New QCAT now available - Meow!

 If you are manufacturer or work in product development, you no doubt care about the safety of the chemical ingredients in your products. But how do you really know how safe those ingredients are?

That’s where a chemical hazard assessment comes in. A chemical hazard assessment is a standardized approach to evaluate the hazards posed by a chemical: Does it stick around for a long time? Does it cause cancer? Will it kill fish?

Using a standardized system allows manufacturers, researchers, or you to compare one chemical ingredient to another and assign an overall grade. All else being equal, using the safest available ingredients obviously makes a lot of sense.

And, it just so happens, the latest version of Ecology’s Quick Chemical Assessment Tool, or QCAT, is now available, free*.

(*cat not included)

The QCAT is based on the GreenScreen® for Safer Chemicals methodology. GreenScreen® is a pretty thorough process – a full report looks at 18 different hazard endpoints and can run 20 pages or more. The QCAT scales that back to a more manageable size by looking at nine hazard endpoints:





QCAT version 1.3 reflects recent updates to the GreenScreen methodology, includes new data sources such as the European Union Classification and Labeling Database, and incorporates feedback we heard at training sessions to make it more consistent and easier to use.

Want to learn more?
 Ecology offers free QCAT trainings several times each year. Upcoming trainings will be in the fall of 2015 in southwest and eastern Washington. You can find these and other educational opportunities at our Upcoming Events page, or email greenchemistry@ecy.wa.gov to be notified of future classes.

Visit Ecology's website for more about assessing the safety of chemical alternatives.