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4 posts from July 2005

July 31, 2005

Steelcase to phase-out all uses of PVC

You gotta believe!  Who needs "regulations" when the Greens take over industry?  In the artilcle below, which should appear in tomorrow's Plastics News, Steelcase says it will phase-out all uses of PVC.  Please read in it's entirety and tell me what you think.

Steelcase design chief asserts green role
By Robert Grace

PLASTICS NEWS EDITOR

Ludwig

HONG KONG (July 28, 10:50 a.m. EDT) -- Social responsibility and innovation rank high on the motivational chart for James Ludwig, design director for Steelcase Inc., the world’s largest contract furniture manufacturer.

Ludwig is an architect who ran his own design studio in New York and Berlin for 11 years before joining Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Steelcase in 1999 as head of design for one of the firm’s product categories. He assumed Steelcase’s top design post in 2002. Now all designers and even Steelcase’s chief engineer report to him.

“Design is as much about performance as it is about surface,” he said in an interview before his presentation at a June 20-21 product design conference organized by the Hong Kong Design Centre. “Materials play a big role in both of those qualities of product. … Without performance, design is at its worst, and materials science plays a big role in that for us.

“We see the health and safety of our users as one of the prime design drivers. Materials in terms of their chemistry play a big, big role in that, and we’re spending more and more time focused on what’s inside the stuff we use.”

The 93-year-old Steelcase, which employs about 14,000 and has annual sales of $2.6 billion, “owns [environmental] leadership in our industry,” Ludwig said. “It’s not only market-driven. We see it as a responsibility. I profoundly believe as a designer and architect that I have a social contract to do whatever I can … to make the things we do healthy and safe — and delightful, of course. That’s why we’re moving so quickly,” ahead of regulatory pressures and even market demand.

As an example, he said that in a project that is launching soon, Steelcase expects to be able to eliminate about 8 pounds of material — mostly plastic and steel — from a specific chair model, simply by pushing the envelope, engineeringwise. At the projected 300,000-unit annual sales volumes for the product, the firm estimates it will save about 2.4 million pounds a year in materials that will not have to be landfilled.

Also, as previously reported, Steelcase in early June became the first furniture maker to pin a specific date, 2012, on its planned phaseout of all PVC resins from its products. In defending the decision, Ludwig said, “We can only operate to the best of our conscience and the best of knowledge at that time, and we’re convinced that removing vinyls and PVC out of our products is the best thing for the health and safety of our users. And we’ll continue down that path until proven otherwise.”

Recently, a spokesman for the Arlington, Va.-based Vinyl Institute questioned whether Steelcase’s decision takes into account recent studies favorable to PVC.

Ludwig, meanwhile, held up his firm’s Think chair, introduced a year ago, as an example of the “transparency” that he and Steelcase advocate. He believes it is very important to share with the public detailed information about all the life-cycle environmental impacts involved in making not only the end product, but also its constituent materials. Steelcase worked with environmental consultant Niki Bey at the University of Denmark on the Think project.

Office-furniture competitor Herman Miller Inc. also has made a public case about its efforts to be green-minded and environmentally responsible. Both firms have partnered with McDonough Braun-gart Design Chemistry on life-cycle analyses and matters related to environmental sustainability.

Zeeland, Mich.-based Herman Miller has developed a “design for the environment” initiative, guidelines that engineers and designers must meet in using environmentally friendly products at every stage. For its Mirra chair, for example, that meant not just design for disassembly and recyclability, but also detailed life-cycle scrutiny of every type of resin used and of each chemical constituent in those resins.

Still, Ludwig could not resist taking a swip at his rival.

“Herman Miller is very good at talking about their accomplishments. I would say we’ve surpassed anyone else in the industry in terms of our actual accomplishments. There are some very respectable companies out there, doing some very good work. But,” he added, “there’s also quite a bit of green-washing going on, with respect to how the actual accomplishments of the company weigh out, with respect to what they’re saying about it.”

Steelcase is a stakeholder in IDEO of Palo Alto, Calif., which offers product development and innovation consulting services. The firms share a site in Shanghai, China. Ludwig said, “IDEO has helped us to develop an innovation culture,” which “has made my job possible.” He also praised Steelcase Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett as “a very innovative guy” who has helped nurture such a culture at the company.

July 19, 2005

New "Chemical Saftey" Bill

CHEMICAL SAFETY BILL: Senate Democrats introduced legislation last week that would require chemical manufacturers to provide EPA with basic health and safety information on chemicals used in consumer products. The bill would fundamentally overhaul the nation's chemical management framework and is similar to proposed reforms in the European Union. "Most Americans believe their government is making sure that chemicals used in the marketplace are safe. Unfortunately, that simply isn't true," Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) remarked at a Capitol Hill news conference. Lautenberg said the measure he is sponsoring with Senator James M. Jeffords (I-VT) was prompted by a growing body of research in peer-reviewed scientific journals documenting serious health effects from chemicals in common consumer products, such as bisphenol-A in baby bottles and phthalates in toys and cosmetics. Under the legislation, chemical makers would first provide data on a range of health effects. EPA would then prioritize the chemicals for review to ensure they meet a health standard that is protective of children and fetuses. Chemicals that fail to meet the standard could be banned or restricted to certain essential uses. By 2020, all chemicals in commerce would need to meet the standard. Lautenberg also released a Government Accountability Office report (GAO-05-458) that advises Congress to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act to give EPA more authority to obtain the data needed to evaluate chemical safety. Chemical & Engineering News, 07/18/05, p. 24.

July 11, 2005

European Phthalate Ban

EUROPE GOES FOR PHTHALATE BAN: Europe is set to impose a permanent ban on phthalates used to soften plastic toys and child-care products, following a vote in the European Parliament in favor of stricter regulation. The measure, expected to apply from the fall of 2006, replaces a temporary ban on six phthalates introduced in 1999 and regularly renewed by the EU Commission since then. It will apply to products made within the EU's 25 member countries, as well as to imports. Under the new directive, the use of three of the plasticizers -- di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), dibutyl phthalate (DBP) and butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP) -- will not be permitted in any toy or child-care article. The other three plasticizers -- diisononyl phthalate (DINP), diisodecyl phthalate (DIDP) and di-n-octyl phthalate (DNOP) -- will be banned from toys and child-care products that children can put in their mouths. EC believes children who suck or chew soft PVC items containing phthalates are at risk for kidney, liver or testicular damage. It welcomed the vote, which means the directive only needs the formal approval of EU governments this fall. The measure will replace various regulations imposed independently by EU member states. The Parliament vote drew angry protests from the region's toy manufacturers and Europe's plasticizer industry. In separate statements, they both accused the EU of ignoring its own expert scientific advice. The European Council for Plasticizers and Intermediates said it is "very disappointed and concerned." It pointed out that only one of the six phthalates, DINP, generally is used in toys. After DINP underwent EU scientific risk assessment, member-government technical experts agreed its use in toys does not endanger children's health, ECPI recalled. A similar finding resulted when the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission investigated DINP, ECPI added. The EU decision was greeted with delight by Greenpeace, which took credit for first revealing children were exposed to the effects of phthalates in 1997 after it tested a range of PVC toys and child-care items. Plastics News, 07/11/05, p. 8; Chemical & Engineering News, 07/11/05, p. 11.

July 10, 2005

Testing Pesticides

HUMAN TESTING OF TOXIC CHEMICALS: A leaked draft EPA rule on using human volunteers for tests of pesticides and toxic chemicals has drawn a sharp response from Congress. The proposal follows some of the recommendations of a February Boxer 2004 National Research Council report on the subject. But the draft omits several safeguards and allows certain experiments that NRC said should be prohibited. For example, the draft proposal allows exposure studies on children if conducted during children's normal activities and not used to identify a toxic effect. NRC, in contrast, concluded that studies on pregnant women, as well as children, newborns, and prisoners, would generally be unethical. NRC also recommended that EPA establish a review board to evaluate all human dosing studies, but the EPA proposal does not require such a board. The agency says a review board "would unnecessarily confine EPA's discretion." EPA's controversial proposal has led to conflicting amendments being passed in the Senate. On June 29th, the Senate addressed pesticide testing in two amendments to the appropriations bill for interior and related agencies. One measure, by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), prohibits EPA from spending any funds to consider third-party pesticide studies -- those conducted by industry or outside organizations -- in which humans are intentionally dosed. The second measure, by Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), instructs EPA to conduct a thorough review of human pesticide dosing studies and to issue a final rule on the conduct of such studies within 180 days. Chemical & Engineering News, 07/04/05, p. 9; Science, Vol. 309, No. 5732, 8 July 2005, p. 232.

 




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