Assessment of alternatives

Risk assessment is the conventional tool for decision making on the acceptability of chemical use. It is based on predicted exposure levels, predicted no-effect levels of individual chemicals and politically defined degrees of acceptable risk. Each of these processes involves a series of value judgements and estimations. Risk assessment is therefore highly subjective. 

On the other hand, the assessment of intrinsic hazard can be a much more objective process. Intrinsic properties can generally be established and quantified more empirically and provide a better basis for decision-making. 

The assessment of substitutes will rely on various factors and a number of methodologies have been developed to compare the alternatives available. A variety of software and tools are available to enable a comprehensive review of chemical properties. 

Another model, used in the USA, is the OASYS Pollution Prevention Optional Analysis System, developed by the Toxic Use Reduction Institute. Technologies are assessed on a variety of hazard criteria, including acute and chronic human toxicity, physical properties, aquatic impacts, persistence/bioaccumulation, atmospheric releases, disposal, chemical properties, energy/resource use, product hazard and exposure potential. Alternatives are rated to 

The Swedish Chemical Inspectorate (KEMI) has used substitution analysis to assess biocides with the goal of promoting sustainable agriculture. KEMI uses a seven-step process that evaluates not only the intrinsic 

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H. N. KeUey and G. L. SEAh, Assessment of Alternate Thermal Protection Systemsfor the Space Shuttle Orbiter (AIAA/ASME 3rd Joint Thermophysics, Eluids, Plasma and Heat Transfer Conference, June 7—11, 1982, St. Louis, Mo., AIAA-82-0899, 1982. 

Carlson, D. D. and J. W., Hickman, Value-Impact Assessment of Alternate nent... 

Batchelor, T. 1998. Montreal protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer. United Nations Environmental Program. Assessment of alternatives to methyl bromide. Methyl bromide technical... 

When an application for an authorisation is made, the applicant should provide details of alternative substances, materials, processes or products currently in use(substitution plan). A comparative assessment of alternatives should be provided in ordertojustify the need seen by the applicant for authorisation to be granted. Other parties (e.g. manufacturers of potential substitutes) should be invited to respond to this Substitution Assessment. 

Danish Environmental Protection Agency, Brominated Flame Retardants Substance Flow Analysis and Assessment of Alternatives. Environmental Project 494,1999... 

To provide a more specifically economic theory motivation for the analysis of subsequent sections, we consider here an individual decision-taker who has many sides to his nature, who can and does assess alternatives from various points of view and whose preferences in any particular dimension i can be represented by a utility function u,( ). What sorts of interpretation may plausibly be given to these various m,-( ) Perhaps there is no closed list of answers to this question any normal human agent has access to so many different possible assessments of alternatives as a parent, as a spouse, as a snooker player, as a (self-perceived) defender of high culture, as a self-indulgent person, as a would-be ascetic, as a serious person, as someone who values light amusement from time to time, as a secondhand car salesman, as a second-hand car salesman who hopes to... 

Danish EPA. 1999. Brominated flame retardants. Substance flow analysis and assessment of alternatives. Danish Environmental Protection Agency, 1-200. 

It is intended to use these properties for the assessment of alternative flame retardants (FRs) (including nanoparticles, phosphates, and inorganic metal oxides) in comparison with brominated fire retardants by quantitatively assessing ... 

To protect occupational and consumer health from DCM, Germany set technical standards on DCM sales. National measures would not have been practical for regulating the trade and marketing of DCM in the EU. Action to restrict the marketing of dangerous substances to protect human health or the environment must comply with Article 95 of the EC Treaty relating to the internal market. Objecting to immediate adoption of EU standards to ensure adequate risk reduction, the UK - a major producer of DCM - declared that it was necessary to conduct full risk assessments of alternative substances, as well as a detailed socio-economic analysis of... 

Distribution of Toxicity in the RSTS The toxicity of the substances in the RSTS should be distributed as uniformly as possible across the range of interest. This is important because a nonuniform distribution of test substance toxicity in an RSTS may not allow an effective assessment of alternative method performance. Potential effects of nonuniform test substance distribution are illustrated in Figure 4. The ideal situation is shown in Figure 4b. In this example, the test substances are uniformly distributed across the range of possible toxicity. If such results were... 

The European Union commissioned an assessment of alternatives that focused attention on fuel cells and hydrogen, which included the following statement ... 

But the analysis is loose, and not complete nor convincing. In U.S. documents, there also does not seem to be a careful assessment of alternatives. This is no surprise since most of the U.S. documents are based on a political determination by the Bush Administration, with the NEPP as the basis for the decision. No comparative assessment, at least in the text of the NEPP, was made. In short, the answer to the basic fundamental question in both regions is not very convincing. 

Introducing Green Metrics Early in Process Development. Comparative Assessment of Alternative Industrial Routes to Elliott s Alcohol, A Key Intermediate in the Production of Resmethrins... 

We have observed that the modeling sessions encourage the participants to reflect, discuss, and scrutinize their work processes. Often, improvements for shortcomings are suggested. They are recorded in the minutes for later reuse, but are not modeled explicitly. Before any profound assessment of alternatives can be made, an overall view of the work process is needed. Spontaneous proposals might overcome local difficulties in one part of the work process, but they are likely to cause problems in another part. Given the complexity of industrial work processes, such issues cannot be detected before a complete process model is available. 

Amr AT, Cain TC, Cleaves DJ et al. (1996). Preliminary Risk Assessment of Alternative Technologies for Chemical Demilitarization, MTR 96W0000023. McLean, VA Mitretek Systems. 

MBTOC (1998) 1998 Report of the Methyl Bromide Technical Options Committee. Assessment of Alternatives to Methyl Bromide, United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya. 

In designing Bosch s MM2 rate-sensing gyro, a semi resonant rotational principle was chosen that is, in-plane stimulation is resonant and electrostatic, and out-of-plane detection is also electrostatic, but off-resonant. These decisions can only be made after several studies and assessments of alternative schemes. Here, we focus only on the actually implemented principle of operation, as described in Section 4.1.4.1 (see also [15, 17-19]). 

Danish Environmental Protection Agency (2001) Environmental and Health Assessment of Alternatives to Phthalates and to flexible PVC. Environ Project No. 590. 

Walters RG and Horton P (1993) Theoretical assessment of alternative mechanisms for non-photochemical quenching in barley leaves. Photosynth Res 27 121-133 Walters RG, Ruban AV and Horton P (1994) Light-harvesting complexes bound by dicyclohexylcarbodiimide during inhibition of protective energy dissipation. Eur J Biochem 226 1063-1069... 

The Green Screen list of hazards most closely tracks the hazards incorporated into the US ERA Design for Environment (DfE) Program s summary assessment of alternatives to the brominated flame retardant, pentaBDE. Table 2 lists the hazards included in both the US ERA DfE program s summary assessment of pentaBDE alternatives and the Green Screen. For definitions of the hazards in Table 2 see Appendix 1. 

The US ERA DfE Program defined threshold values for high, moderate, and low levels of concern for environmental fate, ecotoxicity, and human health effects (as part of its assessment of alternatives to pentaBDE). These threshold values were the starting point for defining many of the Green Screen threshold values. Table 3 summarizes the Green Screen threshold values for each level of concern for each hazard. The details and rationale behind each threshold value are described below. 

MK-401. Early environmental assessment of alternatives for the trichloro precursor (C. B. Rosas, personal communication, 2003). 

Step 5 of the master planning process involves performing both an economic and a qnalitative assessment of the alternative plans of action. The economic evalnation shonld consist of a time-valne-of-money assessment of the total life-cycle costs of competing alternative plans of action. The qnalitative assessment of alternatives reqnires that the alternatives be snbjectively compared on snch attributes as personnel safety, flexibility, ease of implementation, maintainahitity, potential product damage, and so forth. 

Many workers have used the technique of photofluorescence to study energy disposal in vacuum u.v. photodissociation, particularly Style, Welge, Okabe, and their co-workers, and an experimental study 1 Mele and Okabe on the photodissociation of the cyanogen halides has been much onployed as a yardstick for the assessment of alternative theoretical models (see Section 4). Despite this, the technique remains underexploited, though feedback from recent theoretical models is likely to stimulate much new experimental activity in the near future. 

On March 16, 2001, the Army Product Manager for the NSCMP requested that the NRC undertake a supplemental assessment of alternative technologies for destruction of EDS liquid waste streams. The statement of task is as follows ... 

Some Initial design effort was expended on the assessment of alternative deployment mechanisms to the established link/serving shoe system but in adl cases the restrictions Imposed by the limited mast diameter led to very high stress levels and complication of drive systems. The detail design, therefore, concentrated on a development of the familiar links manipulator. 

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