Pollution Prevention 101

Surface & parts cleaning, food & beverage manufacturing, refrigerants, flame retardants, and other applications.

These Principles for Alternatives Assessment are designed to guide a process for well informed decision making that supports successful phase out of hazardous products, phase in of safer substitutes and elimination of hazardous chemicals where possible.

Alternatives assessments characterize chemical hazards based on a full range of human health and environmental information. Chemical choices made based on these assessments can minimize the potential for unintended consequences that might occur in moving from a potentially problematic chemical to a poorly understood alternative, which could be more hazardous. DfE criteria for designating a concern for hazard can be found in the DfE Alternatives Assessment Criteria for Hazard Evaluation. These criteria were updated August 2011 following stakeholder comment, and EPA's response to comments. Includes steps for conducting an alternatives assessment.

This guide has been created to assist in researching environmental, health, and safety information for chemicals.

The Institute conducts research to assist companies in identifying safer alternatives to the toxic chemicals used. The process has been largely informed from the work conducted by the Institute in 2005 and 2006 at the request of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts legislature requested that the Institute conduct a scientific study to assess the availability of technically and economically feasible safer alternatives for five toxic or hazardous chemicals: Lead; Formaldehyde; Perchloroethylene (PCE); Hexavalent chromium; Di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP). The outcome was the identification of technically and economically feasible safer alternatives to each of the five chemicals for the specific applications studied.

Historically, regulations governing chemical use have often focused on widely used chemicals and acute human health effects of exposure to them, as well as their potential to cause cancer and other adverse health effects. As scientific knowledge has expanded there has been an increased awareness of the mechanisms through which chemicals may exert harmful effects on human health, as well as their effects on other species and ecosystems. Identification of high-priority chemicals and other chemicals of concern has prompted a growing number of state and local governments, as well as major companies, to take steps beyond existing hazardous chemical federal legislation. Interest in approaches and policies that ensure that any new substances substituted for chemicals of concern are assessed as carefully and thoroughly as possible has also burgeoned. The overarching goal of these approaches is to avoid regrettable substitutions, which occur when a toxic chemical is replaced by another chemical that later proved unsuitable because of persistence, bioaccumulation, toxicity, or other concerns.

The Guide is designed to meet IC2 functions and enable member states to standardize the alternatives assessment (AA) process. It allows states with similar interests to share AA results conducted by one member state among the larger IC2 membership.

This is a listing of publicly available alternatives assessments (AA), AA-related guidance documents (generally organized by date, from most recent to oldest), and other resources that list multiple case studies.

This paper in Green Chemistry proposes a life cycle based alternatives assessment (LCAA) framework for consistently integrating quantitative exposure and life cycle impact performance in the substitution process. We start with a pre-screening based on function-related decision rules, followed by three progressive tiers from (1) rapid risk screening of various alternatives for the consumer use stage, to (2) an assessment of chemical supply chain impacts for selected alternatives with substantially different synthesis routes, and (3) an assessment of product life cycle impacts for alternatives with substantially different product life cycles. Each tier focuses on relevant impacts and uses streamlined assessment methods. While the initial risk screening will be sufficient for evaluating chemicals with similar supply chains, each additional tier helps further restricting the number of viable solutions, while avoiding unacceptable trade-offs.

Completely eliminating the use and generation of hazardous solvents is ideal, from a human health, environmental and cost perspective because it prevents pollution and reduces associated costs. This fact sheet provides links to resources that will help companies make these changes.

Within the European Green Deal, the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) (EC, 2020a) identified a number of actions to reduce negative impacts on human health and the environment associated with chemicals, materials, products and services commercialised or introduced onto the EU market. In particular, the ambition of the CSS is to phase out the most harmful substances and substitute, as far as possible, all other substances of concern, and otherwise minimise their use and track them. This objective requires novel approaches to analysing and comparing, across all life cycle stages, effects, releases and emissions for specific chemicals, materials, products and services, and move towards zero-pollution for air, water, soil and biota.

Resources for companies to find alternatives to toxic solvents.From the Washington State Department of Ecology.

Natural and man-made chemicals are all around us and should be managed appropriately for the protection of human health and the environment. SETAC endorses the application of scientific principles in chemical management. This page links to SETAC activities in this area:

Database of products that meet EPA's Safer Choice standard.

The U.S. EPA's Safer Choice program (formerly Design for the Environment) helps consumers, businesses, and institutional buyers identify cleaning and other products that perform well, are cost-effective, and are safer for the environment.

The Safer Chemical Ingredients List (SCIL) is a list of chemical ingredients, arranged by functional-use class, that the Safer Choice Program has evaluated and determined to be safer than traditional chemical ingredients. This list is designed to help manufacturers find safer chemical alternatives that meet the criteria of the Safer Choice Program.

The Safer Choice Standard, formerly known as DfE's Standard for Safer Products (or the "DfE Standard") identifies the requirements products and their ingredients must meet to earn the Safer Choice label.

Under Title VI of the Clean Air Act, the SNAP program identifies and evaluates substitutes in end-uses that have historically used ozone-depleting substances (ODS). SNAP listings of acceptable alternatives can also help sectors transition away from high global warming potential hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) addressed under the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act including its Technology Transitions Program.

REACH is a regulation of the European Union, adopted to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the risks that can be posed by chemicals, while enhancing the competitiveness of the EU chemicals industry. It also promotes alternative methods for the hazard assessment of substances in order to reduce the number of tests on animals.

Search substances by Chemical Abstracts, Service Number (CAS#), Substance Name, Synonym, or Tradename

Tools and guidance to support substitution are provided either by authorities, industry associations, by scientific bodies or NGO's. Guidance is general and does not go beyond basic principles of substitution. Tools supporting substitution are mostly focussed on taking one step after the other (e.g. decision criteria, assessment of alternatives, implementation planning).

Provides easy access to thousands of documents, including hazard characterizations, alternative assessments, test data submitted to EPA, and TSCA regulatory actions. Includes summary information with links to more detailed information, e.g., the submitted study or Federal Register notice.

A simple solution for solvent substitution for surface cleaning is hard to come by. In attempt to address this issue, the TURI Laboratory has created this database linking performance evaluations to specific testing parameters and environmental assessments based on the testing performed at the lab. You may also want to check out these other related web tools.

Provides single chemical toxicity information for aquatic and terrestrial life.

The OECD Substitution and Alternatives Assessment Toolbox (SAAToolbox) compiles resources relevant to chemical selection including substitution and alternatives assessment, as well as the OECD SSIA (Safe(r) and Sustainable Innovation Approach) for nano-enabled and other emerging materials.

This chemical inventory is OSHA's premier one-stop shop for occupational chemical information. It compiles information from several government agencies and organizations. Information available on the pages includes chemical identification and physical properties; exposure limits; sampling information, and additional resources.

TURI developed the Pollution Prevention Options Analysis System tool to help companies and others organize information to compare the environmental, health and safety attributes of chemicals, formulated products and production process changes

A list of pesticide properties databases maintained by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The databases have been selected because they are regularly updated and because they apply quality control to the data which are included.

Chemicals phased out of production, such as PFOA and PFOS, are often replaced by similar chemicals with less research on their toxicity. To address these potentially regrettable substitutes, the PFAS-Tox Database allows quick access to health and toxicology studies on PFAS chemicals that are less well known than PFOA and PFOS.

PubChem is the world's largest collection of freely accessible chemical information. Search chemicals by name, molecular formula, structure, and other identifiers. Find chemical and physical properties, biological activities, safety and toxicity information, patents, literature citations and more. A service of the National Library of Medicine.

Under Title VI of the Clean Air Act, the SNAP program identifies and evaluates substitutes in end-uses that have historically used ozone-depleting substances (ODS). SNAP listings of acceptable alternatives can also help sectors transition away from high global warming potential hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) addressed under the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act including its Technology Transitions Program.

This portal offers you information supporting efforts to replace hazardous substances and assist you with finding safer alternatives.Includes relevant regulations, case studies, and a database of substitutions.