPP Program with working with agencies to implement the directives and places a particularly strong focus on identifying purchasing opportunities for reducing the use of toxic substances and materials.

This new policy actually came on the heels of a Massachusetts-lead multi-state contract for Green Cleaning Products and Programs, the largest public cooperative undertaking to date to expand the use of environmentally preferable cleaning products in public facilities across several New England states. The contract offers Massachusetts public entities competitive pricing by aggregating the purchasing volume from the participating states of Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York, while reaching out to local distributors and manufacturers of all sizes throughout the region in an effort to stimulate local economic growth.

While implementing the use of green cleaning products and practices promises to save money for the Commonwealth, equally important is the fact that the contract specifically requires virtually all chemicals offered under the contract (with the exception of disinfectants and sanitizers) to be third-party certified by either Green Seal or EcoLogo. The purpose of this requirement is to provide purchasers with the assurance that all green product claims – as well as a high level of product cleaning performance – have been verified by independent lab testing.  In order to be awarded a contract, vendors also were required to offer training programs and tools to effect and monitor the department’s transition to green products and offer only supplies containing recycled content or other environmental attributes.

Third-party certifications and standards (e.g. Green Seal, EcoLogo, and Underwriters Laboratories), independent registration systems (e.g. EPEAT, WEEE) and other independent testing methods are increasingly becoming an important component in specifying products and services within the state contracting process. In lieu of an organization or company “claiming” to comply with industry standards, obtaining a third-party certification means they have made a commitment to invite an external third party to verify that their product or service does indeed comply with a particular standard. Third-party certification is a scientific process by which a product, process or service is reviewed by a reputable and unbiased third party to verify that a set of criteria, claims or standards are being met. Such certifications may also incorporate extended producer responsibility requirements within the criteria of the standard.

The advantages of requiring third-party certifications in contract bids and purchasing decisions are shared by the purchasers as well as the manufacturers and suppliers. For purchasers, a third-party certification provides a measure of conformity; it reduces the time, expense and technical expertise needed to analyze product claims for green and/or for performance and provides purchasers with independent laboratory tests backed up by a written assurance that the product meets the standard. Equally as important, using such certifications and standards sends a clear message to industry as to what a government or organization is looking for in the way of a green, high performing product.

For manufacturers and suppliers, the use of third-party certifications and standards in bids and contracts limits supplier risks and eliminates the need and expense of continually repeating tests to verify compliance with individual specifications. Third-party certifications and consensus-based standards can also eliminate the need for government to create bureaucratic laws and regulations that may restrict market access and delay the introduction of new technologies by innovative companies.

OSD now offers thousands of EPPs on literally dozens of statewide contracts.  As these contracts are renewed and re-bid, the use of third-party certifications and industry standards are increasingly being used as required criteria in order to be awarded a contract. The purchases of EPPs have grown from about $5 million in 1995 to over $250 million for FY2009. The cost savings calculated as a result of these purchases amounts to over $1.5 million annually.

by Scott Cassel, CEO and Founder of PSI

Last week a team from the Product Stewardship Institute took a tour of a materials recovery facility (MRF; pronounced “murph”) operated by Casella Waste Systems in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which recycles material from municipalities in the Boston area.  We would like to thank Lisa McMenemy, the Municipal Development Representative at Casella, for being such an informative tour guide and leading us through all the steps of the recycling process.  The Charlestown MRF was converted to a single-stream (also known as Zero-Sort or fully-comingled) facility in 2009.  The concept of single stream comes from Europe and is widely believed to dramatically increase the recycling rate because of the added convenience for consumers, although the quality of the materials recovered is lower.  Single-stream allows for recyclable materials (such as cardboard, newspaper, aluminum cans, plastic bottles, and glass containers) to all be placed in the same bin. When we are so accustomed to ease of curbside collection and other convenient methods of recycling, it’s hard to imagine how complex process actually is.

The single-stream MRF that PSI visited was highly automated and use cutting edge technology in order to separate materials.  The Charlestown MRF recycles around 750 tons of material every day and the most common material that is recycled is newspaper, which accounts for 60% of all the materials that are processed at the Charlestown site.  The inflows of recyclable materials are highly seasonal, with some of the largest fluctuations coinciding around the holiday season and also university events such as graduations and moving days.

The first step in the recycling process is taken when trucks deliver loads of recyclable material to the MRF.  The materials are dumped in large piles, which are then pushed onto conveyer belts by bobcats (also known as skid steers).  Metering chains make sure that the materials are not stacked too high and will not encumber the sorting processs.

With all the materials spread out along the conveyer belt, the pre-sorting begins.  The pre-sort is a labor-intensive step where materials that are not recyclable, or that may damage the equipment, are removed by hand.  Plastic bags are by far the biggest contaminant in the recycling process, and are not able to be recycled once they get to the MRF.  It is important to remember that even if you have good intentions and wish to recycle your grocery bags, the bags can slip through the pre-sort and end up in bales of other material. If a bale reaches a certain level of contamination, it can be rejected by a mill and must then be reprocessed, which requires additional energy, recycling time, and money.  Everyone should reuse plastic bags as much as possible, and consider purchasing a durable canvas bag for shopping needs.  If you want to recycle the plastic bags accumulating in your household, bring them to a store that collects them and don’t put them in your recycling bin or they willbecome a contaminant.  There are national retailers offering collection programs across the country.  Lowe’s and Target both offer complimentary recycling stations for plastic bags and you should be sure to check with you local grocer or retailer to see if they offer similar services as well.

With the pre-sort complete, a series of screens then separates out light paper products, such as newspaper, from heavier products that will fall through the screens and move onto a further series of conveyer belts.  The smallest objects, typically broken glass and shredded bits of paper, falls through the screen and sent to a belt beneath the entire system of screens, while the plastics and metals continue on.

Next, magnetic fields are used to force metal cans from the main conveyer belt.  A magnetic current is calibrated so that steal and tin products are separated into one bunker, and a reverse magnetic field is used to so aluminum products are separated into another bunker.

Now that paper and metals have been removed from the conveyer belt, plastics are further separated by their physical properties.  An optical sorter separates clear plastics, such as soda bottles, from opaque plastics, such as milk jugs.  When the optical sorter identifies a material as a certain type of plastic, different forces of compressed air are shot at the conveyer belt and are adjusted to propel separate types of plastics into separate containers.

Once all the materials are sorted they are separated into bales that are sold to mills in order to be reprocessed into familiar products.  Just a few examples of new products created from recycled materials are plastic bottles that will be converted into carpet and fleece, tin cans that will become rebar and bike parts, and cardboard which will be reclaimed as a lower grade of paper product such as cereal boxes.  It is important to recycle as much as you can in order to create great products out of used materials, but it is important not to recycle material that may contaminate loads.  Don’t hesitate to call your local waste management service provider to determine what materials are acceptable in your area.  For those covered by Casella’s service you may visit http://www.casella.com/what-we-do/who-we-serve/town for more information.

by Sarah Westervelt, the e-Waste Project Coordinator at the Basel Action Network (BAN) and the Recycling Coordinator for the Electronics TakeBack Coalition

For years, there has been little more than pilot programs, pledges and a great deal of concern about what electronics recyclers are actually doing with the e-waste they collect.  While federal regulations  exempt much of this waste stream, the relatively new electronics recycling industry has been plagued by unscrupulous companies that profit largely by exporting scrap or untested/non-working equipment to countries that cannot legally trade in hazardous waste with the US, as defined in a United Nations treaty called the Basel Convention.

© Basel Action Network 2008.

As of this year there are not one, but two accredited certification programs for electronics recyclers in the US, both of which are recognized by the US EPA  – the e-Stewards Certification program and the Responsible Recycling (R2) Certification program.   The question is,  what are the differences, and which one of them will best serve your needs?  Having two programs requires some homework on the part of customers or officials.

To get to the bottom of this question, it is important to compare the standards themselves, as well as the rigor of the verification system (i.e. the certification bodies which certify that recyclers conform to a particular standard, and the accreditation bodies that oversee their work.)

Let’s start with comparing the verification systems.  Both R2 and e-Stewards certification programs utilize the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board as their accreditation body.  ANAB is one of the top three accreditation bodies in the world, and is the largest, most respected in the United States.

Next, let’s look at the certification bodies (CBs) that are accredited by ANAB to certify to either R2 or the e-Stewards Standard.   Each of the programs has three certification bodies that are accredited to certify to their respective standards.  An important question is how rigorous and consistent the auditor training is for each program, with the goal of having a high level of confidence that the auditors across all the CBs consistently understand the standard they are auditing to and program requirements.   Without an owner for the standard or host organization until this fall, the R2 program has not had a sole auditor training program since its inception, resulting in a variety of auditor trainings for the different CBs.  The e-Stewards program requires that all auditors must successfully complete a 3-day training provided by SAI Global, one of the top professional training organizations.

Finally, and central to every certification program, are the standards that define requirements for the companies attaining certification.  The R2 Practice document, which was finalized without support from the environmental community, is 13 pages long, with no guidance document, but it comes with an audit checklist.  The e-Stewards Standard, created by the Basel Action Network in conjunction with leaders in the recycling and refurbishment industries, and supported by 70 organizations, is 49 pages long.  It has a 67 page companion guidance document, but no auditor check list.  Based on the shear length of the two standards, it is easy to understand that one spells out much more comprehensive requirements for the recyclers.

There are two basic types of requirements in each of the standards.  One set of requirements is for the environmental management system (EMS), which involves a Plan-Do-Check-Act system for identifying, documenting, and reducing the environmental impacts of the business operations.   The R2 Practices has one page of general requirements that an R2 recycler’s EMS must meet .  The e-Stewards Standard has the 8-page global standard for environmental management systems, called ISO 14001, imbedded in it, so that all certified e-Stewards are also certified to ISO 14001.

Within this framework of an EMS, both standards require some minimum performance requirements, which are the second basic type of requirements in these two standards.   Performance requirements are industry-specific restrictions of or prescriptions for certain activities.   Along with the EMS requirements, this is where the two standards differ dramatically.

The chart below summaries some of these differences:

While having two certification programs requires some due diligence, most people welcome the arrival of new mechanisms for holding an industry accountable for managing a toxic waste stream.

Check out the companion post to this blog piece by John Lingelbach of R2 Solutions.

© Basel Action Network 2008.

PSI interviews Dave Galvin from the King County Department of Natural Resources in Washington State, and Board President at PSI.

PSI:     What is the #1 product stewardship issue that needs to be addressed?

DG:     I always come back to the “cradle-to-cradle” concept:  all products should be able to be sorted into one of two categories, those that are compostable and those that are not.  The latter group (what McDonough and Braungart called “technical” materials) should belong to the manufacturer who made them, and should be taken back and reused in infinite recycling loops.  If we can get this concept to be widely accepted, the details will fall into place.

PSI: What brought you to the environmental movement?

DG: Birds.  I’ve been a birder since I was nine years old.  When I was 11 I read “Silent Spring,” and it turned me into an environmentalist even before that term was coined.

PSI:     Who was your greatest influence?

DG:     I was fortunate as a kid to have three wonderful mentors: a naturalist, a local land conservationist, and an ahead-of-her-time environmentalist.  The first two, Linaea Thelin and Ben Nichols, were local icons not widely known beyond the town;  the third some of this blog’s readers might know from her pioneering work in New England environmentalism: Nancy Anderson.

PSI:     What could the environmental movement do better?

DG:     Become so mainstream that it is no longer a movement.  That means being meaningful to all different types of people and part of their core values: children’s health, things like that.  The “environment” for too long was conveyed as something out there, a national park or a habitat to be preserved.  Instead, we should be promoting the environment as all around us, where we live, and make it as fundamental as eating and breathing.  We have progressed in this direction over the years, but we still have a ways to go to connect environmentalism with social justice, family-wage jobs, poverty-eradication and core American values.

PSI:     What is the environmental movement doing right?

DG:     Moving in the direction I just noted above.

PSI:     On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being not at all and a 10 being zero waste, how good a recycler are you?

DG:     6, maybe 7.

PSI:     What is the 1 gadget from “the future” you’d like to see in real life?

DG:     Completely compostable stuff that is now made up of plastics or mixed materials that can’t even be recycled.  Compostable packaging, compostable toys, compostable building materials.  I know that’s not just 1 gadget, but that’s a concept I’ve long envisioned.  Compostable stuff would not contain hazardous chemicals beyond what are already present in nature.

PSI:     What 1 thing do you do better than anyone else you know?

DG:     Throw an axe.  (I won the Northeast woodsmen’s championships one year, many years ago…)

PSI:     What would be the title of your autobiography?

DG:     In balance: a journey not a destination.

PSI:     What would you be if you could be anything else?

DG:     A bird — I’ve always thought it would be cool to fly and look at the world from over the treetops.  Which species?  Something like a kingfisher, a bird with attitude.

PSI:     What is your proudest accomplishment?

DG:     Raising two bright, caring kids who are so concerned about the environment and have such a world view that they give me hope for the future.

Dave Galvin is program manager for the Hazardous Waste Management Unit in King County (Seattle, Washington), part of the multi-agency “Local Hazardous Waste Management Program in King County.”  This program addresses household and small business hazardous wastes in the Seattle metropolitan area. Dave began working in this subject area in 1979 and was the one who coined the term “household hazardous waste.”  He was the founding president of the North American Hazardous Materials Management Association and is the current president of the Product Stewardship Institute’s board.  He has also worked on stormwater and combined sewer overflow controls, trace organic chemicals in wastewater, pesticide-reduction, and Endangered Species Act listings of salmon, along with his decades of attention to hazardous wastes.

by Amy S. Cannon, Executive Director of  Beyond Benign 

What is green chemistry? Why and how does it relate to you? Green chemistry is the design of products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It is perhaps a bit more difficult than it sounds. However, just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it is not worth doing. Green chemistry focuses on the invention and design stage of a product’s life-cycle. The idea is that if we can infuse chemists with the knowledge of toxicity and mechanisms of environmental harm, then chemists will be able to use that knowledge to create safe, non-toxic products in a non-hazardous manner.

A question you might ask is, “So you mean chemists haven’t always deliberately tried to make safe products?” Well, the answer to this is, “No, we haven’t.” Why do chemists and scientists not design products and processes to be safe from the beginning? To put the answer simply – we just are not taught how to do it. It is not in our vocabulary or in our knowledge base.

If you study chemistry at any level, you will most likely never take a course that has anything to do with the environment. You will not take a course on toxicology, the very science with the knowledge of understanding the hazards associated with chemicals. You will not take a course on environmental fate and transport to understand the ecological cycles in which we function. Traditionally, this knowledge has been left for the environmental scientists to learn about and deal with the waste and hazards that chemists create in the design and manufacture of products. Green chemistry seeks to change this by teaching chemists to understand environmental science and toxicology. The chemists and design scientists can have the greatest impact on pollution prevention, reducing waste and hazards.

To help explain this, let’s think about how products are made.

There are many stages to a product’s life-cycle. In order to create safe, sustainable products there are a number of people that need to be involved. Chemicals policy makers focus on the implementation of the best suitable alternatives that are currently available. The policy makers are essential in ensuring that the products that are on the shelf are as safe as possible. Green chemists focus on the demand side of the product life-cycle. The very moment a chemist begins to plan how they will create and develop a new product or redesign an existing product, they are making decisions that will have impact down stream. If we can teach chemists to design products and processes in a sustainable, non-toxic manner, then the roles of the engineer and the chemicals policy maker become much easier.

For too long, environmental issues of hazards and toxicology have been absent from the education of scientists. It is time to bring this knowledge back into the chemist’s curriculum so that a chemist is able to create safe, non-toxic products and processes each time they sit down to do so. Can you imagine a future where all products are designed to be safe at conception? This would make our purchasing much more simplified and we would no longer have to scour the literature to determine which skin-care product is the least hazardous or which cleaners will be safe to use within our homes.

As green chemists, we are working towards making this future happen. Industries are climbing on board as they find out about the economic benefits of green chemistry. Governments are beginning to implement legislation that is supportive of green chemistry efforts, recognizing that economic development and sustainability are not mutually exclusive. Developing nations are recognizing the benefit of green chemistry and working with local, bio-based resources. And, perhaps most importantly, students are signing up in droves for classes and programs where they can learn how to do chemistry in a way that does not have to harm the earth or human health. It is, after all, the next generation that will lead the path toward building a sustainable world with safe, non-toxic, effective products. And, it is for them and their future that we need to support these efforts. Together we can make the world a safer place.

For more information about Green Chemistry see: http://www.beyondbenign.org/ or http://www.warnerbabcock.com/.

Amy_Cannon@beyondbenign.org