ISSA And Ashkin Propose Disinfectant Program To EPA

ISSA director of legislative affairs Bill Balek and The Ashkin Group president Stephen Ashkin met with the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Pesticide Program Dialogue Committee (PPDC) Work Group on Comparative Claims in Washington, D.C., to recommend a pilot program allowing manufacturers to make green claims on disinfectants and sanitizers used in institutional settings.

ISSA and The Ashkin Group maintain that the professional cleaning industry has broadly accepted the use of green cleaning products and that facility service providers want to be able to identify and use environmentally preferable disinfectants and sanitizers.

The two groups offered the EPA three different options: having manufacturers get their disinfectants/sanitizers certified by leading certification organizations as they do now and market them as green certified, allowing green certification labeling and identification through the EPA’s Design for the Environment Program or allowing manufacturers to make “factual claims” about their products, calling them biodegradable or made from bio-based ingredients as long as the claim could be substantiated.

Currently, the EPA prohibits manufacturers or distributors from labeling or marketing disinfectants or sanitizers as green.