Sustainability Innovation in Business

Materials and Chemicals

In conjunction with threats to the globe's ecosystems (a somewhat removed and therefore abstract notion for many), people became increasingly aware of threats to their personal health. This concern shifts attention from climate and energy issues at a more macro level to the material aspects of pollution and resource management.

Knowledge about health threats from chemical exposure goes back in history. Lead and mercury were known human toxins for centuries, with the "mad hatter" syndrome caused by hat makers' exposure to mercury, a neurotoxin. The scale and scope of chemicals' impacts, combined with dramatically improved scientific analysis and monitoring, distinguish today's challenges from those of the past. Bioaccumulation and persistence of chemicals, the interactive effect among chemicals once in the bloodstream, and the associated disruptions of normal development have continued to cause concern through 2010. Chemical off-gassing from materials used to build Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) temporary housing trailers causing health problems for Katrina Hurricane victims, the ongoing health problems of early responders to the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City, and health issues associated with bisphenol A (BPA) in hard plastic containers and food and beverage cans are some of the well-known issues of public concern raised in the last few years.The US Department of Health and Human Services offers suggestions to parents to avoid exposure to children.

The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began periodic national health and exposure reports soon after the publication of Our Stolen Future, authored by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers. Considered by many as the 1990s sequel to Rachel Carson's groundbreaking 1962 book Silent Spring, which informed and mobilized the public about pesticide impacts, Our Stolen Future linked toxins from industrial activity to widespread and growing human health problems including compromises in immune and reproductive system functions. In 2005, the federal government's Third National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals found American adults' bodies contained noticeable levels of over one hundred toxins (our so-called body burden), including the neurotoxin mercury taken up in our bodies through eating fish and absorbing air particulates (from fossil fuel combustion) and phthalates (synthetic materials used in production of personal care products, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and coatings such as varnishes and lacquers). Phthalates are associated with cancer outcomes and fetal development modifications.

BPA, an endocrine-disrupting chemical that can influence human development even at very low levels of exposure, has been associated with abnormal genital development in males, neurobehavioral problems such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), type 2 diabetes, and hormonally mediated cancers such as prostate and breast cancers.

A recent update found three-fourths of Americans had triclosan in their urine, with wealthier Americans having higher levels.The report and updates are available from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This antibiotic is added to soaps, deodorants, toothpastes, and other products. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, pharmaceutical companies were coming under greater scrutiny as antibiotics and birth control hormones were found in city water supplies; the companies had to begin to assess their role in what has come to be called the PIE (pharmaceuticals in the environment) problem. Children, because of their higher consumption of food and water per body weight and their still-vulnerable and developing neurological, immune, and reproductive systems, are especially at risk.

The Prevalence of Contamination

Europe has led the world in its public policy response to reduce the health risks of chemicals. After many years of debate and discussion with labor, business, and government, the EU adopted the "precautionary principle" in 2007, requiring manufacturers to show chemicals were safe before they could be introduced on a wide scale. The REACH directive - Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals - will be phased into full force by 2018. REACH requires manufacturers and importers to collect and submit information on chemicals' hazards and practices for safe handling. It also requires the most dangerous chemicals to be replaced as safer alternatives are found.

The opposite system, which gathers toxicological information after chemicals have spread, prevails in the United States. Hence only after a spate of contaminated products imported from China sickened children and pets did Congress pass the US Consumer Product Safety Act amendments in 2008 to ban lead and six phthalates from children's toys. However, another phthalate additive, BPA, was not banned. Often found in #7 plastics, including popular water bottles seen on college campuses around the country, BPA was linked to neurological and prostate problems by the National Toxicology Program. Although the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), unlike its EU and Canadian counterparts, chose not to ban the chemical, many companies stopped selling products with BPA.

Environmental Health Information
Environmental Health News provides environmental health information, global and updated daily.

Indeed, consumers have been increasingly wary of materials that inadvertently enter their bodies through the products they use, the air they breathe, and what they put into their bodies by diet. Sales of organic and local foods have been rising rapidly in numbers and prominence since the 1990s due to a greater focus on health. According to the Organic Trade Association, organic food sales climbed from $1 billion in 1990 to $20 billion in 2007. Once found only in natural food stores, organic foods have been sold predominantly in conventional supermarkets since 2000. Meanwhile, community-supported agriculture by 2007 encompassed nearly 13,000 farms as people grew more interested in sourcing from their local food shed. In addition to protection against food supply disruption due to fuel price volatility, terrorist attack, or severe weather (most foods are transported over 1,000 miles to their ultimate point of consumption, creating what many view as undesirable distribution system vulnerabilities), local food production ensures traceability (important for health protection), higher nutritional content, fewer or no chemical preservatives to extend shelf life, and better taste while providing local economic development and job creation.

Whether from energy production or materials processing, a major challenge across the board is where to put the waste. As visible and molecular waste accumulates, there are fewer places to dispose of it. Global carbon sinks, the natural systems (oceans and forests) that can absorb GHGs, show signs of stress. Oceans may have reached their peak absorption as they acidify and municipal waste washes onshore. Forests continue to shrink, unable to absorb additional CO₂ emissions still being pumped into the atmosphere. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization reported that from 1900 to 2005, Africa lost about 3.1 percent of its forests; South America lost around 2.5 percent; and Central America, which had the highest regional rate of deforestation, lost nearly 6.2 percent of its forests. Individual countries have been hit particularly hard: Honduras lost 37 percent of its forests in those 15 years, and Togo lost a full 44 percent. However, the largest absolute loss of forests continues in Brazil, home of the Amazon rainforest. Brazil's forests have been shrinking annually since 1990 by about three million hectares - an area about the size of Connecticut and Massachusetts combined.

Solid waste, particularly plastics, has also come under increasing scrutiny because of its proliferation in and outside of landfills. Estimates put the number of plastic bags used annually in the early 2000s between five hundred billion and five trillion. These bags, made from oil, are linked to clogged waterways and choked wildlife. Mumbai, India, forbade stores from giving out free plastic bags in 2000. Bangladesh, Ireland, South Africa, Rwanda, and China followed suit with outright bans or fees for the bags. San Francisco became the first US city to ban plastic bags at large supermarkets and pharmacies in 2007. Los Angeles passed a similar ban in 2008 that takes effect in 2010 unless California adopts rules to charge patrons twenty-five cents per bag. Los Angeles had estimated that its citizens alone consumed about 2.3 billion plastic bags annually and recycled less than 5 percent of them.

The Life Cycle and Impact of Business Activity on Global Scale

Bottled water may now face a similar fate because of the tremendous increase in trash from plastic bottles and the resources consumed to create, fill, and ship those bottles. New York City, following San Francisco; Seattle; Fayetteville, Arkansas; and other cities, has curbed buying bottled water with city money. The inability of natural systems to absorb the flow of synthetic waste was dramatically communicated with reports and pictures of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the North Pacific Gyre. Pacific Ocean currents create huge eddies where plastic waste is deposited and remains in floating islands of garbage.

Although manufacturers of other products from CDs to laundry detergent have already decreased the amount of packaging they use, and although many American municipalities have increased their recycling capacity, the results are far less than what is required to achieve sustainability, and they still lag behind Europe's progress. The European Parliament and Council Directive 94/62/EC of December 1994 set targets for recycling and incinerating packaging to create energy. By 2002, recycling rates in the EU exceeded 55 percent for glass, paper, and metals, although only about 24 percent of plastic was being recycled. An EU directive from 2003 addressed electronic waste specifically, requiring manufacturers of electronic equipment to set up a system to recycle their products. Target recycling rates were initially set at 70 percent by weight for small household electronics and 80 percent for large appliances, with separate rates for recycling or reusing individual components. The United States as of March 2009 had no federal mandate for reclaiming electronic waste (e-waste), although some states had implemented their own rules. Companies such as Dell, criticized for their lack of attention to e-waste, responded to NGO and public concern with creative solutions. Working with citizen groups, Dell was able to shift from viewing e-waste as someone else's problem to developing a profit-making internal venture that reused many electronic devices, put disassembled component materials back into secondary markets, and reduced the dumping of e-waste into poor countries.