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The Work Environment - guidelines

The work environment is a concept that encompasses both the work site and the products and the work itself which is related to and performed with the product. Guidelines for use on the packaging should therefore ensure that the product is used in a safe and secure manner.

Guidelines for each product should show how the product should be used without endangering health of the worker or user of the product. The product should not be harmful to health and it is the responsibility of the producer and then the distributor to ensure that the right message about the right use of the product reaches the consumer.

Harmful agents in the working environment can, for instance be: noise, air pollution, the wrong use of chemicals, evaporation and the wrong working position:

Noise – Does the use of the product create noise, measured in dB(A)?

Air pollution – Toxic chemicals may not be released into the atmosphere (many chemicals are not harmful in the right mixture but can become toxic if released from chemical bonds).

The wrong use of chemicals – Does the usage of the product demand special care or specific use of chemicals? If so, which chemicals? Can the chemicals be harmful to human health? Guidelines because of maintenance and running of the product have to be available. It can be of little use to buy an environmentally friendly product if the use of the product requires a large quantity of unsavory chemicals!

Evaporation – Sooner or later chemicals evaporate into the atmosphere. Therefore the producer has to define accurately which chemicals are incorporated into the product. Slow evaporation can be harmful in the long term even though a point measurement shows chemical concentrations within limits.

The environmental situation in general has improved in many respects as more knowledge and better technology has become available, for instance cleansing equipment in industry. But new knowledge has also led to new discoveries. Pollution that is taking place today is in many ways more complicated than it was in the past. The pollution sources are more numerous., They are also more spread out and the pattern of consumption has changed enormously. The root of chemical release into the environment stems, for instance, from our consumer products today, while we’re using them.

Bromated flame retardants and phthalates are among the common chemicals found in household appliances and clothes all around us. Those chemicals however, have a negative effect on both human health and the environment. Bromated flame retardants have been used for a long time in order to make plastics and resins more resistant to heat/flame. Those chemicals are most likely to be found in your computer and in the textile (áklæði?) on your chair. Today the consumer has a choice. I It is possible to buy both textiles and computers without bromated flame retardants. Many synthetic chemicals are toxic and should be avoided. But it is also necessary to avoid those chemicals that appear harmless but have a negative impact over the long term. It can be very difficult to assess the impact of such chemicals;therefore care should be taken.

Wrong working positions concerns, for instance, the adjustment of chairs, furniture and equipment - Are there specific guidelines about the product, working positions and possible adjustments? It may be necessary to adjust, chairs, tables, screens, keyboards, control boards and the general working environment.

Biologically speaking we’re still primitive animals, designed to be constantly on the move out in nature. A stone has probably been our first desk. Today things are different. The human body, designed to be constantly on the move, sits for hours in almost the same position. This has led to the fact that more and more people suffer from pain in the neck and shoulders. Mouse shoulder, is becoming as common an affliction as tennis elbow among athletes When buying desks, chairs and computers, it should be kept in mind that use of the product can influence health. TCO labeling provides information about both the environment and how work-friendly the item is. TCO labeling encompasses computer screens, keyboards and office chairs.

Graphic: A symbol exclusively used for work environment at nature.is ©Nature.is.

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Let’s join our hands together and practice eco-shopping!

Ecologically conscious shopping or eco-shopping is about choosing the product which is less harmful to the environment compared to other products that serve the same need and have the same or lower outcome in LCA-analysis.

In order to facilitate the choice of goods and services that are environmentally friendly, Nature.is has compiled 11 eco-conscious guidelines that touch upon the most relevant sectors. The guidelines are clear and simple and help consumers pick the best available products from the viewpoint of health, environment and even social conditions, for what we usually call sustainable development.

Here in the horizontal row you see icons representing the guidelines and in the vertical column you see icons representing the different product categories. If you click on those icons you can read about each guideline and each product category. It is also easy to see which guidelines apply to each product type, as the relevant guideline icons are visible in a horizontal line next to the product.

The guidelines are: Energy, Fuel, Water use, Allergy, Hazardous Chemicals / Synthetic Chemicals, Heavy metals, Safety sheet, Environmental labes, Fair trade, Work environment and Recycling.

One or more of those guidelines are valid for every product. As soon as we grasp what we have to look for when choosing environmentally friendly products, eco-shopping becomes pure joy.

Practice makes perfect in eco-shopping like everything else. Our Earth cannot tolerate more exploitation and the disrespect often shown today.

Let´s join our hands together and practice eco-shopping!

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Eco-conscious guidelines for car wash

Most automatic or semi-automatic car wash facilities use high pressure wash and brushes. The underside of the cars is often washed as well, which increases the water use. Sometimes special brushes are used for the tires.

Washing each car takes around 6-8 minutes, and there are around 20,000 cars washed every year in a medium size car-wash facility. There is no environmentally friendly facility in operation in Iceland so  here is a business opportunity for someone who wants to make a change.

Using high pressure wash minimises water use. However, you need from 250 to 400 liters of water to wash one car. The chemicals being used are foam-shampoo and fat remover, also various other specific chemicals are used.

The environmental impact of an ordinary car wash facility is considerable, especially during wintertime. Harmful and even toxic metals such as lead, nickel, cadmium and zinc are released from the car-washing facilities. Furthermore the car-washing, facilities release a lot of oil and petroleum products and therefore an extremely good oil separator is needed before the effluent enters the sewage system. A high load of organic chemicals are also in the effluent and the reason for that is mainly because of the tensides found in the cleaning agents being used. The phthalate DEHP which is an endocrine disruptor and has a general negative impact on health is found in the effluent along with High Aromatic Chemicals which are suspected to be detrimental to health.

Finally it can be mentioned that the effluent from the car-washing facilities often have either very high pH or very low pH, and the pH oscillates considerably. All this makes it difficult to clean the effluent and actually this polluted effluent can damage sewage cleaning stations and clog filters.

However, in environmentally benign car-washing facilities in Germany and Sweden, the effluent is partly cleaned before it is released into the general sewage system. The effluent from car-washing facilities is usually harmful to the ecosystems unless some kind of treatment of it takes place.

It is, therefore, very important to use environmentally friendly car-washing facilities where available, where fat removing chemicals are used based on natural ingredients, and where the most environmentally friendly cleaning agents are always used. The best car-washing facilities in the world are those that clean the effluent so well that they can use the water again and no effluent enters the sewage system.

See more about Nature's eco-shopping guidelines.

Graphic: Nature's ikon for car-wasing, Guðrún Tryggvadóttir ©Nature.is.

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Hazardous Chemicals / Synthetic Chemicals - guidelines

Products that people buy and use on a daily basis contain chemicals whose purpose is to enhance the life of the product, make them softer, decrease the risk of fire, etc. Our consumption pattern is reflected in the home in a way that most people do not realize. Það er til dæmis hægt að greina yfir 150 mismunandi efni í “rykrottum” á hverju meðalheimili. Many of those chemicals have been classified as harmful by the EC, that is, they are poisonous, lipidic and do not biodegrade in the body. The great amount of many chemicals in our home is the main reason that chemicals increase faster in humans than in the natural environment. Domestic chemical use is the main source of synthetic chemicals in nature.

With new legislation within the European Union in 1981, it became necessary to register, not evaluate, all chemicals that are produced and sold within the EC. Applications for registration were received for 100,106 chemicals. It is estimated that today there are up to 70,000 chemicals in use within the countries of the EC, and of those, there are around 30,000 which are produced in higher quantities than one ton per company per year. Only around 5% of the chemicals used have undergone some kind of risk assessment. Therefore our knowledge of the impact of chemicals in general on both human health and the environment is still severely limited.

Many people believe that the chemicals used today as constituents in, for instance, shampoo’s , clothing, construction materials, toys and other things are all carefully tested and accepted by the environmental and health authorities. It is more apt to say that those chemicals are not forbidden since there is no law or regulation in effect which demands that the producer check the danger of those chemicals before they are used in the product or sold in another way.

It is however the duty of public authorities to investigate the chemicals in use and if such is the case, prove that they can be harmful to human health and the environment. Then those chemicals can effectively be banned. The burden of proof, thus, lies with the public authorities not with the companies that market the chemicals. Nature.is considers it only natural that the general consumer is informed about the effects of the various chemicals that are or can be part of a product. It is, therefore demanded by law that the producer/seller list and report to the public authorities what type of classification and which safety and precautionary measures apply to the chemical in question based on current law and regulations. There is, therefore, only a demand that the producer/seller in question report to the authorities the information required by law that he has to report anyway, on, for instance Material and Safety data sheets or on the commercial labeling of products.

Information about classification along with safety and precautionary labels is to be found in regulation 236/1990 [pertains to the classification, labelling and handling of hazardous chemicals and consumer products which contain such chemicals)] with later changes. Here it is correct to point out that in some cases the producer of the chemicals has to supply MSDS (Material Safety and Data sheets).

Example:

Chemicals such as flame retardants with bromide found in electric appliances, electrical chords, textiles, curtains, tapestry and furniture are considered harmful to the environment and may also have an effect on fertility and in other ways impair the health of human beings.

Plasticizers, so called phtalates, used in glue, paint, varnish, cosmetics, perfumes, plastic in floor materials and in certain toys are considered harmful to the environment and they too may also have a detrimental effect on fertility and in other ways impact on the health of human beings.

Biological chemicals with TBT which is, for instance, found in boat paint, textiles, clothing, leather products and floormats, besides being harmful to the environment are considered irritants for the skin and eyes.

Surface active chemicals for example, in soap and detergents that are harmful to the environment can also produce eczema and other skin diseases.

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Eco-labelling – guidelines

Eco-labelled products have met criteria and fulfilled demands on quality and on the minimisation of environmental impact. The Nordic Svan and The Flower are guarantees for the consumer which indicate a high quality product, that has less impact on the environment than other similar products.

The purpose of eco-labels is “to help consumers choose products that have less impact on the environment than other comparable products”.  The eco-labelling of a certain product or service is a confirmation of the fact that the producer has met certain established criteria, when producing the product. For instance demands are made on the type of raw materials used, type of packaging, and concerning the environmental impact of the product through its entire life-cycle. This is then assessed by an independent certifying third party (not by the company itself or its clients).

It is important in this context to differentiate between a certified environmental label (eco-label) and the environmental labels used by the producers themselves. In this text we are only discussing eco-labels certified by a third party, as they are generally considered most reliable.

It is also not advisable to confuse the environmental certification of companies (environmental management standards) with eco-labels on specific products. The environmental management standards (ISO 14001) certify that in the company there have been established certain work procedures which take into account the environmental consequences of the company’s production. The environmental management standards of specific companies and producers give no information about the environmental effects of the products themselves which are being produced or sold by the company as such. For instance a producer of paint or sales agent can have ISO 14001 certification, but it does not say anything about the environmental consequences of the paint itself when it is being used or released into the environment. To say that a product is environmentally friendly because the producer is a certified company, is the same as insisting that gasoline is environmentally friendly because the oil company in question has an environmental management standard according to ISO 14001.

On the other hand, eco-labels concern the product or the service as such but have nothing to do with the environmental work performed within the company in other respects. Eco-labels and environmental management standards can interact when the label also covers service provided. However it can be difficult to differentiate between the service, itself and the company providing the service. It is for instance impossible to eco-label hotel services without setting criteria that affect the running of the hotel itself. The criteria, thus, establishes rules for the company that provides the service in order to ensure that the service is environmentally friendly.

Ecological Labels

An independent third party sets certain criteria and makes stringent demands on results or the environmental qualities of the product or service being eco-labelled. The product or service that meets the criteria receives an eco-label.

The Environmental Certification of Companies:

The company decides itself which are the main environmental components of its production. An independent third party makes an assessment and checks that the company has installed certain work processes in order to meet environmental standards. No assessment is made of the company’s products.

Environmental matters are often complicated; they involve complex environmental chemistry, global warming impact on ecosystems and so on. Eco-labelling makes it easier for the producer to channel information about his environmental performance to the consumer. The consumer saves both time and work, and does not have to verify the information from the producer himself. The Nordic Swan and The Flower are labels which consumers know they can trust, and they are now in force in various product categories. The demands on eco-labelling of products are also constantly being revised. For ecological food production and raw materials, the Tún label and the EU-organic logo are valid. These are examples of independent and responsible eco-labels, but there are many more. It is important to recognise the respective labels and to know what each label indicates.

Developing criteria for eco-labelling is really expensive. The eco-labels are financed mainly by taking a small fee of every sold product. For instance the Nordic Swan label functions thus that 0.4% of the retail price of the product goes to care, maintenance and marketing of the Nordic Swan up to a certain upper limit which is 200,000 IKR in Iceland. The Nordic Swan is the label of the Nordic Council of Ministers and is partly financed from there. The financing of other environmental labels is managed in a similar manner, through sales of the product or the service provided.

Other Undefined Labels

Product labelling of different kinds is becoming more and more common. There are all kinds of signs and symbols on products used to indicate this. This can make it difficult for the consumer to decipher the message, and to know what each label or each symbol really means. Labels that concern the environment can be divided roughly into three different classes: Firstly, acknowledged and respected labels, certified by an independent third party. Secondly, environmental labels which the producers themselves use to label their products and thirdly labels that have nothing whatsoever to do with the environmental performance of the company  and which can be directly misleading providing no information about whether and how the product affects the environment.

The two last categories can easily be confused with each other. The labels designed by the producers themselves are not as plausible and reliable as the respected labels, certified by an independent third party. Detailed information about which companies and products in Iceland have environmental labels and certified environmental management standards is available here in the Green Pages. Justu choose the valid category or insert a search term into the search engine. Each and every product on the Nature market is also connected to information about labelling, as long as the info exists and is available.

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