This webcast series focuses in on a critical set of inputs common to most supply chains: toxic materials.

“Benign by design” refers to the design of chemical products and processes that are aimed at reducing or eliminating the use or generation of hazardous substances at every stage of a product’s life-cycle. “Benign by design” is not limited only to impacts of chemicals during product manufacturing but also through the products’ entire life cycle.

Join Joel Makower, Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com in this three-part webcast series, featuring experts and thought leaders in reducing toxicity in products. Among the things you’ll learn:

• the impacts of toxic materials on human health
• tools for how to identify concealed toxic substances in commonly used materials
• how to balance the risk of using toxic substances with other benefits or considerations (such as functional requirements)
• which standard methods exist to test for product emissions
• which new regulations are emerging that will require changing the review of products which go to market
• challenges in phasing out common toxic substances and reducing the toxic material burden
• the role product standards play in the addressing the challenge.

Speakers will use case studies and real-world examples to share the information.

Scientists are reporting discovery of an environmentally friendly way to make a key industrial material — used in products ranging from paints to diapers — from a renewable raw material without touching the traditional pricey and increasingly scarce petroleum-based starting material. Their report on a new catalyst for making acrylic acid appears in ACS Catalysis, the newest in the American Chemical Society’s suite of 39 peer-reviewed scientific journals.

In September 2008, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated the signing of two bills (AB 1879 and SB 509) that, he said, would propel “California to the forefront of the nation and the world with the most comprehensive Green Chemistry program ever established.”

Once they went into effect, he said, “we will stop looking at toxics as an inevitable byproduct of industrial production. Instead they will be something that can be removed from every product in the design stage, protecting people’s health and our environment.”

It sounded pretty good — in theory.

Two years later, after countless public workshops, straw proposals and drafts of regulations, the reality is turning out to be a major disappointment. More than that, it’s a betrayal.

“This new approach for evaluating and identifying safer chemicals is an important step toward ensuring that that the chemicals used in this country are safe,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “Making this information available will not only lead to the manufacture of safer products, it will increase the public’s access to critical chemical information.”

The DfE program works in partnership with industry, environmental groups, and academia to help industry choose safer alternatives to chemicals that may pose a concern to human health or the environment. Information on chemical hazards from DfE Alternatives Assessments is combined with industry data on performance and cost to guide the choice of safer alternatives. To distinguish among alternatives, DfE evaluates data for each chemical and assigns hazard levels of high, moderate, or low for human health and environmental concerns.

DfE Alternatives Assessments will be conducted for bisphenol A (BPA), phthalates, decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE), hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) and nonylphenol and nonylphenol ethoxylates (NP and NPEs). Both the BPA and decaBDE efforts are under way and include the use of BPA and its alternatives in thermal paper, such as cash register receipts, and the review of flame retardant alternatives to decaBDE in products such as textiles, plastic palettes, and electronics. Assessments of phthalates, the flame retardant HBCD, and NPEs will begin in 2011.

The assessments will lead to the manufacture of safer products and reduced chemical exposures. For example, replacing BPA in thermal paper with safer alternatives will safeguard children, cashiers, and others from BPA in cash register or sales receipts. Similarly, safer alternatives to decaBDE flame retardants used in textiles and electronics will eliminate an important route of human and environmental exposure to this chemical.

EPA will accept comment on the criteria through January 31, 2011.

More information: http://epa.gov/dfe/alternative_assessments.html

“EPA’s green chemistry program has long been a catalyst for new approaches and innovation,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “This year, EPA is encouraging green chemistry award nominations that will help achieve our goal to ensure that chemicals are safe for use in products, homes, schools and workplaces.”

The 2011 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards will mark the 16th year of the program. Throughout the first 15 years, EPA received more than 1,300 nominations and presented awards to 77 winners. Winning technologies alone are responsible for reducing the use or generation of more than 198 million pounds of hazardous chemicals, saving 21 billion gallons of water, and eliminating 57 million pounds of carbon dioxide releases to air

For the 2011 awards, nominated technologies should reduce or eliminate the use or generation of hazardous substances from a chemical product or process. Companies, non-profit organizations, public academic institutions, and their representatives may nominate green chemistry technologies for the awards. Self-nominations are welcome and expected. Typically, one award is given each year in five categories: greener synthetic pathways, greener reaction conditions, designing greener chemicals, small business, and academic.

More information on how to submit entries: http://www.epa.gov/greenchemistry/pubs/pgcc/howto.html

Chemical engineers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst developed a way to produce key industrial chemicals inexpensively from biomass, cutting the $400 billion industry’s dependence on fossil fuels.

This is a blog post by Amy S. Cannon, Executive Director of Beyond Benign in preparation for the PSI Networking Conference Call, “Green Chemistry 101:  Safer Chemicals Mean Safer Product,” on Tuesday, Nov. 9 (2:00-3:30 p.m. EST). This post discusses the basics of green chemistry and why we need it. Beyond Benign is, like the Warner Babcock Institute, driven by the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry, and seeks to make products safer and non-toxic across their life-cycle. We will continue this discussion on our networking call. Please join us for the dialogue.

• Green Chromatography (Part 1): Introduction and Liquid Chromatography
• Green Chromatography (Part 2): The Role of GC and SFC

Four inventions from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been recognized with the R&D 100 award for 2010 from R&D Magazine, which recognizes the 100 most significant proven technological advances of the year.

California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has released the Draft Regulation for Safer Consumer Products, which will implement a key component of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2008 Green Chemistry Initiative. The regulation creates a systematic, science-based process to evaluate chemicals of concern in products.