REGULAR
TOXICITY & BIODEGRADABILITY
In the fifth part of his investigation into the ‘Green Debate’, Max Adam, Sales & Marketing Director at RP Adam, turns his attentions to toxicity and biodegradability, examining how these two words are often misused and how this can blur understandings of the safety of cleaning products.
The chemical industry is one of the largest on earth, worth billions of dollars, covering a vast array of products including industrial treatments, coatings, paints/inks, crop protection/pesticides, fertilisers and consumer chemicals. It is logical, therefore, that with this massive production and consumption of resources, there needs to be adequate control of industry activities.
Although a company such as ours is tiny in comparison with some of the ‘Global Goliaths’ of the chemical world, each one of us has an important role to play in limiting negative environmental impact.
So far in this series we have presented an informative picture regarding the key issues surrounding cleaning
34 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning January 2016
chemicals and environmental responsibility. We now turn our attention to two important areas, toxicity and biodegradability. These are two emotive words that can often be used erroneously and, like the ‘Man Made v Natural’ debate, can get in the way of rational understanding of the safety profile of commonly used cleaning products.
TOXICITY The toxicity of cleaning chemical ingredients, whether in relation to aquatic life or to people, is not a property that some substances have and others not. In simple terms everything is toxic given a high enough dose. It is evident however, that certain substances are much more toxic than others, causing harm at much lower
dose levels. What matters most is whether the dose is high enough to cause harm.
The acute toxicity of chemical substances can be grouped into four main categories according to the concentration, or dose level, where a toxic effect can be observed or predicted. Acute toxicity categories 1, 2 and 3 apply to more dangerous chemicals, with associated hazard statements appearing on product labelling stating that the product may be ‘Fatal’ or ‘Toxic’. The phrase ‘Harmful’ is used for the less dangerous Category 4 classification.
The hazard classification assigned to a chemical cleaning product, normally a mixture of different chemical substances, is derived from protocols
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