IV. Environmental Sustainability

A nanomaterial lifecycle[31] assessment—including manufacturing, transport, product use, recycling, and disposal into the waste stream—is necessary to understand how various statutory systems apply and where regulatory gaps exist.[32] Full lifecycle environmental, health and safety effects must be assessed prior to commercialization.

Once loose in nature, manufactured nanomaterials represent an unprecedented class of manufactured pollutants. Potentially damaging environmental impacts can be expected to stem from the novel nature of manufactured nanomaterials, including mobility and persistence in soil, water and air, bioaccumulation, and unanticipated interactions with chemical and biological materials.[33] The limited number of existing studies has raised red flags, such as exposure to high levels of nanoscale aluminum stunting root growth in five commercial crop species,[34] byproducts associated with the manufacture of single-walled carbon nanotubes causing increased mortality and delayed development of a small estuarine crustacean,[35] and damage to beneficial microorganisms from nanosilver.[36] The U.K. Royal Society has recommended that, “the release of nanoparticles and nanotubes in the environment be avoided as far as possible” and that, “factories and research laboratories treat manufactured nanoparticles and nanotubes as hazardous, and seek to reduce or remove them from waste streams.”[37]

Potential environmental risks remain unidentified due to the failure to prioritize environmental impact research and the paucity of funding currently allocated for risk-relevant research.[38] Government funding of environmental, health and safety research must be increased dramatically and a strategic risk research plan delineated.[39]

Nanomaterials create immense difficulties for the application of existing environmental protection regimes.[40] Agencies lack cost-effective tools and mechanisms to detect, monitor, measure, and control manufactured nanomaterials, let alone the means to remove them from the environment. Industry shields even the scant data provided to government from public view by claims of confidential business information. The risk assessments, oversight triggers, toxicity parameters, and threshold minimums used by environmental laws in many countries, including the U.S. and E.U., are designed for bulk (non-nano) material toxicity parameters. The metrics used in existing laws, such as a relationship between mass and exposure, are insufficient for nanomaterials. Existing laws lack lifecycle analyses and fail to address existing regulatory gaps. Environmentally sustainable management of nanomaterials must address and remedy these failings.

31 A lifecycle assessment is the “systematic analysis of the resources usages (e.g., energy, water, raw materials) and the emissions over the complete supply chain from the cradle of primary resources to the grave of recycling or disposal.” The Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: Opportunities and uncertainties 32 (2004).

32 See, e.g., The Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties 46 (2004) (“Any widespread use of nanoparticles in products such as medicines (if the particles are excreted from the body rather than biodegraded) and cosmetics (that are washed off) will present a diffuse source of nanoparticles to the environment, for example through the sewage system. Whether this presents a risk to the environment will depend on the toxicity of nanoparticles to organisms, about which almost nothing is known, and the quantities that are discharged.”) (emphasis added); see, also Wardak et al., The Product Life Cycle and Challenges to Nanotechnology Regulation, 3 Nanotechnology Law & Business 507 (2006). Scientific experts estimated that it might take until 2012 to have “the ability to evaluate the impact of engineered nanomaterials from cradle to grave.” Maynard et al., Safe Handling of Nanotechnology, Vol 444 Nature 267-69 (November 16, 2006).

33 See, e.g., U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Nanotechnology White Paper 11 (2006).

34 Yang L. et al., Particle surface characteristics may play an important role in phytotoxicity of alumina nanoparticles, 158(2) Toxicol Lett. 122-32 (2005).

35 Templeton R. et al., Life-cycle Effects of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWNTs) on an Estuarine Meiobenthic Copepod, 40 Environmental Science and Technology 7387-7393.(2006).

36 R. Senjen, Friends of the Earth Australia, Nanosilver – A Threat to Soil, Water and Human Health?, (2007) available at http://nano.foe.org.au/; J. Sass, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nanotechnology’s Invisible Threat (2007).

37 See, e.g., The Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties 46 (2004).

38 See, e.g., Rick Weiss, Nanotechnology Risks Unknown; Insufficient Attention Paid to Potential Dangers, Report Says, Wash. Post, Sept. 26, 2006, at A12.

39 See generally Andrew Maynard, Woodrow Wilson International Center. for Scholars, Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, Nanotechnology: A Research Strategy for Addressing Risk (2006).

40 George Kimbrell, The Environmental Hazards of Nanotechnology and the Applicability of Existing Law, in Nanoscale: Issues and Perspectives for the Nano Century, (Nigel Cameron, ed. 2007); J. Clarence Davies, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, EPA and Nanotechnology: Oversight for the 21st Century (2007); American Bar Association, Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources, Nanotechnology Project, (2006), at http://www.abanet.org/environ/nanotech/;