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Industrial and Institutional Laundry Partnership - EPA and Industry
Working Together
Why is EPA Interested in the Laundry Sector?
What is DfE's Laundry Sector Partnership Initiative About?
What are the Benefits of Partnering with EPA?
Is Your Company a Good Candidate for Partnership with EPA?
EPA Recognition Through Partnership
What Is Design for the Environment?
How Can I Get More Information?
Why is EPA Interested in the Laundry Sector?
Each year, laundry product formulators use billions of pounds of chemical ingredients to make cleaning products. Ultimately, laundries release these chemicals to the environment in their waste water. EPA is concerned about the effect chemicals in the waste water might have on the quality of aquatic and sediment life, the biodegradability of laundry effluents,and laundry worker health and safety. Redesign of detergent formulations offers an important opportunity to prevent pollution before it occurs and to advance energy efficiency and resource conservation.
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What is DfE's Laundry Sector Partnership Initiative About?
The DfE Program offers partnership and recognition to companies that act as environmental stewards by improving the environmental profile of laundry products and processes. Innovative and improved laundry formulations contain ingredients with lower inherent toxicity, less bioaccumulation potential, less toxic byproducts and more rapid biodegradability. DfE partnership entails an ongoing relationship with EPA, formalized in a voluntary memorandum of understanding. EPA and partner companies work toward mutually agreed upon goals to improve the environmental performance of laundry products and systems.
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What are the Benefits of Partnering with EPA?
Access to information on toxicity, environmental fate, and physical-chemical properties for thousands of chemical substances, and access to EPA's assessment tools.
Technical consultation with EPA on detergent ingredients to help prevent pollution and improve a product's environmental profile. DfE also offers assistance in preparing written and other communications about the partnership.
Public recognition of your laundry formulation innovations and improvements and of your willingness to work with EPA to achieve continuous improvement in products and processes.
A cleaner environment and safer workplace by designing environmentally improved laundry formulations. Your improved product or process may also reduce resource and energy use and enhance efficiency.
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Is Your Company a Good Candidate for Partnership with EPA?
"Yes" responses to the following questions indicate a strong foundation for partnership.
Is your company dedicated to continuously improving its products? Is
it interested in consulting with EPA during product development or redesign?
Does your company have a strong environmental ethic and evidence of good
product stewardship practices?
Is your company interested in developing a laundry product or process
with an improved environmental profile? -- In other words, a product or
process that is safer for the environment or human health.
EPA Recognition Through Partnership
A partnership with EPA reflects a company's commitment to achieve continuing environmental and health improvements in its products and services. The Agency would like to work with you on these goals. A DfE Partnership would provide your company with incentives for on-going improvement, internal measures of success, and opportunity for recognition.
Current Partners and Their Products
- Anderson Chemical Co., Litchfield, MN.
Partner since December 1997
Product: Total Impact Program (TIP) - Ecolab, Inc., St. Paul, MN.
Partner since May 1997
Product: TurboRev - EnviroSmart Products Co., Chicago, IL.
Partner since September 1999
Product: Ultra Liquid Laundry Detergent and Fabric Softener - Noramtech Corp., Kansas City, MO.
Partner since April 1999
Product: Wash N' Bleach Extra - Norchem Corp., Los Angeles, CA.
Partner since June 1999
Product: NUpHASE, MAXIMIZE
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What Is Design for the Environment?
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Design for the Environment (DfE) Program is a voluntary, partnership-based program that works with companies to integrate health and environmental considerations in business decisions. DfE's approach to environmental protection emphasizes making changes and choices—in materials and processes—that prevent pollution before it is created.
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What if Your Company is Interested in Partnering with EPA or Just Wants to Learn More About the DfE Laundry Sector Initiative?
Contact the Design for the Environment representatives listed below. He'll explain more about the project and send you a copy of our Considerations for Partnership paper. If you think your laundry product or program is a candidate for partnership, let's talk. The key ingredient in partnership is a willingness and interest in taking steps to improve the environmental profile of a laundry product or process--and DfE want to help.
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How Can I Get More Information?
For more information on the I/I Laundry Sector Project contact:
David DiFiore 202-564-8796
or
send us a fax at: 202-260-0981
or
e-mail: DiFiore.David@epa.gov
Design for the Environment Program (7406)
Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW.
Washington, DC 20460
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