Comments on the Design for the Environment (Dfe) Program Alternatives Assessment Criteria for Hazard Evaluation
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Comments on the Design for the Environment (DfE) Program Alternatives Assessment Criteria for Hazard Evaluation Table of Contents Alaska Community Action on Toxics; The Autism Society; Capital Region Action Against Breast Cancer; Center for Health, Environment and Justice - Citizens' Environmental Coalition; and other contributing organizations .............................................................................................. 3 Albemarle Corporation; Center for Environmental and Occupational Risk Analysis and Management, College of Public Health, University of South Florida; and, Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection (Instytut Zdrowia Publicznego i Ochrony Środwiska) ..... 11 Alkylphenols & Ethoxylates Research Council (APERC) ........................................................... 17 American Chemistry Council (ACC) ............................................................................................ 36 American Cleaning Institute® (ACI) ............................................................................................ 44 Boeing ........................................................................................................................................... 51 Chemical Producers & Distributors Association (CPDA) ............................................................ 52 Clean Production Action ............................................................................................................... 54 The Dow Chemical Company ....................................................................................................... 55 Environmental Health Research Foundation ................................................................................ 61 Environmental Working Group .................................................................................................... 68 Global Automakers, Inc. ............................................................................................................... 72 IBM Corporation ........................................................................................................................... 77 ICL-IP America Inc. ..................................................................................................................... 79 Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. ................................................................................. 81 Intelligent Global Pooling Systems (iGPS) .................................................................................. 82 National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) ................................................... 86 National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) ............................................................................. 87 North American Metal Packaging Alliance, Inc. (nampa) ........................................................... 92 The Proctor & Gamble Company (P&G) ..................................................................................... 94 Washington State Department of Ecology .................................................................................... 98 Comments on the DfE Alternatives Assessment Criteria for Hazard Evaluation 2 Alaska Community Action on Toxics; The Autism Society; Capital Region Action Against Breast Cancer; Center for Health, Environment and Justice Citizens' Environmental Coalition; and other contributing organizations January 31, 2011 Alaska Community Action on Toxics - The Autism Society - Capital Region Action Against Breast Cancer - Center for Health, Environment and Justice - Citizens' Environmental Coalition – Citizens for A Clean Environment - Clean New York – Clean Production Action - Clean Water Action - Commonweal – Ecology Center of Michigan - The Endocrine Disruption Exchange - Environmental Health Fund - Environmental Health Strategy Center - Environmental Justice Action Group of Western NY - Great Lakes Green Chemistry Network - Great Lakes United - Greenpeace - Green Science Policy Institute - Health Care Without Harm - Healthy Building Network - Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition, Inc. - Institute for Health and the Environment, University at Albany - Kentucky Environmental Foundation - Mira’s Movement - NY Public Interest Research Group - New York State Nurses Association - NY Lawyers for the Public Interest - Pesticide Action Network North America - Physicians for Social Responsibility - US Public Interest Research Group - Washington Toxics Coalition - WE ACT for Environmental Justice Comments on: Design for the Environment Program Alternatives Assessment Criteria for Hazard Evaluation Draft - November 2010 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Pollution Prevention & Toxics We applaud the US EPA Design for Environment Program (DfE) program for developing draft criteria for performing chemical hazard evaluations and releasing them for public review. Increasingly, companies and state government agencies are developing criteria for identifying which chemicals are safer for humans and the environment. The draft DfE AA (Alternatives Assessment) criteria for hazard evaluations, if designed appropriately, would provide important guidance to these organizations. We wish to particularly emphasize our strong support for the inclusion of endocrine activity in the assessment. Endocrine effects are now recognized as the critical link to serious damage to human health and development from certain chemicals, and no assessment is complete without a serious assessment of the data on endocrine activity. EPA must not only keep the endocrine assessment element but strengthen it by addressing it in the table to inform the matrix decision making process. Comments on the DfE Alternatives Assessment Criteria for Hazard Evaluation 3 General comments: We have the following concerns about important elements of DfE’s AA criteria: Harmonization: We agree with DfE’s decision to harmonize with other existing hazard evaluation protocols and regulations including the Globally Harmonized System for the Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) and Clean Production Action’s (CPA’s) Green Screen for Safer Chemicals (Green Screen). In general, DfE has done a good job of harmonizing. There are some notable exceptions, however, with room for greater harmonization. o We suggest lists (see below) that should be added and some specific thresholds – most notably for bioaccumulation, which should be adjusted. o We suggest that DfE explicitly acknowledge relevant and similar chemical hazard assessment protocols, including most notably the Green Screen, which is now being used by state governments, including Maine and Washington, and the electronics sector, including HP and Apple, to evaluate chemicals and identify safer alternatives. Authoritative lists: There are some important authoritative lists which should be added to the criteria: o We suggest addition of California Proposition 65 LIST, NIOSH’s Carcinogen list, the EU CMR list, certain EU Risk Phrases, and the NTP reports on Reproductive and Development Toxicity. Endocrine activity: Endocrine activity is too important to leave buried in the narrative and must be part of the matrix decision making process. o We suggest integration of endocrine activity into the summary assessment table. Degradation products of concern: It is critical to identify when a compound leads to degradation products -- be it through metabolism, environmental degradation or combustion -- that are of greater concern than the parent compound. For example, we know this can be an issue with halogenated flame retardants. An alternatives assessment that does not include an explicit degradation assessment may well result in regrettable, rather than informed, substitutions. o We suggest explicit integration of degradation products of concern into the AA criteria -- both the summary table and narrative – for persistence and for other health endpoints. Respiratory Sensitization: We are concerned that this assessment provides no guidance on characterization of respiratory sensitization. DfE has already established criteria for respiratory sensitization for fragrances and there are several useful authoritative lists to draw from at least as flagging lists as well. Physical hazards: GHS has developed criteria for classifying chemicals according to their physical hazards. DfE should integrate physical hazards into the assessments and include them in the hazard assessment table. They are legitimate criteria for evaluating chemical hazards, being used by others to evaluate alternatives and should be part of DfE assessments. o We suggest integration of physical hazards (Flammability, Reactivity and Corrosivity) s into the AA assessment criteria -- both the summary table and narrative. Comments on the DfE Alternatives Assessment Criteria for Hazard Evaluation 4 Section-specific comments: 1. Section 4.1.2, Carcinogenicity: Add to Table 3: a. State of California Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) California Proposition 65 (Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act Of 1986) Chemicals Known to the State to Cause Cancer or Reproductive Toxicity (http://www.oehha.ca.gov/prop65/prop65_list/Newlist.html) b. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Carcinogen List (http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/cancer/npotocca.html) 2. Section 4.1.4 Reproductive and Developmental Toxicity: add Table on Authoritative Lists Used to Designate High Hazard for Reproductive/