Life Cycle Thinking Blog

EPA finally finished it’s peer review of results from the infamous Ramazzini Institute labs that test sick animals after pressure from industry that the lab’s practices were inappropriate. It will no longer rely on findings from this lab when it does IRIS reports. Immediately affected are dropping cancer findings for methanol, MTBE and ETBE. http://www.epa.gov/iris/ramazzini.htm

Nice blog by Michael Kirschner summarizes steps to take to deal with all the challenges that are threatening products containing chemicals “of concern.” He advises manufacturers to take the following steps:

Nice summary of the state of the California Green Chemistry Initiative:
The Recorder: CA Green Chemistry Law Has Lawyers, Industry on Alert

Hard to believe California can manage this mess without years of litigation. This isn’t just putting as label on that customers will ignore like Prop 65 (although it has caused a lot of substitution activity and its share of NGO lawsuits against companies). It will mean a load of company work looking for the “right” alternatives based on moving target analyses and potential mischief for government blacklisting of companies and their products. Not to mention that California is broke and doesn’t have the wherewithal to pay bureaucrats to do the reviews required. A source of exorbitant fees to pay down state debt?