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

Surfactants & Biodegradability

1956

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

Future

Nanotechnology

Modifications to wastewater treatment processes to remove residual chemicals

Summary

Detergent industry moved from reactive to proactive mode by mid-1970s

Continual stewardship required

Dedication of expert resources