Public Policy Issues Threatening the Aerosol Product Form

Greenhouse Gas Restrictions:  The Kyoto Protocol identifies six classes of greenhouse gases (GHGs) for global controls, including carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), three gases that have some usage as aerosol propellants.  A 2006 California law (AB 32) mandates significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in the state by 2020 and 2050.  In 2007, aerosol products containing HFCs were targeted in two Early Action Measures: 1) consumer-use (DIY) automotive air conditioner HFC-134a refills; and, 2) other consumer products.  This year, the first consumer product GHG limit was adopted by CARB that essentially prevents the use of HFC-134a in pressurized gas dusters, and next year CARB plans to adopt its DIY automotive air conditioner rule and additional GHG limits on other consumer products.

VOC Regulations:  Since 1989, more than a dozen states, led by California, have adopted VOC limits for more than one hundred different categories and forms of consumer products.  Many products have been regulated two or three times over the past 20 years.  EPA plans to update its national consumer products VOC rule soon, but California is now planning its third and fourth rulemaking since 2006.  With Canada and Hong Kong regulations being enacted, the industry is faced with more than a dozen authorities and rules that, despite the best industry efforts, may differ in some respects.  California is proving impossible to stop, with legal requirements for further reductions that could result in the loss of entire product categories and forms, especially if the ambient ozone standard continues to be lowered, as it was again this year.

Consumer Safety:  Consumer aerosol safety issues have traditionally been focused on flammability, even though the overall flammability of aerosol products have decreased significantly over the past 20 years.  The other major issues have mostly related to inhalation toxicity, including acute effects (such as that with leather treatments) and chronic effects of small particle inhalation.  Concerns over emerging nanotechnology and new particulate matter (PM) ambient air standards could lead to increased attention to potential particle inhalation toxicity.

Workplace Safety:  Workplace aerosol safety concerns have primarily focused on inhalation toxicity related to solvents such as chlorinated hydrocarbons (perchloroethylene, methylene chloride, trichloroethylene), aromatic hydrocarbons (xylene, toluene), and aliphatic hydrocarbons (n-hexane).  California has adopted bans on chlorinated solvents in various consumer products, and plans to restrict in the future other chemicals they consider Toxic Air Contaminants. 

Consumer Misperception of the Impact of Aerosols on the Upper Ozone Layer:   When chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were suspected of potentially lowering stratospheric ozone concentrations in the 1970s, the USA acted in 1978 to eliminate CFCs from virtually all aerosol products, although most of the rest of the world waited until after the Montreal Protocol was adopted in 1987.  Since that time, despite continuous and intensive educational efforts by the US aerosol industry, consumer polls have shown that most Americans believe that CFCs are still used in aerosols, and have a generally negative opinion regarding the environmental compatibility of the aerosol product form.  This misperception continues today, thirty years after CFCs were removed. 

Recycling Programs Refusing to Accept Aerosols:  Industry studies have shown that no technical barriers should exist for the acceptance of steel (and possibly aluminum) empty aerosol containers in curbside recycling programs, and currently more than half of all such programs do indeed accept aerosols.  Other programs, however, continue to discourage or even prohibit aerosols.  While the collection rate is high enough to allow manufacturers to use the “recycle when empty” logo on labels, recycling is among the most widely accepted environmental consumer actions, and programs that prohibit aerosols provide to consumer the inaccurate message that aerosols are not environmentally compatible.  Increased recycling could provide further proof to consumers that aerosol products are safe and environmentally responsible choices.

Transportation and Product Storage Restrictions:  Aerosol products faced a severe crisis in the early 1980s, as insurers were poised to require aerosols be removed from all distribution warehouses, after warehouse fires that included aerosols destroyed several large warehouses.  A massive fire testing program was implemented to discover new automatic fire protection that formed the basis for fire and building codes that today allow aerosols in distribution warehouses, although significant funding is required each year to protect those codes from inappropriate changes.  Aerosols are also highly regulated regarding transportation safety, and in the past decade these regulations are being harmonized internationally.  In the past five years, issues have been raised about the safety of aerosol products in airline passenger luggage, on which the industry had to work closely with federal regulators. 

Retail Company Sustainability Program Restrictions:  In the past few years, many large retailers, such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot, have begun developing programs to rate the environmental, health and safety attributes of the products they purchase and sell.  These programs, like other “environmentally preferable products” programs have the potential to inappropriately eliminate aerosol products as not environmentally preferable.

Consumer Preference for “Green” Alternatives:  As consumer interest has grown over the past 20 years in the purchase of environmentally preferable products, so has the misinformation that is conveyed primarily by consumer activists and the media that aerosol products are damaging to the environment.  Despite successful industry efforts to make aerosols products environmentally compatible, and extensive ongoing consumer education, a large percentage of Americans still have concerns regarding the environmental compatibility and safety of aerosols.

Environmentally Preferable Procurement Programs:  Over the past decade, virtually all governmental agencies, and many others as well, have adopted various EPP Programs aimed at making the products and services they procure more environmentally friendly.  Some of these programs have set up procurement guidelines, often based on organizations such as Green Seal, that discourage the purchase of products in aerosol form.