Tag: Standards

Proposing a New Leadership Standard for Trash Bags & Can Liners

Posted on by Brittany Maule

Update: The public comment period closed on January 29, 2023. Green Seal is now reviewing stakeholder input.

Green Seal is proposing a certification standard for trash bags and can liners to recognize products that use less virgin plastic while maintaining top performance.

This standard introduces the new concept of plastic efficiency, which prioritizes the result – curbing virgin plastic use – over the method used to achieve it. While traditionally trash bags are deemed environmentally preferable for incorporating post-consumer recycled (PCR) content, this new model opens a second pathway to recognize products that use innovative technology to produce thinner liners that maintain tear and puncture resistance.

See the Standard

A High-Impact Single-Use Product 

As single-use plastic products, trash bags and can liners have significant environmental impacts. American households consume more than a billion trash bags each year, sending them on to landfills where they turn into microplastics that further pollute the environment. An estimated 79% of all plastic products eventually reach the ocean, harming marine life and emitting the potent greenhouse gas methane when they degrade 

Trash bags and can liners have significant carbon pollution impacts on the front end too – they generally are made of virgin plastics that are produced using considerable amounts of energy and associated carbon emissions. In fact, over 95% of the carbon footprint of plastics comes from its production.

Extracting and manufacturing resources for plastic production can also produce harmful chemicals that have human health impacts, particularly on industry workers and neighboring communities. These chemicals have been associated with a variety of negative health outcomes, including impacts on development, reproduction, and the nervous system. 

Reducing Impacts by Using Less Virgin Plastic 

Currently, there are no alternatives that perform as well as plastic trash bags and can liners for strength, odor control, and sanitation. While non-conventional plastics such as bio-based, biodegradable, or compostable plastics are marketed as sustainable alternatives, they currently are not effective solutions due to a lack of recycling and composting infrastructure, improper consumer use and, in the case of bio-based plastics, land use and emissions concerns associated with growing crops to produce the materials.

However, there is a more sustainable solution: plastic trash bags can be made with less virgin plastic without sacrificing performance. 

Incorporating post-consumer recycled (PCR) content into a trash bag reduces plastic pollution by giving a second life to used plastic films that would otherwise end up in landfills or the ocean. It also reduces the carbon impact of trash bags by eliminating the greenhouse gas emissions associated with extracting and manufacturing new virgin material and avoids emissions from incinerating plastic waste.

Several state and federal purchasing policies require trash bags to contain 10% PCR content, and demand for PCR content in plastic products and in packaging is growing among states, industry, and advocacy organizations.

However, PCR content alone may not be an effective way to identify products that reduce virgin plastic use. A Green Seal analysis of products in the marketplace found that bags that feature PCR content sometimes still incorporate the same amount of virgin plastic as their PCR-free competitors. Additionally, challenges with recycling plastic films can make sourcing high-quality PCR content difficult for manufacturers: plastic films are not typically collected in curbside collection programs and can damage recycling equipment at traditional recycling facilities. Some can liner types, such as those made from HDPE resins below 0.4 mil, also struggle to incorporate any PCR content without compromising performance.

Another way for manufacturers to reduce the amount of virgin plastic in trash bags is through using technological advancements to produce liners that are thinner but maintain uncompromising performance. In a Green Seal analysis, thin liners produced fewer greenhouse gas emissions than thicker liners, even in some cases where thicker liners incorporated PCR content. Manufacturers can also take advantage of mineral additives to reduce their use of virgin plastic and provide more strength to the bag.

Plastic Efficiency: A New Approach to Environmental Leadership 

Through an extensive market analysis, Green Seal has developed a program to recognize environmental leadership in trash bags and can liners based on plastic efficiency: reducing virgin plastic use to the minimum amount required to maintain top performance for the product’s gallon size.

This approach opens a pathway to recognize products that use leadership levels of recycled content, but also those that use innovative technologies to produce thinner liners that still maintain a trash bag’s important functional attributes of tear and puncture resistance. The result is a clear designation for buyers that a bag is in the top 30% in its size category for the lowest amount of virgin plastic in the liner, and thus the least amount of greenhouse gas emissions and plastic waste. 

The draft standard includes: 

  • Verifying product functional performance through tests for puncture and tear resistance
  • Requiring a minimum amount of 10% verified post-consumer recycled content for bags above 0.7 mil in thickness
  • Prohibiting the addition of hazardous ingredients such as carcinogens, heavy metals, phthalates, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), and fragrances that can further pollute the recycled plastic supply chain or pose harm to users
  • Requiring source reduced, recyclable, or post-consumer content in packaging materials

The draft standard and a supplemental background report are available here.

A Collaborative Approach to Standard Development 

Green Seal’s standard development process includes input from a Working Group made up of leading companies, nonprofit organizations, and independent subject matter experts. Working Group members provide technical and market feedback throughout the standard development process, program implementation, and evolution to ensure the standard is a meaningful tool for manufacturers and consumers.

Seeking Feedback 

Green Seal welcomes public input on the draft standard. The public comment period is open until January 29, 2023. Review the draft standard or submit comments here. 

Comment

Green Seal’s reputation for credibility and market impact rests on an open and transparent process for developing and revising our science-based standards. All standard development and major standard revisions include extensive stakeholder outreach and opportunities for public input. Green Seal will publish all formally submitted comments, as well as a response to each substantive issue identified by commenters.

Taking a Leadership Position on PFAS in Certified Products

Posted on by Brittany Maule

Green Seal now prohibits all approximately 12,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in certified cleaning and personal care products, making Green Seal a leader in addressing these harmful “forever chemicals.” 

Green Seal’s standards have long prohibited long-chain PFAS formally classified as hazardous. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that short-chain PFAS known as “safer substitutes” have the same harmful health and environmental effects as the legacy PFAS they are replacing. Green Seal’s newly expanded prohibition on all PFAS in certified cleaning and personal care products promotes safer options for consumers and recognizes industry leaders who are taking important steps to protect human health and reduce environmental pollution.  

Green Seal is taking a product-category approach to developing PFAS restrictions as part of a multi-year phased initiative to ensure that certified products in all categories have leadership restrictions on PFAS. A product-category approach is critical to ensure our policy effectively addresses manufacturing and use considerations that vary by product category, including exposure pathways, functional performance, and regrettable substitutes. 

What are PFAS? 

PFAS are a large group of synthetically produced chemicals that have a history of use dating back to the 1940s. This class includes over 12,000 chemicals identified by the U.S. EPA CompTox PFAS Master List database — an evolving list that aggregates PFAS based on environmental occurrence, manufacturing process data, and testing programs from agencies across the globe. Today, PFAS are found in food packaging, coatings, personal care and cosmetics, paints, textiles, cookware, and even some cleaning products. 

PFAS have carbon-fluorine bonds that make them very stable and effective at repelling oil, water, and heat. Unfortunately, the same unique chemical structure that makes PFAS so effective is also what gives them the moniker “forever chemicals.”  

PFAS are persistent in the environment, with evidence that some chemicals are so resistant to degradation that they could persist for hundreds of years. They are now found in drinking water and bioaccumulate in both soil and humans, with some chemicals taking more than eight years to reach their half-life — or reduce their concentration by 50 percent in the human body. 

PFAS are associated with numerous adverse health effects, including impacts on the endocrine and reproductive systems; increased risks of prostate, testicular, and kidney cancer; and decreased immune responses — including our body’s ability to develop beneficial antibodies in response to vaccines. 

Providing Transparency  

It can be challenging for consumers and even manufacturers to be sure that products do not use PFAS. For example, PFAS are often used in raw materials – and those proprietary formulas are often not fully disclosed to the final manufacturer. Eliminating all PFAS from the supply chain for consumer and professional care products is a critical step in protecting human health and ending the environmental contamination caused by releases of these chemicals.  

To increase supply chain transparency and encourage the use of safer alternatives, Green Seal added criteria to prohibit PFAS in standards for the following product categories: 

Green Seal focused first on eliminating PFAS in formulas for certified cleaning and personal care products because PFAS is non-essential for the performance for these types of products. Manufacturers have one year to document that their certified products comply with the updated PFAS criteria. Green Seal will now turn its focus to establishing PFAS requirements for other product category standards.   

Green Seal implements standard development based on best international practices using a stakeholder-based approach and opportunities for public comment. We appreciate the time and expertise provided by our stakeholders in this process, including the San Francisco Department of the Environment, Ecolab, the Household and Commercial Products Association, and other subject matter experts and manufacturers.  

 
Visit Green Seal’s Standard Projects page to access the final PFAS requirements and standard development documentation.

Announcing a National Pilot Standard for Healthier School Facilities

Posted on by Sara Porter

Today, Healthy Schools Campaign (HSC) and Green Seal launched a pilot standard for healthy and sustainable school facilities that focuses on measures that can make a big difference without major capital investments.

This is the first national standard focused on healthier school facilities, and it is publicly available for any school district or university to use today to improve air quality.

Explore the Draft Standard

This standard is the centerpiece of a comprehensive program to support school facility management professionals in transforming the health and sustainability of school campuses. The full Healthy Green Schools & Colleges program — including self-assessment tools, educational resources, certification opportunities, and a peer network — will launch this Spring.

The 9 school districts and 10 colleges and universities that signed on as Early Adopters during the development of the pilot standard will now begin formally implementing it to provide data and advice on thresholds for certification levels. It’s not too late for your school to participate – sign up here to test the standard and advise us on next steps.

An Issue of Urgency and Equity

The pandemic has made creating healthy school environments an urgent national priority and brought to light the significant under-investment in school facilities nationwide. But this challenge pre-dates the pandemic, with nearly half of schools reporting indoor air quality problems prior to 2020.

Unhealthy indoor air, inadequate ventilation, and chemical exposure from cleaning and maintenance routines are linked to poor concentration and test performance in students. These conditions are disproportionately found in schools serving primarily low-income Black and Latinx students, making this an important issue of equity.

The Healthy Green Schools & Colleges program is designed for any school district or university that commits to providing safer and healthier indoor school environments, whether they are just getting started on this path or already are leaders.

A Standard by and for School Facility Professionals

The first-of-its-kind standard was designed in partnership with the K-12 and university facility directors on the Healthy Green Schools & Colleges Steering Committee and with input from early adopters, stakeholders, and the public. It is designed to be implemented district-wide or university-wide to ensure an organization-level commitment to standard operating procedures, resource distribution, and facility maintenance that supports the health of all students and staff, as well as the environment.

The Healthy Green Schools & Colleges standard addresses major impact areas and covers the full range of facilities management practices, including:

  • Cleaning and Disinfecting to reduce exposure and injury risks to cleaning staff; reduce the risk of virus transmission; reduce exposure to environmental health hazards; and support student health needs.
  • Integrated Pest Management to protect occupants from environmental health hazards and improve the indoor air quality of school facilities.
  • Sustainable Purchasing to ensure that school district purchases reduce negative environmental and human health impacts and help reduce the spread of infectious disease, while also delivering effective functional performance.
  • HVAC and Electric Maintenance to ensure proactive, preventative, planned, and reactive maintenance for all installed HVAC devices and fixtures to maximize their period of usefulness and improve the indoor air quality of school facilities.
  • Indoor Air Quality Testing and Monitoring to ensure processes, procedures, and tools are in place to monitor indoor air quality, while balancing the impact of HVAC on energy consumption and helping to identify opportunities to improve indoor air quality in schools.
  • Training to ensure cleaning and maintenance personnel work in the safest and most effective manner possible and receive appropriate training to promote health, safety, sustainability, sanitation, and minimize the spread of infectious disease through their work.
  • Communication to encourage cleaning staff, management, school building administrators, employees, and students to practice clear, effective, and equitable communication to develop trust.

The standard is the centerpiece of a comprehensive program launching this Spring 2022 to support school facility management professionals in transforming the health and sustainability of school campuses.

Explore the Program

The Green Seal Compass: Ensuring Clean Water

Posted on by Green Seal

This is part of a series of stories about Green Seal’s Compass. Find related stories here.

Green Seal’s work follows a compass that focuses on four key targets: protecting human health, minimizing waste, ensuring clean water, and preserving the climate. This compass keeps us focused on Green Seal’s priority impacts, ensuring that Green Seal certification reflects products and services that are safer for people and our planet. In this blog post, I will describe how Green Seal verifies that certified products protect the health of water resources.

What You Should Know About Water Pollution

Water pollution is a global issue and a continuing challenge in the U.S. Almost half of our rivers and streams are unsuitable for fishing or swimming because of high concentrations of pollutants.

Water pollution sources are diverse, ranging from agricultural and stormwater runoff to industrial spills, discarded tires, wastewater discharges, and the chemical soup of landfill leachate. Toxic chemicals in conventional household and commercial products can contaminate water bodies when these products are manufactured, used, and improperly disposed of.

Green Seal encourages and incentivizes companies to avoid water pollution by designing greener, healthier products that phase out hazardous chemicals from products and supply chains, instead of shifting the burden of chemical pollution to wastewater treatment plants.

Our High Standard for Ensuring Clean Water

The Green Seal Certification Mark helps buyers find products that are verified to be safer for aquatic ecosystems and to preserve our water quality. Below is an overview of some of the water protective requirements in Green Seal standards.

Products Cannot Be Harmful to Aquatic Life

Green Seal evaluates each ingredient in certified products to verify that the product is not harmful to aquatic life, meaning that short-term exposure to the ingredient will not harm fish or other organisms.

Green Seal does this by verifying an ingredient’s median lethal concentration of fish or its median effective concentration for immobilization of daphnia (water fleas). This means that a study has been conducted to identify how much of the ingredient will kill or immobilize half of the exposed test organisms over the course of a few days. If a small amount of an ingredient can kill half of the test organisms, that ingredient is classified as toxic to aquatic life. In general, when a study shows that an ingredient’s median concentration is greater than 100 milligrams per liter of test water, it is considered not harmful to aquatic life.

Products Must Be Biodegradable

Cleaning and facility care products can be formulated with chemicals that are persistent in the environment. Persistent chemicals take more than 40 days in typical aquatic conditions to break down into carbon dioxide, water, and harmless minerals. Because persistent chemicals remain in the environment longer, they have more time and opportunity to do harm than chemicals that are highly toxic but degrade rapidly. For example, certain surfactants in conventional cleaning products break down into nonylphenols which are toxic to aquatic life, are endocrine disruptors, and can take five years to degrade. Another example, per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS), can take decades or longer to degrade and are linked to prostate, breast, liver, and ovarian cancers and endocrine disruption.

Green Seal screens cleaning products to verify that ingredients are biodegradable in aquatic settings based on internationally accepted definitions and test methods.

Chemicals Must Not Bioaccumulate

Certain chemicals are known to accumulate in the body tissue of animals and people. Even though a chemical may exist at very low levels in food or water, when it enters our bodies faster than it leaves, it can build up and cause numerous adverse health effects. Certain bioaccumulative chemicals are associated with cancer and neurological damage. Mercury is a well-known heavy metal that bioaccumulates in fish, which is why the US Food and Drug Administration sets guidelines of 2-3 weekly servings of fish for young children and pregnant women. Certain PFAS, the persistent chemicals mentioned above, also bioaccumulate in human tissue, fish, and other wildlife.

Green Seal prohibits the use of chemicals that bioaccumulate in certified cleaning products.

Products Cannot Contain Optical Brighteners

Optical brighteners are a type of chemical used in laundry cleaning products to make fabrics seem whiter and brighter. Optical brighteners are prohibited because they are not readily biodegradable and may bioaccumulate — therefore failing two of Green Seal’s hazard endpoints.

Products Must Limit Phosphorous Use to Prevent Eutrophication

Eutrophication is when rivers, lakes, and coastal waters become saturated with nitrogen or phosphorus, causing the rapid growth of aquatic plants and algae, some of which are toxic. These plants are consumed by microbes that deplete the oxygen in the water, creating expansive “dead zones” where fish and aquatic life cannot survive. Eutrophication reduces biodiversity, affects water clarity, and often produces a terrible stench. When eutrophication occurs in marine waters, the plants and algae decompose and release carbon dioxide into the water – making ocean water more acidic and harming many species of marine life, including fish and shellfish.

Green Seal sets limits on phosphorus use to prevent certified cleaning products from contributing to eutrophication.

Companies Must Conserve Water

Certain Green Seal standards set limits on water usage, which is another important way to protect our water resources.

Hotels and lodging properties certified to Green Seal’s gold standard have saved up to 10 million gallons of water a year by meeting Green Seal’s criteria for using water-saving toilets and fixtures.

Manufacturers of Green Seal-certified sanitary paper products must meet limits on gallons of water used to produce a ton of final product.

Impacts that Matter

Producing greener products, fostering greener supply chains, and implementing water conservation policies are critical steps that today’s leaders are taking on the path to a low impact economy. Green Seal recognizes these leaders with third-party certification so that you can identify choices that protect public health, safeguard our rivers and lakes, and preserve our climate.

Prohibiting PFAS Chemicals

Posted on by Brittany Maule

Update: On June 23, 2022, Green Seal issued nine standards with updated criteria to prohibit per-and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS). All documents on this criteria revision can be found in the PFAS Prohibition section of Green Seal’s Library of Standards Documents.

Green Seal is proposing a new prohibition on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, a large class of chemicals that are commonly used in consumer products and associated with a number of adverse health and environmental effects.

Although only seven PFAS are formally classified as hazardous, a growing body of evidence indicates that all PFAS are likely to have harmful health and environmental effects. While Green Seal has long prohibited those seven PFAS, as part of Green Seal’s precautionary approach, we are now proposing to prohibit all chemicals in this class (approximately 12,000 PFAS) in certified products.

It can be challenging for consumers and even manufacturers to be sure that products do not use PFAS. For example, PFAS are often used in raw materials – and those proprietary formulas are often not fully disclosed to the final manufacturer. A prohibition on PFAS would allow Green Seal to verify that these chemicals are eliminated from these product supply chains and provide assurance to both manufacturers and buyers that their Green Seal certified cleaning and personal care products are PFAS-free.

Green Seal is taking a multi-year phased approach to this initiative, with the end goal of ensuring all certified product formulas and product packaging are PFAS-free across product categories. In this initial phase, our focus is on eliminating PFAS in formulas for certified cleaning and personal care products.

Learn More

What are PFAS?

PFAS are a large group of synthetically produced chemicals that have a history of use dating back to the 1940s. PFAS have carbon-fluorine bonds that make them very stable and effective at repelling oil, water and heat. Today they are found in food packaging, coatings, paints, textiles, cookware, and even some cleaning products.

Unfortunately, the same unique chemical structure that makes PFAS so effective is also what gives them the moniker “forever chemicals.” PFAS are persistent in the environment, with evidence that some chemicals are so resistant to degradation that they could persist for hundreds of years. They also bioaccumulate in soil, drinking water and in humans, with some chemicals taking more than eight years to reach their half-life — or reduce their concentration by 50 percent in the human body.

PFAS are associated with numerous adverse health effects, including impacts on the endocrine and reproductive systems; increased risks of certain cancers such as prostate, testicular, and kidney; and decreased immune responses — including our body’s ability to develop beneficial antibodies in response to vaccines.

Eliminating PFAS

While two of the approximately 12,000 PFAS have been phased out of use in the U.S., evidence shows that the “safer substitutes” (other PFAS) also cause harmful health effects. Therefore, Green Seal is proposing to prohibit all chemicals classified as PFAS by the US EPA’s comprehensive CompTox PFAS Master List database — an evolving list that aggregates PFAS based on environmental occurrence, manufacturing process data, and testing programs from agencies across the globe.

Eliminating all PFAS from the supply chain for consumer and professional care products is a critical step in protecting human health and ending the environmental contamination caused by releases of these chemicals.

Proposed Changes

Recognizing an opportunity to increase supply chain transparency and encourage the use of safer alternatives, Green Seal is proposing to add criteria prohibiting PFAS to our standards for cleaning products and personal care products. These proposed updates include:

  • Prohibiting any intentionally added PFAS
  • Restricting any PFAS to 100ppm when present as a contaminant

The PFAS criteria will be added to the product health and environmental requirements section of each of the following standards:

  • General Purpose Cleaners (GS-8, GS-37)
  • Laundry Care Products (GS-48, GS-51)
  • Specialty Cleaners (GS-52, GS-53)
  • Personal Care Products (GS-44, GS-50)

Seeking Feedback

The public comment period is now open until January 22, 2022. To submit comments or schedule a conference call, contact us by email here.

To submit comments or schedule a conference call,

The Proposed Revisions and supplementary documents are available on Green Seal’s Standard Projects page.

Green Seal’s reputation for credibility and market impact rests on an open and transparent process for developing and revising our science-based standards. All major standard revisions include extensive stakeholder outreach and opportunities for public input. Green Seal publishes all formally submitted comments, as well as a response to each substantive issue identified by commenters.

Eligible for Certification: Spray-Applied Microbial Cleaners

Posted on by Green Seal

Green Seal has made important improvements to our standard criteria for microbial-based cleaning products to better recognize leadership in this popular product category.  These updates allow Green Seal to verify important health protections while removing the restriction on spray-applied products. Now product manufacturers with spray-applied microbial cleaners can demonstrate that their products are formulated to be healthier, safer options for buyers.

Get Certified

The Benefits of Microbial Products

Formulating with microbes is an exciting application of green chemistry. These naturally existing ingredients can allow product formulas to reduce or eliminate hazardous solvents and surfactants and make it easier for producers to formulate with biobased rather than petroleum-based ingredients.

In certain cases, these products are likely to be healthier, to degrade at a faster rate and under more natural conditions, and to be less harmful for aquatic life. Microbial-based cleaning products are sometimes referred to as “probiotic cleaners” because their active ingredients are non-pathogenic, commercially cultured bacterial strains, similar to what is in your yogurt, kimchi, and sauerkraut.

Assessing Health and Safety

When Green Seal first issued criteria for microbial-based cleaning products in 2011, we took a precautionary approach by designing heavy restrictions until more information was known about the safety and environmental impacts of this newer product type. In the decade since then, these products have proliferated across the North American and global markets.

Now, extensive literature reviews and stakeholder outreach have demonstrated a sufficient record of safe use, with no scientific evidence that microbial-based cleaning products present a higher level of risk to human health or the environment than chemical-based cleaning products. Adding to our understanding of their safety profile, these types of products are being studied as safer options in healthcare settings.

Expanding Options for Safer Cleaning Products

Recognizing the green chemistry benefits and safety profiles of microbial-based cleaning products, Green Seal has adjusted our requirements for these products.

A key update is that we are now allowing certified microbial-based cleaning products to be sold in spray packaging.  Because Green Seal takes a precautionary approach to newer chemistries and technologies, we have incorporated health-protective requirements that are intended to address the risk of inhaling microorganisms during product application.  Microbial-based products in spray packaging must either:

  • Be formulated only with non-pathogenic microorganisms that are listed on the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA’s) Qualified Presumption of Safety list, or
  • Undergo inhalation exposure testing via a test chamber and demonstrate a low level of airborne microorganisms after product application.

We have also updated our labeling requirements to be more practical and allow for more flexibility in how companies disclose microbial ingredients on the product label.

Visit our Standard Projects page to see the final requirements, red-lined tracked changes, and all development documentation.

Learn More

About This Initiative

Green Seal implements standard development based on best international practices using a stakeholder-based approach. We appreciate the time and expertise provided by our stakeholders in this process, including the American Cleaning Institute (ACI), EcoQuality Solutions, Genesis Biosciences, the Household and Commercial Products Association, and other subject matter experts and manufacturers.

As always, Green Seal will study the value and benefits of these criteria to product formulators and product users. We are excited to explore opportunities to further raise the bar for these products by lowering thresholds, providing greater transparency around microbial strains in products, and enforcing stronger quality control.

The Green Seal Compass: Minimizing Waste

Posted on by Green Seal

This is part of a series of stories about Green Seal’s Compass. Find related stories here.

Green Seal’s work follows a compass that focuses on four key targets: protecting human health, minimizing waste, ensuring clean water, and preserving the climate. This compass keeps us focused on Green Seal’s priority impacts, ensuring that Green Seal certification reflects products and services that are safer for people and our planet. In this blog post, I will describe how Green Seal verifies that certified products have achieved significant waste minimization across the product lifecycle.

Addressing Product Waste Across the Lifecycle

Online shopping in the U.S. rose by an astonishing 32% in 2020 over the previous year, representing $790 billion in consumer spending. While many of us are conscientiously flattening the cardboard boxes, crumpling the hard plastics, and collecting the plastic film wrappings, we are seeking more sustainable options. Research shows more than half of US consumers are concerned with the environmental impact of packaging waste. To shift industry toward meaningful and significant waste prevention and minimization, and allow product users to dispose responsibly, Green Seal verifies waste minimization across the product lifecycle – from raw materials selection, product design, and production to transportation and end-of-life.

Raw Materials

Recovered materials: preventing de-forestation and lowering emissions

Designing single-use tissue products with high levels of recycled content not only prevents deforestation but also reduces the carbon emissions generated during production.

Green Seal-certified bath tissue, facial tissue, and foodservice napkins are required to be composed of 100 percent recycled material – that means that there is no virgin fiber in those products. Why? These products are single use. Unlike writing paper, which can be recycled, it is important to design products based on how many times they can be re-used.

Choosing certified products adds up to big impacts. Green Seal-certified recycled-content sanitary paper saves 3.2 million metric tons of CO2 emissions each year, the equivalent of taking 695,936 cars off the road for a year.

Product Design, Production, and Transportation

Concentration requirements: curbing plastic use and lowering emissions

Professional products and, more recently, a variety of household cleaning products – including laundry detergent pods and sheets – are shifting to concentrated products. This significantly reduces carbon emissions by avoiding shipping water weight from the manufacturing plant to the distribution center and then to a store, office, or home. For example, a conventional glass cleaner sold in the US can be filled with more than 90% water – meaning you can seek out low-carbon products simply by choosing products that come as concentrated pods and solid bars or sheets – instead of ready-to-use liquids.

To achieve certification, Green Seal requires professional products to be concentrated at the following levels:

  • For general-purpose cleaners: at least 1:32 — 1 part product to 32 parts water
  • For glass, restroom, and carpet cleaner: at least 1:16

Another significant benefit to concentrated products is the associated reduction in plastic use from replacing disposable plastic spray bottles with reusable systems. Case in point: Green Seal-certified concentrated cleaning products saved 197 million pounds of plastic in 2020 alone – the equivalent of 1.2 billion industry standard plastic bottles. 

Greener packaging materials – Preserving resources and curbing plastic use 

Green Seal requires packaging to be either source-reduced, recyclable, contain at least 25% percent post-consumer material, or be a refillable package with an effective take-back program. Additionally, we don’t allow secondary packaging unless the product is a concentrate – like a pod, for example. This means that the product can’t be packaged in a rigid plastic and then again in a cardboard box. We also verify that packaging is not produced with hazardous toxins such as phthalates, BPA, and heavy metals. Materials that contain fewer hazardous chemicals can be re-processed and recycled more easily. 

Product Use

Product functional performance: preventing wasted resources

Many of us have surely purchased a product, tried it out, and sadly tossed it in the trash after one or two disappointing experiences. It didn’t remove a stain, the odor from your sneakers was not hidden under the stench of the fragrance, or the paint required five applications before it looked consistent on your wall. Green Seal sets performance requirements to make sure that the products we certify work effectively, meaning they work according to a standardized test or work as well as a market-leading or nationally available product on the North American market.

Ensuring that certified products perform as well as or better than conventional alternatives avoids waste from discarded products that fail to meet consumer expectations.

Product durability

For certain product types – such as paints — durability is a critical concern; a long-lasting product greatly reduces the environmental impact. For example, if you buy a paint product that lasts 2-3 years, you will end up using twice as many resources as if you had used a paint that lasts 5-7 years.

Impacts that Matter 

Preventing and minimizing waste is a critical goal for shifting to a low impact economy – one in which we are healthier, our rivers and lakes are cleaner, and our climate is preserved.

With improved product design, less shipping of water, greater use of recovered materials, and well-performing, long-lasting products, we can reduce the waste that is so costly to our society and ecosystems. Leading product manufacturers are doing the work: they’re shifting their supply chains and investing in greener technologies – and achieving recognition through Green Seal product certification. With the complexity of the market, the Green Seal Certification Mark provides clarity, signifying that a product meets a strong benchmark of health and environmental leadership — thereby making it simple for buyers to make the greener choice.  

The Green Seal Compass: Protecting Human Health

Posted on by Green Seal

This is part of a series of stories about Green Seal’s Compass. Read our introduction to the Compass here.

Green Seal’s work follows a compass that focuses on four key targets: protecting human health, minimizing waste, ensuring clean water, and preserving the climate. 

This compass keeps us focused on Green Seal’s priority impacts, ensuring that Green Seal certification represents products and services that are safer for people and our planet. In this blog post, I will explain how Green Seal certified products are more health-protective than conventional options on the market.

What You Should Know About Toxic Chemicals 

There are more than 80,000 chemicals registered for use in the U.S. and only a few hundred have been evaluated for health and environmental effects. Although Congress updated the Toxic Substances Control Act in 2016 to grant the US EPA greater authority and resources, to date the agency has banned only nine chemicals, and addressing the massive chemical evaluation backlog is estimated to take centuries at the current pace.  

Some product manufacturers are leading the way: disclosing all ingredients, publicly committing to phase out hazardous chemicals, and strongly investing in green chemistry innovations. However, there are still too many products with toxic ingredients available in easy reach on store shelves and school custodial closets.

For example, many cleaning products contain chemicals that disrupt our endocrine systems. The endocrine system is like your body’s conductor – setting the rhythm for metabolism, growth, mood, and sleep patterns. Endocrine disrupting chemicals cause hormone changes, lower sperm counts, birth defects, obesity, diabetes, and thyroid irregularities, reduced immune function, and reduced vaccine response. Examples of endocrine disruptors that Green Seal prohibits in certified cleaning products are:

  • Phthalates
  • Bisphenol A (BPA) 
  • Nonylphenol ethoxylates (the byproducts of alkylphenols) 
  • Glycol ethers 

Our High Standard for Health Protection

Green Seal’s standards address the most significant health and environmental impacts for which there are known and feasible safer alternatives. Critically, Green Seal standards also set requirements for functional performance; buyers can be confident the certified healthier product they are choosing is also one that will meet their expectations and get the job done.

Green Seal standards are designed to protect the most vulnerable, including, pregnant women, infants, children, and immunocompromised individuals. Our requirements address health risks across the product life cycle, including acute hazards, chronic hazards, and hazardous chemical exposure during product use, storage, and disposal.

This approach has helped Green Seal to be a leader, moving to act on hazardous chemicals decades ahead of state regulators and retailers. For example, Green Seal certified products have been free of the neurotoxin methylene chloride and the carcinogen 1,4-dioxane as far back as 1993. 

In addition to protecting the health of product users, Green Seal sets prohibitions on hazardous chemicals to incentivize the greening of supply chains: As more of a company’s products are Green Seal certified, it becomes simpler for the company to phase out their use of hazardous ingredients and raw materials across all production.

Certified Safer and Healthier 

Green Seal’s standards are the blueprint for product certification. Our scientists look at intentionally added chemicals and contaminants in the product to protect users from health and safety hazards. We verify that a product: 

  • Is non-toxic via ingestion and/or inhalation
  • Will not cause skin and/or eye damage
  • Meets strict limits for volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
  • Is not combustible and/or flammable

Green Seal also screens formulas for chronic hazards (impacts that can occur after 10 to 20 years of daily professional use or weekly household use), prohibiting chemicals classified as carcinogens, mutagens, or reproductive toxins.

Buyers face steep challenges when searching for healthier, greener products, from a proliferation of vague and unsubstantiated marketing claims to the absence of information about the safety of tens of thousands of chemicals. The Green Seal Certification Mark signifies that a product meets a strong benchmark of health and environmental leadership, making it simple for everyone to make the healthier choice. 

Expanding the Impact of our Environmental Innovation Program

Posted on by Anne Hancock

Green Seal has finalized key updates to our Environmental Innovation Standard to expand the program’s ability to promote market transformation and ensure measurable health and environmental impact reductions. 


About Environmental Innovation

Green Seal’s Environmental Innovation Standard (GS-20) is designed for manufacturers striving to advance product innovation for environmental good. The Environmental Innovation program allows manufacturers pioneering the integration of leading-edge design and performance aspects into their products to earn recognition for their innovations through a rigorous third-party certification.

Earning certification under this standard demonstrates that a product’s innovation significantly reduces health or environmental impacts compared to products of the same functional class.  

Recognizing Innovators

The updated Environmental Innovation Standard expands certification eligibility to products that have not yet earned certification under an applicable Green Seal product category standard – provided the product innovation reduces impacts above the applicable standard and is the first innovation of its kind in the North American market. This approach is designed to encourage advances in industry research that could inform revisions to our product category standards.

The Environmental Innovation Standard updates also expand opportunities for earning certification to products that employ innovations that were new to the market at product launch, even if others later also employed the same innovation. This eliminates the requirement that a product is the only one in the market with the innovation at the time of certification, and rewards producers who are the first to raise the bar for environmental innovation in their product categories, even if others followed. This also provides greater value to existing participants by opening the door to longer certification terms. 

Quantifying Impacts

Green Seal now requires all applicants to quantify the health and/or environmental impact reductions of their product innovations, including those that achieve impact reductions through improved functional performance.

Previously, product innovations that achieved impact reductions through improved functional performance demonstrated this through a quantification of the performance improvement, not the health and/or environmental impact reduction.

Requiring that applicants quantify the environmental and human health impact reductions associated with improved functional performance ensures manufacturers will identify the meaningful health and environmental improvements achieved by the innovation in order to earn market recognition for them. 

Safer, Healthier Hand Sanitizers

Posted on by Green Seal

Update: Green Seal accepted comments on our proposed health-focused requirements for alcohol-based hand sanitizers during a public comment period from July 30 to August 13. Green Seal published final criteria in GS-41 Hand Cleaners and Hand Sanitizers for Industrial and Institutional Use and GS-44 Soaps, Cleaners, Hand Sanitizers and Shower Products.  

Our Focus on Health

Since entering the US marketplace in the 1980s, hand sanitizers have provided an effective and efficient option for hand hygiene. US and international health organizations have called the use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers the second-best hand hygiene option, after hand washing with soap and water. Hand sanitizers are now critical to public health worldwide as governments and healthcare groups work to slow the spread of COVID-19. 

However, hand sanitizers available on the US market are sometimes formulated with hazardous ingredients linked to cancer, allergies, skin and eye irritation, and other harmful health effects. 

In addition, with sudden demand spurring many first-time producers to enter the market, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has warned consumers to beware of incorrectly formulated hand sanitizers. As of now, the FDA has listed 75 hand sanitizer products to avoid because they contain high levels of hazardous ingredients, like methanol. 

Given the strong demand for these products and their critical role in providing safer, healthier spaces from schools to grocery stores, Green Seal has developed a health-protective framework for alcohol-based hand sanitizer certification.

Our Requirements 

Green Seal’s proposed criteria for hand sanitizers set protective health requirements to provide purchasers and consumers a simple way choose safer and effective products. 

Because people apply hand sanitizer directly to their skin up to 30 times a day, it is vital that products are formulated with healthier ingredients. Under the proposed requirements, certified hand sanitizers must be free of carcinogens, mutagens, reproductive toxins and endocrine disruptors, with additional ingredient restrictions to prevent skin irritation, eye damage and allergies.

As always, consumers can be confident that Green Seal-certified products:

  • meet uncompromising performance standards
  • conform to rigorous health requirements
  • do not pollute waterways, and
  • use environmentally preferable packaging materials

Final Criteria Coming Soon

Green Seal’s reputation for credibility and market impact rests on an open and transparent process for developing our science-based standards. All of our major standard revisions are open for review and public feedback. Green Seal publishes all formally submitted comments, as well as a response to each substantive issue identified by commenters.

Green Seal accepted public comments on the proposed criteria between July 30 and August 13. All comments are now under review, and Green Seal will publish a Response to Comments before issuing the Final Criteria for alcohol-based hand sanitizers.

The Proposed Criteria and supplementary documents can be reviewed on Green Seal’s Standard Projects page.

Agile Methods Lead to Better Processes and Better Standards

Posted on by Green Seal

In the last year, Green Seal has been reviewing our Standard Development Program to identify opportunities to accelerate market transformation through our standards. We’re excited to roll-out the first of several new and improved standard development tools planned for 2020.  

Today, we’re glad to introduce a new agile process that will allow us to quickly correct and improve the standards in ways that do not substantively change the requirements. This new process is the release of quarterly Corrections and Clarifications Reports.

Corrections and Clarifications Reports (CCRs)

CCRs include the list of standards that have been improved, their new edition numbers, and the details and justifications of the changes. Non-substantive changes include minor wording and phrasing changes to improve clarity, formatting changes to improve readability, corrections of typos, and updates of external references. 

Today we published our first CCR, which lists 28 changes across 7 standards, including six cleaning product standards and two personal care product standards. To dive into the details, head to our website and download the April 2020 CCR. As a quarterly report, the next CCR will be published in July. 

Improvement, Transparency, and Best Practices

Green Seal’s standards are market transformation tools. They are the products of thousands of hours of research, hundreds of stakeholder discussions, in-depth collaborations with industry and public health experts, and at least 120 days of public scrutiny. We do not make any changes to these documents without careful consideration. The content published in CCRs will reflect our careful review with issues being resolved through this scheduled quality assurance.

Adhering to best practices in standard development, Green Seal maintains at least five years of public records of any changes – substantive and non-substantive – to our standards. You can scroll through the evolution of our standards in our Library of Standards Documents.

Substantive changes to standards – those that raise or lower the bar of health and environmental leadership – will still be proposed to stakeholders via a 60-day public comment period.

More Details on Non-Substantive Changes

  • The changes will not affect the certification status of a product or service. Companies that are in conformance will remain in conformance regardless of the changes published in the CCR
  • The changes noted within CCRs do not change the intent or stringency of the standard requirement. CCRs do not raise or lower the bar of Green Seal standards.

We look forward to sharing more improvements and new tools in the coming months. If you have questions about the CCRs or a comment on any of our standards, please reach out to us.  

ABCO Natura Yarn Mop Heads – Innovation Criteria

Posted on by Green Seal

Update: The public comment period for ABCO Products has ended. Green Seal accepted public comments between April 6, 2020 and May 7, 2020. Learn more about ABCO Products and its product certification status on Green Seal’s Environmental Innovation Registry page.

Green Seal’s Environmental Innovation Beta Advisory Program allows product manufacturers to explore environmental and health impacts, engage in transformative product innovation, and achieve global recognition to a new type of sustainability standard. 

ABCO Products is a member of the initial cohort of beta program participants who are pursuing certification of their products under the Environmental Innovation Standard (GS-20, Edition 2.0).  The company submitted their NaturaYarn mop head for GS-20 Review with the following innovation claim: NaturaYarn mop heads are able to reduce environmental impacts as a result of proprietary equipment design using garment industry scraps resulting in 100% post-industrial reclaimed textile mop heads. 

According to ABCO Products, the NaturaYarn mop head eliminates the greenhouse gas impacts associated with extracting virgin materials for plastic textile production; the product eliminates the use of additional agrochemicals, water consumption, and disruption to habitats associated with growing and harvesting additional virgin cotton; and this product establishes a circular supply chain by increasing the value of and demand for post-industrial apparel scraps.

Seeking Feedback

Green Seal is seeking your feedback on the innovation criteria document, including innovation claims, impact analysis, and certification requirements for this product.  We invite all members of our stakeholder community and the general public to submit comments. Feedback will be accepted through 11:59PM ET on May 7, 2020.

About ABCO Products’ NaturaYarn

When used as intended, this product provides wet and dry floor care maintenance in commercial spaces including (but not limited to) industrial, hospitality, educational, and food service settings.

Innovation Claim Details

ABCO Products claims that through a proprietary equipment design resulting in mop heads made from 100% post-industrial blended cotton and polyester waste sourced from reclaimed textiles from garment manufacturing scrap, NaturaYarn mop heads are able to achieve a minimum of 20% reduction of two or more significant environmental or human health impacts associated with this product category.

The product design and manufacturing process leverages the textile waste material of a garment design center and promotes circularity within the apparel sector – one of the most well-documented and environmentally impactful manufacturing sectors. Textile waste is at an all-time global high; massive amounts of water and energy are used, and pollutants released into the environment, to generate textile material that would otherwise never reach an end user. 

In addition, ABCO has installed on-site solar arrays at its production facility to reduce energy demand from non-renewable sources during the manufacture of its mop heads. ABCO continues to increase the share of its energy demand from on-site, renewable sources.

Green Seal has not yet validated any of these claims. Once Green Seal finalizes the requirements after this public comment period, ABCO Products will submit documentation for third-party certification by Green Seal. NaturaYarn will achieve Green Seal Certification for Environmental Innovation if all requirements within the ABCO Products NaturaYarn Criteria Document are met.

Environmental and Human Health Impacts

Mop heads are commonly made from blends of cotton and synthetic materials. The production of both materials creates significant environmental impacts. 

Cotton serves as the basis for nearly 50 percent of the world’s clothes, household goods, and commercial products, and accounts for 85 percent of all natural fibers used in these materials. According to the World Wildlife Fund, “cotton’s most prominent environmental impacts result from the use of agrochemicals (especially pesticides), the consumption of water, and the conversion of habitat to agricultural use.  Conventional production practices for cotton involve the application of substantial fertilizers and pesticides. Pesticides threaten the quality of soil and water, as well as the health of biodiversity in and downstream from the fields. Heavy use of pesticides also raises concern for the health of farm workers and nearby populations.” The organization adds that “runoff of pesticides, fertilizers, and minerals from cotton fields contaminates rivers, lakes, wetlands, and underground aquifers. These pollutants affect biodiversity directly by immediate toxicity or indirectly through long-term accumulation.”

Synthetic fibers are made from synthesized polymers whose raw materials include petroleum-based chemicals. These material inputs  present significant resource extraction impacts, particularly related to greenhouse gas emissions. According to the World Wildlife Fund, polyester (a comparable synthetic material to nylon) requires 3-5 times more energy to produce than cotton textiles.

During the manufacturing phase, common environmental impacts from textile production (whether cotton or synthetic fiber) include soil and water quality degradation from toxic effluent emissions from wet treatment processes from the use of dyes, dye carriers, lubricants, detergents, and complexing agents.

According to van der Velden et. al., energy use for production of yarn, fabric, and the finished product (including shipping) is dependent on a wide range of variables related to the processes employed and the region of manufacturer. The variables include the type of fiber, the makeup, the dyestuff, the dyeing technique, and the machinery employed to produce the fiber. 

Learn more about the environmental and human health Impacts of this product category by downloading the Innovation Claims.

About Green Seal’s Environmental Innovation Standard

Green Seal’s Environmental Innovation Standard (GS-20) provides a framework for the certification of environmental innovations in a variety of product categories. Applicants follow the steps below to complete the process: 

Green Seal GS-20 Environmental Innovation Cycle Graphic

Earning certification under the GS-20 Standard demonstrates that Green Seal, an independent third party, has verified the environmentally innovative aspect(s) of a product. The certification includes verification that the product innovation results in a significant reduction of human health and environmental impacts compared

Our Standard Means Uncompromising Cleaning Performance

Posted on by Green Seal

At Green Seal, we often hear the question: how do I know green cleaning products work as effectively as conventional ones? With coronavirus prompting more frequent use of cleaning products (and more inhalation of cleaning chemicals), here’s a window into Green Seal’s performance requirements for certified green cleaning products.

Defining Clean

Amid the coronavirus epidemic, it is important to remember that proper cleaning is a critical first step in the disinfecting process. Disinfectants are less effective when applied directly to dirty surfaces because germs can hide behind bits of dirt.

Proper cleaning is critical to disinfection

To clean is to remove visible soil from objects and surfaces where germs can hide. How you measure effectiveness depends on the kind of surface you’re trying to clean.

Shortly after launching, Green Seal worked together with hundreds of cleaning industry and public health experts to agree on how to evaluate the effectiveness of cleaning products in a way that can be tested in a lab – so we can clearly see what works and what doesn’t work. 

For example, glass cleaners should be able to remove toothpaste splatters and hairspray from your bathroom mirror while avoiding leaving behind unsightly smears and streaks.

Carpet cleaners should be able to remove dirt and stains and to avoid re-soiling- which is where soapy, sticky residue from the cleaner ends up attracting more soil and dirt.

And general-purpose cleaners, like the kind used on kitchen counters, should be able to remove a minimum of 80% of dirt from a surface.

If It Doesn’t Work, It Won’t Be Certified by Green Seal

A foundational belief at Green Seal is that a product is not green if it doesn’t work as consumers expect it to.  The odds are that an under-performing product will be thrown away and replaced with one that works better – which is a terrible waste of resources. All of our standards include strict performance requirements so that consumers can be confident that Green Seal-certified products are proven-healthier and proven as effective as conventional alternatives.

When it comes to performance, not all certifications are created equal.  Purchasers and consumers should always check whether a certification body includes performance requirements in its standard.

Green Seal’s Testing Requirements

Before achieving Green Seal certification, general purpose cleaners are rigorously tested and re-tested to prove that they can successfully and consistently remove dirt and grime from surfaces.

How does this test work? Green Seal requires testing based on a nationally developed method for evaluating cleaning products. The standard, from ASTM (formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials), details the steps to take to evaluate a cleaner’s efficacy in removing test soil from white vinyl tiles. This test method was not specially designed for green cleaning products – many conventional cleaners have been tested this way as well.

The standard provides a recipe for the test soil, which acts as a stand-in for dirt that most of us encounter in real life. The recipe includes ingredients such as natural humus (organic material that includes decayed leaf litter), used motor oil, iron oxide (rust), kerosene, vegetable shortening, and olive oil.  

First, a set amount of the test soil is applied to vinyl floor tiles and air dried for 24 hours. Then, a fresh sponge that has been soaked with the cleaning solution is attached to the cleaning apparatus, which scrubs the tile exactly 10 times at the same applied pressure.  Next, the tile is rinsed off with water.

The amount of soil removed is determined by using a reflectometer that measures light reflected off of the tile (0=black, 100= white). The more light that is reflected, the cleaner the tile. Each tile is measured three times and the average is used as the final cleaning score.

This process is repeated with at least 3 different sets of tiles and sponges. The cleaning product must receive an average score of 80% soil removal to be considered effective and to qualify for Green Seal certification.

Learn More

For more information about proper cleaning and disinfecting, visit the EPA and the CDC for the best guidance for preventing coronavirus in your home or building.  You can also find Green Seal’s blog on safely disinfecting for coronavirus here, including a curated list of some of the safest EPA-registered disinfectants.

Titanium Dioxide Whitens in Enzyme-Based Cleaning

Posted on by Green Seal

Green Seal has issued new editions of our cleaning product standards with one minor change: We now allow titanium dioxide as an ingredient in enzyme-based products, within certain conditions.

Titanium dioxide is a colorant that is included to whiten and brighten many types of products – from food to paints and personal care products. In enzyme-based cleaning products, like with paints and makeup, consumers show preference for whiter and brighter options and this is why manufacturers see titanium dioxide as a key ingredient.

Titanium dioxide was previously prohibited in all cleaning products because it is classified as a “Group 2B” carcinogen, i.e., “Possibly Carcinogenic” when inhaled1 (and only when inhaled).  Because we’ve seen this ingredient in a wide range of enzyme-based cleaning products, we conducted several health impact analyses and identified a meaningful solution. We developed a set of requirements that ensures that titanium dioxide particles will not become airborne when the product is used. Below we’ve walked through this framework of requirements and summarized our key considerations, but you can find the full technical proposal on our website.

 Our Open and Transparent Process

As always, we published this proposal for public comment and actively solicited feedback during a six-month period in order to ensure that we heard perspectives from all interested groups. This open process and our evidence-based decision-making is at the core of Green Seal standard development.

Green Seal Focuses on What Matters

We take our role seriously as an environmental organization that sets the bar for sustainability and defines meaningful health protections for products and services. We work to advance industries toward healthier, safer, and greener practices, and also to ensure a wide range of certified products so that conscious consumers can have their pick.

In this case, the results of our health impact analyses demonstrated that we could confidently allow manufactures to provide certified products that are formulated with titanium dioxide. With this move, we ensure that these certified products can be just as white and bright as their conventional counterparts while being significantly healthier and greener. It’s a minor change for our standards; this is one of more than 65,000 chemicals that we scrutinize during our certification processes – however, it’s a meaningful change for our product manufacturing community and a reminder that we focus on real-world health and environmental impacts instead of simply checking the boxes.  

 Protecting the Health of the User

In our proposal, we demonstrated that titanium dioxide can be present in an enzyme-based cleaning product without any risk of the product user inhaling this compound.

  • For foam, gel, and liquid products – the product itself does not become airborne. Therefore, we set no conditions on allowing titanium dioxide as an ingredient.
  • For solid products, dust can be generated by the product that could be inhaled during the use phase. Therefore, in order to include titanium dioxide as an ingredient, the manufacturer must provide evidence that the titanium dioxide particles are bound within the product matrix or to bonded to other product ingredients. This protective requirement aligns with the protections stated by the State of California’s Proposition 65 program, which only considers titanium dioxide carcinogenic when it is airborne and unbound.
  • For liquid products, there is an existing Green Seal requirement that states that enzyme-based cleaning products cannot be sold in spray packaging; therefore, we’ve already set requirements that prevent liquid from becoming airborne via dispersed spray and inhaled by the product user.

Within this framework, Green Seal has maintained a strict level of health protections for product users. As always, when Green Seal appears on a product label, consumers can be confident that these products will work effectively, will protect their family, workers, and our environment – and now, thanks to this revision, these products might be a bit whiter.

Updated Paper Waste Standards Deliver Big Environmental Wins

Posted on by Green Seal

It’s a simple but harsh truth: America has a paper waste problem

Americans throw out 68 million tons of paper each year – that’s 417 pounds per person. Until this year, the U.S. could handle this immense volume by shipping one-third of our waste to China, but due to new Chinese policies, almost all of that refuse is now staying in the US and going straight to our landfills. The paper that we recycle each day shouldn’t be sitting in landfills when it can be processed and used to create new products – but it will continue to pile up unless we rise to the challenge by choosing paper products made from recycled material.

Facility Managers and Procurement Pros: You have an important role to play

Lower your building’s environmental footprint and help all of us tackle the paper waste challenge by making greener purchasing choices, like choosing Green Seal certified sanitary paper products to make sure that you’re getting the highest percentages of post-consumer recycled content.

This simple choice will immediately lower the environmental impact of your building operations and clearly demonstrate a facility-wide commitment to solving our national paper waste issue and to conserving precious natural resources – our forests. Green Seal has made it simple for you to make the greenest choice because we’ve done the hard work. We’ve conducted extensive research to ensure that our standards accurately reflect the highest levels of leadership on today’s market: the greenest feasible fiber content, a chlorine-free papermaking process, a low energy and water-use manufacturing process, ingredients that are significantly safer for human health, and verified performance that users appreciate.

Over the last 20 years, more and more manufacturers have stood up to our challenge – and undergone our thorough certification process – to prove that their sanitary paper products meet each of the 12 major best practices that Green Seal has identified as key impacts within the product lifecycle. The results of your greener paper purchases can be ballparked with help from the Environmental Paper Network. According to Portland’s Sustainability At Work program, For a 120-person office, over one year, your company will save 8,700 trees, 1 million pounds of emissions (the equivalent of removing 100 cars from the roads), and 5.6 million gallons of water. Those green brags are easy wins that you can include in your annual sustainability metrics report.

Continuous Improvement in Environmental Benchmarking

To make sure that we’re supporting today’s environmental challenges, Green Seal implemented a major review of the GS-1 standard, and today we’re relaunching it as Edition 6.2.

With direct feedback from manufacturers and end users, the standard is now more in-line with industry practices. We’ve removed the unintentional barriers to certification, expanded number of pathways for compliance, improved the readability of the standard, and maintained the stringent level of protections for human health and our environment. With these improvements, we are now off to the races, setting the stage for a major shift in this industry. With feasible leadership standards, Green Seal is incentivizing higher rates of landfill diversion and certifying a wider selection of bath tissue, paper napkins, tray liners, and other sanitary paper products that we use every day. Purchasing Green Seal-certified products is a simple choice that can have tremendous impact on our environment. From facility managers to restaurant owners to everyday consumers, making simple changes in our purchasing habits can help significantly reduce waste and stabilize the U.S. recycled paper market. We urge you to join us in making this change, because it’s up to us to reduce our waste footprint and ensure that we have a healthy planet for generations to come.