Recycled Products
The U.S. Department of Energy gives preference to products
containing recycled content along with other environmental
attributes. The DOE Recycled Product Program is part of DOE's
Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP) Program. The goal of
DOE's Recycled Content Products Program is to help DOE sites recognize
the value of recycled products and transition to them as quickly as
possible, especially those designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).
EPA designates which products are to be purchased with recycled
content. Once EPA "designates an item, the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA) Section 6002
requires that any procuring agency, when using appropriated Federal funds
to procure that item, shall purchase it with the highest percentage of
recovered materials practicable (40 CFR 247).
The RCRA Section 6002 requirement is that 100 percent of the purchases
of the designated products shall meet or exceed the EPA guideline
standards unless written justification is provided that a product is
1) not available competitively within a reasonable time frame, 2) does not
meet appropriate performance standards, or 3) is only available at an
unreasonable price. Within the U.S. Department of Energy, these justified
exceptions are informally referred to as the CAP: cost, availability,
performance.
Per Executive Order 13423, no justified exception is allowed for paper,
which must contain at least 30 percent post-consumer fiber content.
The requirement to purchase the designated items with recycled content
only applies when purchasing the items with the material specified. For
instance if you purchase a clipboard made of pressed wood chips, that is
environmentally preferable to purchasing an oil-based plastic one because
pressed wood is a renewable resource and oil is a finite resource. Pressboard
clipboards do not require recycled content because most of them have long been
made with recycled content (no driver for that market needed). However, if
you purchase a plastic clipboard, you need to purchase it with the specified
amount of recycled plastic.
Each Federal agency and contractor is required to establish a purchasing
program for recycled products. The program must have four components:
- Preference - a policy and specifications embedded in the purchasing systems
- Promotion - an initial awareness raising campaign, training, and information
resources readily
available to all staff
- Verification - a determination that the specified product meets the requirements
- Review and Reporting - an evaluation of the
program annually to identify and overcome obstacles to purchasing recycled products
and to report on the purchases
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency inspects Federal agencies for compliance
in purchasing recycled content products as part of their RCRA audits (Guidance on
Conducting Inspections of Federal Facilities for Compliance with Section 6002 of
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act).
The benefits of purchasing products are:
Energy Security
Conserve energy - less energy is required when manufacturing with recycled content
Environmental
Conserve water - less water is required when manufacturing with recycled content
Reduce green house gases - fewer pollutants are emitted when feedstock is semi-processed
Economic
Stimulate economic development in recycled product market
This page was last updated on July 23, 2008
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