CHAPTER 7, U.S. EPA Facility Pollution Prevention Guide, EPA/600/R-92/088 DESIGNING ENVIRONMENTALLY COMPATIBLE PRODUCTS Environmentally compatible products minimize the adverse effects on the environment resulting from their manufacture, use, and disposal. The environmental impact of a product is to a large extent determined during its design phase. By taking environmental considerations into account during product planning, design, and development, your company can minimize the negative impact of your products on the environment. What are environmentally compatible products? Design changes made to prevent pollution should be imple- mented in such a manner that the quality or function of the product is not affected adversely. Design for the environment can be achieved by the people directly involved, within the framework of company policy and with support from company management, whether or not in response to incentives external to the company. Compatibility can be integrated with other design concerns. The process of looking at all aspects of product design from the preparation of its input materials to the end of its use is life-cycle assessment. A life-cycle assessment of the product design evaluates the types and quantities of product inputs, such as energy, raw materials, and water, and of product outputs, such as atmospheric emissions, solid and waterborne wastes, and the end-product. STAGES IN LIFE-CYCLE ASSESSMENT In 1990, the U.S. EPA sponsored an international pollution prevention conference on "clean" technologies and products. The introduction to the published proceedings (see Appendix G) pro- vides the following overview. "Life-cycle assessment is a snapshot of inputs and outputs. It can be used as an objective technical tool to identify and evaluate opportunities to reduce the environmental impacts associated with a specific product, process, or activity. This tool can also be used to evaluate the effects of various resource management options designed to create sustainable systems. Life- cycle assessment takes a holistic approach by analyzing the entire life cycle ... encompassing extraction and processing (of) raw materials; manufacturing, transportation, and distribution; use/reuse/maintenance; recycling and composting; and final disposal. Life-cycle assessment looks at all inputs and outputs of a product during its life cycle. "The three components of a life-cycle assessment include (1) the identification and quantification of energy and resource use and waste emissions (inventory analysis); (2) the assessment of the consequences those wastes have on the environment (impact analysis); and (3) the evaluation and implementation of opportunities to effect environmental improvements (improvement analysis). The life-cycle assessment is not necessarily a linear or stepwise process. Rather, information from any of the compo- nents can complement information from the other two. Environ- mental benefits can be realized from each component of the assessment process. For example, the inventory alone may be used to identify opportunities for reducing emissions, energy consump- tion, or material use. Impact analysis typically identifies the activities with greater and lesser environmental effects, while the improvement analysis helps ensure that any potential reduc- tion strategies are optimized and that improvement programs do not produce additional, unanticipated adverse impacts to human health and the environment." The three phases of life-cycle assessment:  Inventory analysis  Impact analysis  Improvement analysis GOALS OF PRODUCT DESIGN OR REDESIGN When beginning to look at product design or redesign to make it environmentally compatible, the first step is to define the goals. When redesigning an existing product, goals will involve modifying those aspects of its performance that are judged environmentally unacceptable and that can be improved. Aspects that should be examined include whether it uses a scarce input material, contains hazardous substances, uses too much energy, or is not readily reused or recycled. These environmental criteria can be added to the initial program of requirements for the product, such as quality, customer acceptance, and production price. Identify the aspects of a product that have environmental impact. The goals of new product design can be reformulation and a rearrangement of the products' requirements to incorporate envi- ronmental considerations. For example, the new product can be made out of renewable resources, have an energy-efficient manu- facturing process, have a long life, be non-toxic and be easy to reuse or recycle. In the design of a new product, these environ- mental considerations can become an integral part of the program of requirements. J. C. van Weenan describes product design and redesign from the environmental impact perspective in his book Waste Preven- tion: Theory and Practice. (See Appendix G for the full refer- ence.) In both the redesign of existing products and the design of new products, the methods applied and the procedure followed will be affected by additional environmental requirements. These new environmental criteria will be added to the list of traditional criteria. Box 21 lists some environmental criteria for product design. Figure 5. Schematic Representation of the Eco-Product Design Process (Figure 5 has been deleted from this electronic version of this document. A FAX or copy of this figure may be requested by calling the Ohio EPA Office of Pollution Prevention at 614/644-3469. Note figure 5 is on page 67 of the manual.) Environmental criteria to consider in designing products:  Use renewable natural resource materials.  Use recycled material.  Use fewer toxic solvents or replace solvents with an alternative material (e.g., use bead blasting instead of solvents for paint removal).  Reuse scrap and excess material.  Use water-based inks instead of solvent-based ones.  Produce combined or condensed products that reduce packaging requirements.  Produce fewer integrated units (i.e., more replaceable component parts).  Minimize product filler and packaging.  Produce more durable products.  Produce goods and packaging reusable by the consumer.  Manufacture recyclable final products. Box 21 The design process in Figure 5 shows a schematic representation of van Weenan's (1990) design of environmentally compatible products.