The EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) is announcing an initiative to expand the Design for the Environment (DfE) Safer Chemical Ingredients List (SCIL) with chemicals in new and existing functional component classes. We are inviting chemical manufacturers to submit information on their safer chemicals to EPA for review and listing on the SCIL. Adding more chemicals to the SCIL should foster innovation and growth in safer products, increase markets for business, and help protect people and the environment.
The SCIL contains chemicals that meet DfE’s rigorous safer chemical criteria and are eligible for use in the DfE Safer Product Labelling program. To date, SCIL-listed chemicals have been primarily used in cleaning and detergent products. The SCIL currently contains chemicals from the ingredient classes typically found in cleaners and detergents (surfactants, solvents, chelants, colorants, etc.). Numbering over 650 discrete substances, SCIL chemicals have played an important role in enhancing the transparency of and increasing participation in the Safer Product Labeling Program. Product manufacturers and many others use the SCIL as they develop or enhance formulations to earn the DfE Safer Product Label, qualify for retailer sustainability programs, meet company innovation goals, or learn more about the ingredients used to make safer products. Retailers have used the Safer Product Label to qualify products for their sustainability programs.
Today’s announcement opens the door for the expansion of safer chemicals and functional-use classes on the SCIL. EPA has posted a “Steps to SCIL Listing” . The Agency is asking manufacturers with candidate chemicals to work with a DfE-qualified third party to prepare a profile on the chemical, based on the program’s safer chemical criteria. EPA will use the profile and Agency criteria and expertise to make the listing decision. The presence of safer chemicals in new component classes, and with new functionalities, on SCIL will create opportunities to label and promote new types of safer products, potentially bringing the benefits of the Safer Product Label to new markets and populations of workers and consumers.
