Applications
Applications
We are finding that CARS is applicable in various types of organizations. Though the approach of all the projects is similar, the results are yielding unexpected benefits, and differ according to the values and priorities of the participating organization. In this way, CARS is extremely flexible and valuable in supporting organizations in their decision-making processes. Below are some of the unique experiences we've had so far.
Project Summaries
Multnomah County
Multnomah County embarked on an initiative to provide workers with easier access to information on chemicals used by the County by making MSDS information available on the web. As part of this initiative, Multnomah County decided to screen their chemical product inventory using CARS in order to identify hazards, to provide better information on the chemicals and to set priorities for elimination or replacement. This was the largest inventory screened through CARS to date with 857 total products containing 1293 ingredients. Multnomah County prioritized carcinogens and PBTs for replacement and/or elimination from their inventory. The majority of the hazards appeared to be related to painting and to automobile repair and maintenance. Multnomah County is currently working to certify their auto shops to the Eco-Logical Business Program of the Portland (Oregon) Regional Pollution Prevention Outreach Team. CARS supports efforts to improve the environmental and human health aspects of products used and purchased in these operations.
Rejuvenation, Inc.
Rejuvenation is a company known for its commitment to the community and environmental quality and is dedicated to showing continual improvement through its environmental management system. Rejuvenation decided to focus first on its janitorial products. Information from the CARS screening was combined with product frequency of use information to rank the janitorial products based on human and environmental hazards. The results of the ranking showed four janitorial products that contained hazardous ingredients that could potentially pose a risk to human and environmental health. Rejuvenation was able to eliminate one of the four products from its inventory by discontinuing its use. Replacements are being sought for the other three products. One set of alternative products was reviewed to contrast with the current inventory.
Rejuvenation also used CARS to confirm a prior decision to eliminate products containing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from its lacquer and paint inventory. Rejuvenation became concerned that while it may have eliminated VOCs, it may have substituted new products containing other hazards. In order to assess this concern, Rejuvenation provided ZWA with the ingredients for its old lacquers and paints to compare to the new product formulas using CARS. The results showed that the new products not only had much lower VOC content but also had much better overall profiles.
Port of Portland
As part of the Port's environmental management system, they have established an environmental policy and a commitment to consider the environmental impacts of their operations and business decisions. They are working to continually improve their environmental performance by setting environmental objectives and targets as part of this system. Their first environmental programs focused on paper, and now they are working on janitorial products. The Port is utilizing CARS to help them assess their current janitorial products inventory and prioritize products for replacement or elimination. This project is exciting because other organizations are collaborating in the project as well to ensure that the outcome benefits all participants. ZWA, the Port, The Portland Habilitation Center (the organization that provides cleaning services for the Port), and Unisource (the cleaning products supplier for PHC), are all working together to meet the Port's goal to have 65% of their janitorial product inventory meet criteria for environmentally preferable products (EPP) — as defined in this project — by mid-June 2004.
City of Portland Office of Sustainable Development and the Center for a New American Dream
The Center for a New American Dream, through its Procurement Strategies Program, partnered with the City of Portland, Oregon to support sustainable procurement projects within the City. One of the projects was to identify effective environmentally preferable graffiti removers for purchase and use by the City. MSDSs were gathered and reviewed for input into the CARS database. CARS identified known hazards associated with graffiti remover products. 33 graffiti remover products were screened through the database. The output enabled ZWA to interpret the results and place graffiti removers in one of three categories, based on hazards, percent composition, and data availability. Because some CAS numbers were missing from various products in the inventory, CARS was not able to comprehensively evaluate the products and yield useful information. After the ranking, a report was prepared to describe the project and the status of the screened products. Some of the products were moved to the physical testing phase for effectiveness as a graffiti remover on multiple surface types in the City.
Lake Oswego Elementary School, Oregon
Lake Oswego elementary school had already demonstrated good stewardship by their careful selection of conventional janitorial products, but they wanted to see how their conventional line compared with a newer line of environmentally preferred products. ZWA facilitated by screening and comparing the two inventories and interpreting the resulting database output. The products that Lake Oswego is currently using are relatively green and benign compared to most conventional cleaning products today. And the differences between the current products and the other product line were found to be incremental. However, taking this step to assess the known hazards associated with their cleaning products makes an important statement to the parents, students, janitorial staff, teachers and administration and others in the community that the health of the school community and the environment matters.
City of Portland Columbia Boulevard Wastewater Treatment Plant (Wastewater Group)
The Wastewater Group uses many chemicals to remove most of the suspended solids and dissolved materials from Portland's wastewater and stormwater. The Group desired an effective system to create a framework to reduce toxic, hazardous, and dangerous chemical use and practices. The ZWA assisted in the development of the Enhanced Chemical Management System which consisted of two main activities, the development of the ECMS system itself and work done within the system to inventory, assess, rank and reduce chemical usage and toxicity. The Group credits this project with enabling them to investigate/implement chemical changes and to reinforce a decision to switch from chlorine gas, to sodium hypochlorite, a much safer alternative — saving approximately $190K annually.
Coastwide Laboratories
Coastwide is a cleaning product manufacturer committed to formulating cleaning products that perform and are preferable with respect to human and environmental health. Coastwide developed a list of chemicals commonly used in cleaning products. This list was screened in CARS to clearly identify the hazards associated with traditional cleaning product ingredients. In addition, CARS was able to provide side-by-side comparison of the ingredients in a set of conventional cleaning products and ingredients found in Coastwide's SustainableEarth™ cleaning products. CARS effectively illustrated the health and environmental benefits of the SustainableEarth™ formulations.
CARS and Environmental Management Systems
CARS can be a great ally for an environmental management system. CARS is based on the same see-think-plan-do cycle that is used by formal environmental management systems and may be used to help make them more effective. We've seen that integrating CARS into the aspects and impacts analysis improves the decision-making process of selecting significant aspects. This can also result in more effective selection of objectives and targets, and strengthen programs or projects that are chosen for implementation. CARS can easily identify hazards in the chemical inventory and illustrate improvement by comparing the profiles of products in the new inventory to those of products in the prior inventory.
State of Oregon Department of Administrative Services, Printing and Distribution (P&D)
Following Governor John Kitzhaber's Executive Order to make the state sustainable by 2025, Publishing and Distribution Division enlisted ZWA to implement an environmental management system. To support P&'s EMS aspects and impacts and goal setting process, the CARS database was used to identify chemicals of concern that were regulated, targeted by State or Federal agencies, recognized by other reputable organizations to be of concern to human health and safety (i.e., carcinogen, teratogen) and/or to ecological health and the global ecosystem (i.e., ozone depleting substance, greenhouse gas, etc). The purpose of flagging ingredients was to identify chemicals of concern and provide information so that P&D could select chemicals for elimination or substitution most consistent with their values and policies. Achieving these goals through implementation of their EMS, P&D has not only provided protection for the environment, but also a safer work place for all employees. This implementation included identification of benign solvents for cleaning during printing operations and purchasing of inks without heavy metals. In fact, one of many successful outcomes was the elimination of all hazardous wastes.
Port of Portland — Portland International Airport
We are very excited about this new project! ZWA will collaborate with the Port of Portland Aviation Environmental and Safety Department at the Portland International Airport (PDX) to further the facility's efforts in maintaining a safe work environment while protecting local ecosystems. We will apply the ZWA Chemical Assessment and Ranking System to products used by the Port of Portland at PDX Maintenance. More information soon to come!
Lessons Learned
- CARS provides organizations with a straight-forward process for identifying known hazards associated with their chemical inventories; and offers a systematic decision-support tool for ranking and prioritizing those areas in which they want to affect change and work towards measurable improvements.
- CARS is a great ally for an environmental management system to assist the environmental aspects and impacts analysis process. CARS easily identifies hazards in the chemical inventory to allow appropriate ranking and also illustrate improvement by comparing the profiles of products in the new inventory to those of products in the prior inventory.
- CARS is a powerful purchasing assistant. Products from different vendors can be screened and compared in order to identify those products that meet a company's environmental or sustainability goals for the lowest possible cost.
- CARS is an effective tool even for very large inventories as in the case of Multnomah County. Drop down menus/filters in the output assist with sorting through information in the database and creating shorter lists of chemicals based on common criteria.
- The work with Coastwide showed that CARS is useful for chemical product formulators and manufacturers who are sensitive to human health and environmental quality — this applies to industrial sectors as well. Hazards associated with commonly used ingredients can be identified using CARS and that information can assist in formulating/developing new products.
- CARS can be particularly useful for purchasing more sustainable janitorial cleaning products. CARS can be used to compare the known hazards associated with different products. This information can be used to inform purchasers as to which products are most appropriate for their organizations. This is especially useful and important for schools and hospitals.
- The primary limitation of CARS is based on the often limited ingredient information available for products. Manufacturers are required to supply Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), but need only to report materials with associated hazards in concentrations above 1% (or 0.1% for carcinogens). MSDSs vary among manufacturers and some offer more complete information that others. Some list ingredients as “trade secret” without a CAS number therefore making it impossible to screen using a CAS based system. When necessary, we have called the manufacturers for more information and signed confidentiality agreements confirming that we would not share the ingredient identity.