From our soaps and cleaning products to our plastic food packaging and our electronic devices, all our daily-use consumer products are mixtures of natural and synthetic chemicals. As toxicology research and chemical rick assessment introduce new knowledge on the safety of these chemicals, there are arising concerns regarding their use in consumer product formulations. We’re beginning to see certain phthalates, phenols, and perfluoro-alkyl substances removed from product formulations and replaced by emerging alternative chemicals. A classic example is how the plastics chemical bisphenol A, known widely as BPA, has been phased out and replaced by structurally similar alternatives such as bisphenol S (BPS) or bisphenol F (BPF). However, these alternatives had little health data at the time, and some have turned out to be equally or more toxic than the original chemical. Such occurrences sparked discussion about how scientists and consumer products manufacturers can work to choose safer chemical alternatives to be used in the formulation of our daily-use consumer products. The Workshop Session “It’s Not Easy Being Green: Applying Alternatives Assessment to Create Safer Consumer Products,” chaired by Homer Swei of Environmental Working Group and Muna Nahar of Exponent, was dedicated to discussing this increasingly relevant topic.
The Workshop began with a well-rounded summary of chemical alternatives assessment from David Dorman, a professor of toxicology in the Department of Molecular Biosciences of North Carolina State University. In summary, the purpose of assessing chemical alternatives is to avoid regrettable substitution, a scenario in which a chemical alternative is equally or more toxic than the chemical it is replacing. For example, BPA was regrettably substituted with BPS. The ideal scenario is to remove a chemical form a product entirely; however, this often changes product quality or disrupts economic balance and therefore is often not the best option. A better approach is making science-informed and policy-based decisions to guide chemical substitutions. To date, there are dozens of frameworks that have been proposed to guide alternatives assessment, and harmonization is needed across these approaches. Dr. Dorman wrapped up the presentation by walking the audience through the National Academies’ 13-step A Framework to Guide Selection of Chemical Alternatives, an approach that weighs preexisting evidence on proposed alternatives’ physiochemical properties, human toxicity, ecotoxicity, comparative exposure, and chemical life cycle. Ultimately, such a framework may be leveraged to make informed substitutions within product formulations.
The session then transitioned into a series of presentations of tools that can be used to assess chemical safety and guide decisions on product formulations. First, Kathryn Page of The Clorox Company outlined how third-party certifications, such as the US Environmental Protection Agency Safer Choice certification, can help inform safer chemical substitutions. Such programs set specific standards for product safety that must be reached to receive the certification. The presentation then covered several new approach methodologies (NAMs) that may be applied in place of traditional animal testing, specifically outlining in vitro models of the skin and eye tissues that may be leveraged to assess potential irritation caused by consumer products.
Next, Heather McKenney outlined how ChemForward, a data-focused chemical risk assessment platform, may be used to assist companies in making informed decisions regarding chemical substitutions. Until recently, there was a lack of well-designed chemical safety databases, which was preventing efficient alternative assessments. The databases that did exist were prone to misinterpretation of chemical safety data and lacked guidance from experts within the field. Ms. McKenney explained how ChemForward was designed to fill this gap, providing straightforward chemical safety data using a grading scale from A through F while also introducing peer review processes to identify data gaps and combat misinformation. As an example, this data repository was used by Google to choose the safest option for solvents for use in the back panel of its Pixel 7 smartphone.
Finally, Dr. Swei wrapped up the session with a presentation outlining the ongoing efforts by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to develop verified ingredients programs to promote safer product formulations, as well as encourage safer purchasing decisions by the consumer. In his presentation, Dr. Swei highlighted the EWG Skin Deep cosmetics database, a public-facing data repository rating products and their ingredients on a hazard scale from 1 to 10 based on available chemical safety data. The database also has functions to estimate the hazard of using several products at once, assuming additive effects. The EWG Healthy Living application has extended this hazard rating framework to various types of consumer products beyond cosmetics, including cleaning and baby products.
In summary, there are numerous tools that may be used to assess the chemical safety of products and their ingredients to inform safer alternatives at every step of the product development process: by regulatory agencies and product designers, by manufacturers, and even by the consumer at the time of purchasing. Although harmonization could benefit the impact of such approaches, each individual tool is contributing to the growing knowledge of chemical safety and encouraging assessment of the safety of chemical alternatives.
This blog reports on the Workshop Session titled “It’s Not Easy Being Green: Applying Alternatives Assessment to Create Safer Consumer Products” that was held during the 2024 SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo. An on-demand recording of this session is available for meeting registrants on the SOT Online Planner and SOT Event App.
This blog was prepared by an SOT Reporter and represents the views of the author. SOT Reporters are SOT members who volunteer to write about sessions and events in which they participate during the SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo. SOT does not propose or endorse any position by posting this article. If you are interested in participating in the SOT Reporter program in the future, please email SOT Headquarters.
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