What is Green Seal?

Green Seal is an independent non-profit organization dedicated to safeguarding the environment and transforming the marketplace by promoting the manufacture, purchase, and use of environmentally responsible products and services.

What does it mean?

The product or services has met the ASTM 6400 Standard (The American Society for Testing & Materials) & ISO Standard (International Organization for Standardization). In addition to complying with Green Seal standards, manufacturers of approved and certified products are subject to ongoing factory inspections (at manufacturers’ expense), product testing and annual maintenance fees.

In order to receive certification, a product must:

• Be sold in concentrate form
• Contain recyclable packaging
• Pass a cleaning efficacy test
• Remain non-corrosive to skin or eyes
• Pass oral, inhalation, dermal and aquatic toxicity tests
• Pass a biodegradability test
• Exclude prohibited ingredients – including heavy metals, alkylphenol, ethoxylates, dibutyl phthalate, ozone depleting chemicals and IARC listed chemicals.

Benefits of using a Green Seal Certified Product:

• Improves IAQ (Indoor Air Quality)
• Translated into market advantage
• Increases health and wellbeing, particularly in populations most affected by product choice, such as schoolchildren, service staff, and the elderly;
• Improves the environment by reducing toxic pollution and waste, conserving resources and habitats, and minimizing global warming and ozone depletion; and
• Demonstrates to various business segments that environmentally responsible products can improve quality and boost profitability.

Source: www.greenseal.org

What is ECO-LOGO certified?

Eco-Logo is a 3^rd party Eco-Labeling program that certifies environmentally-preferable products that meets the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) guidelines. 

They certify products & services that benefit Human Health & Environmental Impact.

• One of two North American eco-labeling programs approved by GEN as meeting internationally recognized ISO Standard (International Organization for Standardization) 14024 requirements.
• Consumers can trust that products bearing the Eco-Logo certification mark truly represent environmental leadership and provide tangible human health and environmental benefits.
• All Eco-Logo certified products must also meet performance requirements to ensure they perform as well as their conventional alternative
• Eco-Logo standards are especially stringent because they address multiple environmental attributes throughout the entire life cycle of the product or service.
• All attributes are given the same level of attention, which for paper includes recycled content, solid waste, resource and energy consumption, measure of organic pollutants in water (COD-Chemical Oxygen Discharge) and aquatic toxicity.
• A founding member of the Global Eco Labeling Network (GEN), an association of third-party environmental performance labeling organizations dedicated to improving and promoting the eco-labeling of products and services.
• A multi-attribute criteria certification program developed based on the lifecycle of a product or service.
• The Eco-Logo program actually measures mill performance, mill efficiency, and pollution levels.

Source: www.ecologo.org

Who is Biodegradable Products Institute, (BPI)

?

The Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI) is a not-for-profit association of professional association of key individuals and groups from government, industry and academia, which promotes the use, and recycling of biodegradable

polymeric materials (via composting).

What does BPI do?

Through their innovative compostable label program, we educate manufacturers, legislators and consumers about the importance of scientifically based standards for biodegradable materials.

They also promote the use and recovery of compostable materials through municipal and composting backyard. And we provide information and resources like how to find a composter.

Benefits of Using Biodegradable/Compostable Products

• The program will save composters money by helping to eliminate the costs that plastics generate.
• Non-degradable plastics cost the composting industry millions of dollars every year, they add to processing costs and increase the percentage of material that is unsalable and must be land filled.
• Improves community recycling goals by diverting otherwise non-recyclable wastes into community recycling programs.
• Helps keep municipal budgets in check by diverting waste from landfills (and avoiding expensive landfill tipping fees).
• Supports local, sustainable businesses (composters).
• Biodegradables will expand the feedstocks that composters can readily handle. (e.g., food scraps from special events and institutions often contain disposable plastic cutlery and straws. These are impossible to economically separate. By replacing ordinary plastics with biodegradables, now the entire waste stream can be composted, rather land filled, as in the past.)
• Diverts waste from overcrowded landfills.
• Reduces groundwater and air pollution (methane) by preventing biodegradable waste from entering landfills.
• Increases infiltration and permeability of heavy soils, thus reducing erosion and runoff.
• Improves the soil structure, porosity, and density, thus creating a better plant root environment.
• Improves and stabilizes soil pH.

Source:www.bpiworld.org