United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Office of Solid Waste
and Emergency Response
(5104)
EPA550-B01-002
May 2001
www.epa.gov/ceppo/
How to Improve Safe Handling of
Chemical Products:
Sartomer Company, Exton,
Pennsylvania
The Chemical Safety Network is designed to share successful practices in
implementation, risk communication, and data use. The projects detailed in the
Chemical Safety Network are easily reproducible, low cost and promote partnership-
building in the community. This fact sheet does not provide extensive information
about a project. Rather, it is intended to help stakeholders generate ideas, identify
tools and pinpoint funding sources for accident preparedness and prevention
initiatives.
Program Overview
The proper handling of chemicals during their entire life-cycle, product stewardship,
is key to chemical safety. Sartomer assesses a new or potential customer's or
distributor's ability to handle hazardous products safely by reviewing their
environmental, health and safety (EHS) practices and, if warranted, making
recommendations for improvements. These reviews are conducted by sales personnel
who prioritize customer visits based on the hazard of the product(s) purchased and the
types of safety and environmental programs implemented by the customer.
Hazard Evaluation
Sartomer evaluates the overall hazard of its products by using a numerical rating
system. Rankings are based on each product's acute health hazard, flammability
hazard, reactivity hazard, chronic health hazard, and carcinogenicity hazard.
"Category A" products, the products with the highest overall hazard, are considered
first when prioritizing customer reviews. For example, customers that use or purchase
"category A" products would go to the top of the evaluation list. Customers that
participate in an industry-sponsored safety program would be given a lower priority
on the evaluation schedule.
Customer Relations
Sartomer maintains a relationship with its customers and distributors by following a
philosophy of "cradle-to-grave" product stewardship or product responsibility.
Distributors are considered an extension of the Sartomer sales force and receive
health, safety and environmental information and training on Sartomer products.
Sartomer also maintains a relationship with its distributors' customers as part of the
commitment to product stewardship.
Chemical Emergency Preparedness and'Prevention Office
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In addition, some Sartomer customers receive health, safety and environmental
training at their site or at Sartomer headquarters. Sartomer personnel address
specific customer questions or issues regarding the safety or environmental aspects of
products. Sartomer's product stewards ensure that all customer issues are resolved.
Challenges
One challenge was to ensure that the product stewardship principles were adopted
throughout the company, not just by the EH&S department. Sartomer resolved this
challenge by designating business managers as product stewards and incorporating
product stewardship responsibilities into various job functions throughout the
company (e.g., sales, marketing, purchasing).
Sales and marketing personnel now include product safety in their discussions with
customers and consider product safety issues when evaluating customers. Quarterly
reviews between sales personnel and distributors now include EH&S/product safety as
a key topic.
Tips
$ Allow all functions of your business to provide input at the beginning of a
product stewardship program so they will "buy into" the process.
$ Integrate the new program into existing systems to avoid complexity and to gain
wider acceptance and implementation of the program.
$ This customer/distributor program is something any company, including small
businesses, can adopt if the company is willing and prepared to implement
product stewardship throughout the organization.
For more information contact.
Name: Joann Cortese, Manager of Environmental, Health, and Safety
Organization: Sartomer Company
Address: 502 Thomas Jones Way, Exton, PA 19341
E-mail: cortese@sartomer.com
Phone: (610)344-2133
Additional copies of this and other publications in the Chemical Safety Network series are
available from:
National Service Center for Environmental Publications
Phone: (800)490-9198
Fax: (513)489-8695
Email: ncepi.mail@epamail.epa.gov
or you can download an electronic copy from the Chemical Emergency Preparedness and
Prevention Office's web site on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/ceppo.
Chemical Emergency Preparedness and'Prevention Office
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