Direct release
In EPA's Safer Choice program, a direct release product is one likely to enter the environment without passing through sewage treatment, such as a marine cleaner or graffiti remover. Its ingredients must meet stricter aquatic toxicity and biodegradation criteria.
What is a direct release product?
Most cleaning products go down a drain, and wastewater treatment gives their ingredients time to break down before the water reaches rivers or lakes. Some products do not take that route. Boat and marine cleaners, some outdoor cleaners, graffiti removers and certain lubricants are used outdoors or on water and are likely to reach the environment directly, bypassing sewage treatment or septic systems. The EPA Safer Choice program calls these direct release products.
Stricter criteria
Because their ingredients have little opportunity to degrade before reaching sensitive environments such as wetlands, direct release products are held to tougher requirements than standard products:
- Aquatic toxicity. EPA’s direct release criteria do not allow ingredients with aquatic toxicity values below 10 mg/L.
- Biodegradation. Ingredients must meet stronger biodegradability requirements, and for some uses, such as lubricants that are discharged directly, biodegradability in seawater under OECD 306.
- Bioaccumulation, which must be low.
Why it matters for ingredients
An ingredient that qualifies for ordinary Safer Choice products may not qualify for direct release products. Suppliers of surfactants and other ingredients therefore often state whether their materials meet the direct release criteria.
Frequently asked questions
Marine and boat cleaners, graffiti removers, some outdoor surface cleaners, and lubricants used where they are discharged directly to water or soil.
Because the ingredients reach the environment without the time and treatment that sewage systems normally provide for them to break down.
Sources
- Safer Choice Standard and Criteria, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- Safer Choice criteria for direct release products, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency