Consider the Use of Green Engineering in Government Programs

By incorporating green engineering principles in the planning stages of regulatory and non-regulatory actions, government agencies can make decisions to cost-effectively minimize pollution, promote sustainability, protect human health, and lower risk.

Green engineering is used in EPA's New Chemicals Review Program

Through the premanufacture notice (PMN) process, EPA's New Chemicals Review Program helps manage the potential risk to human health and the environment from chemicals before they enter the market place.

EPA toxicologists, chemists, biochemists, engineers, and experts in other disciplines work together to predict the potential risks to humans or the environment from each new substance. In doing so, they draw on information and data submitted with the PMN form, other information available to the agency, and exposure and release modeling.

Agency risk managers then assess whether potential risks associated with exposure to a new chemical are reasonable in light of the expected benefits of use of the chemical (unreasonable risk), and whether and how any potential risk can be controlled.

Green engineering approaches and tools are sometime used to predict and compare the environmental fate, environmental releases and exposures of new chemicals throughout their lifecycle.   

Read about EPA's Reviewing New Chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).