Product stewardship initiatives

Recycling recycling is identified as being a key elements of ICI s product stewardship initiative, but there is no evidence in the report to demonstrate the extent to which it is used to reduce environmental impact. 

In 2001, a group of manufacturers, recyclers, and government representatives in the United States formed the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI), with the major goal of creating a framework for product stewardship for electronics for the whole United States. At this time, product stewardship initiatives have already been initiated in the northeast and the western regions of the countryEfforts to reach agreement on the national initiative continued until 2005, when NEPSI was finally abandoned." ... 

Information related to broader industry issues, newly recognized hazards, and lessons learned from near misses and actual incidents can also be shared with customers and users as part of product stewardship. Trade, professional, and other cooperative organizations such as universities and local emergency planning committees (LEPCs) can be effective vehicles for information sharing, in addition to individual company initiatives. 

The Safer Detergents Stewardship Initiative (SDSI) addressed key environmental, economic, and product development issues in the surfactant world to drive change, especially in the cleaning products industry. Many companies were aware of the concerns for NPEs and with the growing number of alternatives that could offer equivalency in function and cost. Some had proactively switched to safer surfactants. 

For example, the Franco-American company Rhodia notes that REACH has reinforced its efforts in developing product stewardship programmes and reviewing SDS [526]. Similarly, the Swedish Chemical and Plastic Industry Federation has responded to REACH by launching a major initiative to improve SDS information supplied by its companies [527]. From the other end of the risk communication chain, the Dutch-American company Rohm and Haas has responded with a scheme for collecting data on the chemical contents of its upstream raw materials [528]. 

Product stewardship issues will increasingly shape the Responsible Care initiative in future years. The ICC A will establish a strengthened global programme to evaluate and manage chemical-related risks and benefits by developing a unified product stewardship management system approach. This approach will be in place by 2006. 

Right now, sustainability is a journey. .. maybe someday, if we are successful, it will be an endpoint. The chemical industry took the first step of the journey in 1985 with Responsible Care . Responsible Care was fundamentally about taking responsibility for our operations, and through product stewardship, our products throughout the lifecycle. Not a bad start in fact, for the time, an amazingly proactive initiative. 

The environmental report is a concise document, which starts with a purpose statement and overall summary, introduces strategy, policy and management systems, then goes on to discuss environmental protection initiatives and product stewardship. It concludes by discussing environmental impact data and costs. Figures are presented in tabular form, and also as graphs at the bottom of each page. 

Process design the report includes separate sections on product safety and protection of the environment that contain articles from around the group relating to product stewardship and process initiatives in the area of environmental protection. 

Process design the short internet report goes into some detail on product stewardship, but there is also sufficient evidence from the environ mental statement of initiatives to reduce environmental impact by process improvement. This includes ... 

Company coverage no environmental impact data is included in the internet CER, which discusses broad initiatives mainly in the area of product stewardship. 

Silveira GTR, Chang S-Y (2011) Fluorescent lamp recycling initiatives in the United States and a recycling proposal based on extended producer responsibility and product stewardship concepts. Waste Manage Res 29(6) 656-668... 

The solution is certainly not to transfer manufacture to third world countries with lax environmental standards, as some corporations have done. The effluents are still produced, but how are they controlled Initiatives such as product stewardship and environmental management systems may hold the key to this growing problem. However, this environmental Frankenstein is getting out of control. Created to curb environmental pollution, increased regulatory controls have simply pushed the problem underground or into countries where the capital investment is welcomed. 

In parallel with the laws and regulations described above, trade organizations and working groups have developed voluntary initiatives for product stewardship. Two of the best known are Responsible Care and the Nano Risk Framework. 

Product stewardship, environmental management systems and Industry initiatives... 

---