Compliance & Standards Briefing: Green Smartphone, RoHS, NSF Suit, Low-Flow Toilet Bill

Samsung’s Evergreen, a smartphone for “environmentally conscious” consumers (pictured left), has earned platinum accreditation from UL Environment’s Sustainable Product Certification standard, the company announced.  The smartphone, available to AT&T customers, meets RoHS standards, including being free of PVC, BFR and beryllium, is powered by an Energy Star qualified charger and is made from 70 percent recycled post-consumer plastics.

National toilet manufacturers said this week that they support Denver utility managers in their push to convince the Colorado Legislature to set a statewide toilet standard of 1.28 gallons per flush, The Denver Post reported.  The proposed standard in arid Colorado would be stricter than the nationwide 1.6-gallon limit for new toilets set by the EPA.  In Texas and California, where similar restrictions are in place, the industry group Plumbing Manufacturers International supported the standards.

The European Commission has added another substance to the RoHS exemptions list, electronicsweekly reported.  Cadmium in photo resisters for analogue optocouplers applied in professional audio equipment will be exempt beginning in January 2013 for at least five to seven years.

Green building professionals, certification experts and others have been receiving previews of the new life cycle assessment standard working its way through the ANSI process, Leonardo Academy, a non-profit ANSI-accredited standards developer based in Madison, Wisc., announced.  The new standard, Type III Life-Cycle Impact Profile Declarations for Products, Services and Systems (LEO-SCS-002), would supplement international life cycle assessment standards by providing detailed calculation methods and establishing guidelines for a variety of public claims derived from such assessments.

The corporate headquarters of Health Care REIT in Toledo, Ohio, has achieved LEED Platinum certification, according to the World Interior Design Network.  The building receives 20% of its energy from a PV solar array and contains water-saving fixtures that cut down water wastage by 40%.

Ultratech, Inc., a supplier of lithography and laser-processing systems used to manufacture semiconductor devices and high-brightness LEDs, announced that it has earned ISO 9001:2008 and 14001:2004 certifications for its international headquarters in Singapore and recertification for its San Jose manufacturing facility. DQS-UL Group conducted inspections of both facilities.

Camfil Farr, a United Kingdom-based manufacturer of air filtration equipment, announced that it has achieved certification for its transition from the BS EN 16001 (the British energy management standard) to ISO 50001 certification.

NSF International recently settled a lawsuit against Parson Adhesives, a Rochester Hills, Mich., company that distributes adhesives for use in water products, Water Online reported on Wednesday. NSF had won a permanent injunction against the company after alleging that it it falsely represented some of its products as being NSF-certified and that it willfully infringed the NSF mark in the marketing and sales of its products.