Pollution Prevention: Environmentally

  Preferable Purchasing (EPP)

Acknowledging our role as a consumer in the marketplace, the Department of Environment and Conservation will strive to perform environmentally preferable purchasing (EPP) whenever and wherever possible. It shall be TDEC's aim to combine our environmental expertise with our purchasing power to create a strong movement toward environmentally preferable goods in State of Tennessee purchasing practices.

TDEC is committed to environmental operating policy that includes:

1. Reducing purchases
2. Reusing materials
3. Buying environmentally preferable products and services
4. Recycling waste materials

  What is an Environmentally Preferable

  Product?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established environmentally preferable products guidance (http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/epp/) that states:

"Environmentally preferable products and services have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared to other products and services that serve the same purpose."

  Is EPP Cost Effective?

To be considered an environmentally preferable product, a good or service must perform its function with high quality standards while being competitively priced. In determining preferability, a product's price is compared to its environmental attributes. Sometimes this trade-off favors the less environmentally friendly product. However, new technologies have yielded competitively priced and high quality environmental alternatives.

  When Can You Practice EPP?

· Office supplies · Lighting · Electrical appliances
· Promotional items · Cleaning supplies · Maintenance needs
· Plumbing · Mailing items · Lawn & garden items

  What Should be Considered When Evaluating Products?

1. Pollution Prevention - Consider the environmental impact of a product's use as well as the product's manufacturing process. Recognize up front reductions in potential risk to human health and the environment gained through pollution prevention. Remember that you make all the choices in purchasing.

2. Multiple Attributes - Consider the impacts a product or service has in both natural resource consumption and toxic effects to the environment. Examining only one attribute can obscure possibilities that are even more harmful to the environment.

3. Life-cycle Perspective - Realize that environmental impact can occur at many points in a product's or service's life-cycle. In addition to the direct effects of use, consider effects of manufacturing, packaging, storage, maintenance, distribution, and disposal.

4. Magnitude of Impact - Consider the possible impacts of a product both globally and locally. Investigate how long a damaging product's effect(s) will persist in the environment.

5. Local Conditions - Buy products designed to function well in Tennessee.

6. Product Attribute Claims - Pay close attention to claims made by product or service providers. Question and test environmental performance claims.

  Environmentally Preferable Printing

Practice EPP when printing documents: use recycled content paper, print on both sides of the paper, and print with soy-based ink.

  EPP CLUES

When shopping for environmentally preferable alternatives look for these clues:

· Recycled content · Reusable · Biodegradable · Non-toxic
· Soy-based inks · Non-aerosol · Recyclable · Refillable
· Water-based · Remanufactured

* * * Please ask your established suppliers for environmentally preferable products! * * *

For more information about the Tennessee Pollution Prevention Partnership,
please contact Karen Grubbs at 615-532-0463, or  1-800-734-3619
or by email at Pollution.prevention@tn.gov.