Environmental Committee
Identifies and evaluates environmental issues affecting the textile services industry and assists TRSA in beneficially influencing legislation and regulatory actions as well as educating the general membership
Click Here To Preview Agenda of March 27, 2012 Meeting
Ongoing Issues
Clean Green Certification
Task force members drawn from the committee (as well as TRSA’s Marketing & PR panel) helped develop this program that recognizes textile services companies that demonstrate responsible leadership in sustainability and conservation to protect the environment. The program acknowledges such a company’s continuing commitment to improving efficiencies in water and energy conservation and adoption of best management practices for reusing, reclaiming and recycling resources. The committee oversees Clean Green’s implementation to ensure it achieves these objectives.
Definition of Solid Waste (DSW)/Shop Towel Rules
Committee members provide input to determine TRSA’s position on how EPA should regulate shop towels. These two longstanding rulemakings have kept this issue in limbo for more than a decade. TRSA’s most recent comments on DSW urge EPA not to attempt to increase its jurisdiction over non-discarded secondary materials (such as shop towels) and to avoid labeling such materials hazardous if they carry “toxics along for the ride,” as these towels do. TRSA supports the shop towel rule, as it effectively codifies the industry’s best management practices for handling these items.
Nonylphenol Ethoxylate (NPE)
With the committee’s guidance on the positive environmental impacts of eliminating NPE from detergent formulations, TRSA and EPA agreed in 2010 that members would phase out NPE from all liquid detergents by December 31, 2013 and all powders one year later. The committee is monitoring this elimination and continues to assess environmentally friendlier wash chemical alternatives. TRSA accelerated the target dates for completion of its voluntary NPE phase-out by two years and agreed to additional regulations governing any launderer who chooses to redeploy NPE after eliminating it.
Reusable vs. Disposable Industrial Wipers
Disposables marketers are becoming increasingly aggressive in advertising and publicizing what they consider hazards posed by reusables. These marketers recently funded the second research project in a decade (essentially the same study) that inferred, but didn’t prove, that clean reusables transmit metals not removed in washing to towel users and these enter their bloodstreams. The committee is the prime source of scientific commentary and data refuting such claims and other attempts to erode reusables’ reputation as safe and environmentally friendly.
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Textile services operations that process solvent-laden wipers can differ with regulators over whether these facilities have significant potential to emit (PTE) such compounds to the atmosphere. A laundry plant deemed to have such PTE faces reporting and possibly mitigation requirements. This issue became more prominent in 2011 when officials in EPA’s New England regional office investigated VOC emissions from industrial laundry facilities and asked for operational data that would be cumbersome and expensive for these operations to produce. The committee helped make TRSA’s case that it would be unfair to saddle laundries exclusively with such a reporting burden because their customers are the VOC source, not them. A TRSA meeting with the New England region administrator prompted the office to agree to develop a plan to address VOCs from a supply chain perspective and ease the reporting burden on textile services operations.
Members
Jim Buckman (Chair), Cintas Corp., Cincinnati, OH
Randy Anderson, AquaRecycle, Clermont, FL
Jack Badey, UniFirst Corp., Wilmington, MA
Carl-Johan Bjorkman, Hr Bjorkmans Entremattor, Staffanstorpsvagen, Arlov, Sweden
James Burlingame, AmeriPride Services, Minnetonka, MN
Randy Cook, AmeriPride Services, Minneapolis, MN
Timothy Cosgrave, UniFirst Corp., Wilmington, MA
Ken Crawford, Automation Dynamics, Independence, MO
Doug Dewitt, Computer Software Architects, Bath, ME
Tom Dikos, ARAMARK Uniform Services, Mokena, IL
Mike Fadden, ARAMARK Uniform & Career Apparel, Burbank, CA
Robert Fesmire Sr., Ellis Corp., Itasca, IL
William Graham, UniFirst Corp., Wilmington, MA
Larry Groipen, ERC Wiping Products, Lynn, MA
Charley Kubler, G & K Services, Minnetonka, MN
Elliot Mata, ARCO/Murray National Construction, Oakbrook Terrace, IL
Rick McElhose, Colmac Industries, Colville, WA
Kevin Minissian, Norchem Corp., Los Angeles, CA
Clyde Oefinger, Alsco Inc.. Salt Lake City, UT
Chad Rosenthal, WSI Washing Systems, Cincinnati, OH
John Schultz, Ecolab Research Center, Eagan, MN
James Shaw, Ellis Corp., Itasca, IL
Steve Schoenlein, Cintas Uniform Rental, Dayton, OH
Philip Sonnenklar, Iron City Uniform Rental, Pittsburgh, PA
Lee Terry, Prudential Overall Supply, Irvine, CA
Dave Tibbitts, WSI Washing Systems, Cincinnati, OH
Tom Turick, Diamond Chemical, East Rutherford, NJ
Steven Twombly, Automation Dynamics, Independence, MO
Gerard Van Gils, Kemco Systems, Clearwater, FL
Staff Liaison
Jessica Skerritt
jskerritt@trsa.org
877-770-9274 or 703-519-0029, ext. 110
