The California Department of Toxic Substances Control Approves the Spray Polyurethane Foam Alternatives Analysis
The California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has approved the Abridged Alternatives Analysis (AA) for two-component low- and high-pressure spray polyurethane foam (SPF) systems with unreacted methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI), submitted by 17 companies and authored by Gradient scientists.
This is the second AA, and the first Abridged AA, approved by DTSC under the California Safer Consumer Products (SCP) regulations. Both of the approved AAs were developed by Gradient. An Abridged AA is a special type of AA, used to document that no viable alternatives are available with sufficient data to support a full AA according to the SCP regulations’ requirements. Gradient’s work involved gathering, scoring, and comparing data on chemical hazards, exposure potential, product performance, and cost for numerous products or potential products, including eight non-commercialized patented formulations, across their product lifecycle. The hazard evaluation employed an adaption of the Chemical Scoring Index (CSI) approach published by Gradient scientists. The approval was granted after additions to the Abridged AA in response to public comments and suggestions from DTSC. Multiple meetings involving Gradient, DTSC, and the sponsor took place to discuss ways to address the public and agency comments.
Ultimately, we concluded there was not enough information on any of the potential alternatives to reliably determine if any are credible alternatives. Consequently, a research program was suggested as a way to gather the needed data.
A copy of the Abridged AA can be found on CalSafer’s website.
