1. thepumphandle
  2. Can There Ever Be Such a Thing as a Sustainable Chemical Standard?

Can There Ever Be Such a Thing as a Sustainable Chemical Standard?

By sb admin on September 11, 2009.

The American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute® (ACS GCI) has teamed with stakeholders from industry, non-governmental organizations, and Federal and State agencies to develop a Sustainable Chemical and Process Technology Standard for the chemical industry.  As stated in the January 2009 memo from the ACS GCI, the new Standard is intended toâ¦

â¦establish consistent requirements for sustainable chemical products and production technologyâ¦to demonstrate how chemical products can conform to the environmental, economic, and social principles of sustainability throughout the supply chain; and to encourage participation by all chemical manufacturers to maximize impact reductions and enhance environmental accomplishments.

Itâs curious how this Standard will integrate with existing environmental regulations at chemical production facilities.  For example, Shell Chemical Yabucoa, a petrochemical facility in Puerto Rico, has received a compliance order from the USEPA.  The facility has a permit to discharge treated wastewaters, yet it violated the permit by discharging to the wrong location, a.k.a., leaking pollutants, twice so far in 2009.  We are hopeful that the Shell Chemical personnel at this facility are making efforts to reduce impacts to the environment, yet they seem to be having a hard time with this persistent leak.

Will the Sustainable Chemical and Process Technology Standard capture how the facility responds to the leak, the turnaround time to repair the leak, the adverse environmental health consequences of the leak, or the compliance penalties assessed by Federal agencies?  Letâs hope that the new Standard will be able to identify and assess chemical production footprint fluctuations all along the supply chain.

Tags
chemicals policy
Environmental health

More like this

Are Nano EHS Budgets Too Small?
by Kas Introduction The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) coordinates Federal R&D activities related to nanotechnology.  Currently, the NNI involves the activities of 25 Federal agencies, 13 of which have budgets planned for 2010.  Four of these agencies have specific responsibilities…
Global supply chains still full of sweatshops
In the early 1990s, sports apparel giant Nike became the “poster child” for sweatshops in its global supply chain – child labor, forced labor (mandatory overtime), wage theft, confiscation of migrant workers’ passports, sexual harassment of women workers, and unsafe and unhealthy working conditions…
Safety board member sneers at recommendations for improved safety regulations
[Updated 7/24/15 below] I heard very troubling remarks yesterday from a member of the Chemical Safety Board. Mr. Manny Ehrlich said that he has a “fundamental philosophical disagreement” with the staff about making recommendations for new safety regulations. Mr. Ehrlich accepted a job and was…
Latest data on working conditions in global supply chains, September 2017 edition
The whole world is one global supply chain. Brand name companies like Nike, Apple, Hasbro, and dozens of apparel companies do not actually make the consumer products they sell. Instead they hire contract manufacturers in the developing world to produce their goods, and these contractors have sub-…

You're posing a worthwhile question. My gut sense says "no" with today's regulatory climate, though I'll acknowledge that my assertion warrants some follow up. However, I'll pose a couple of examples: RCRA requirements for hazardous waste identification, treatment and disposal; NESHAP standards for toxic air pollutants and TSCA testing requirements all may be too hard-wired to allow the flexibility and innovation that green chemistry approaches will demand. The regulatory framework, relationships between regulators and regulated community, and the standard of care exerted by the regulated community, all have to be in a radically different place than where they are today, for a sustainable chemical standard to work.