Pollution Prevention & Green Chemistry

Green chemistry generally refers to the replacement of hazardous chemicals with more environmentally friendly materials during product manufacturing, use and disposal. By introducing more environmentally benign chemicals into products and manufacturing processes, green chemistry strives to reduce the public health and environmental impacts associated with chemicals across the entire supply chain. SRC is a proven leader in this field, especially in the area of identifying and assessing safer substitutes.

Specific examples of our experience in this area include:

• Alternatives Assessments
  SRC supports U.S. EPA's Design for the Environment (DfE) Alternatives Assessments program to provide information on safer alternatives for specific products. The comparative hazard assessment uses health and environmental profiles to inform stakeholders and maximize their use of safer chemical substitutes.
  
  SRC has also supported the Washington State Department of Ecology’s PFAS in Food Packaging Alternatives Assessment, which identified and evaluated safer alternatives to hazardous “forever chemicals” commonly used in food packaging materials.
• Safer Product Labeling Program
  EPA’s Safer Product Labeling Program recognizes household and institutional products that use the safest available chemical ingredients. SRC evaluates ingredients in qualifying products for potential to cause harm to human health or the environment. Only those products that meet the voluntary program's criteria can display the Safer Choice logo.
• Safer Chemical Ingredient List
  EPA’s Safer Chemical Ingredient List contains chemicals that meet the Safer Choice criteria to assist companies in choosing safer ingredients for formulations. SRC has evaluated more than 1,000 chemical ingredients included on SCIL.
• Sustainable Futures
  SRC supported the EPA’s Sustainable Futures initiative which trains stakeholders to foster the use of pollution prevention tools in their green chemistry efforts.
• Tool Development
  Pollution prevention and green chemistry tools developed by SRC include: PBT Profiler, AIM and ChemACE which were designed to identify chemical analogues that can be used to assess data poor chemicals.