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 and RMAN I recommended purchasing practices for these 24 items. On
November 7, 1996, EPA published CPG II (61 FR 57747), which proposed to
designate an additional 13 items. EPA concurrently published a draft
RMAN II (61 FR 57759). The 13 items proposed for designation were:
shower and restroom dividers, latex paint, parking stops, channelizers,
delineators, flexible delineators, snow fencing, garden and soaker
hoses, lawn and garden edging, printer ribbons, ink jet cartridges,
plastic envelopes, and pallets. The draft RMAN II also provided
clarification of EPA's 1995 recommendations for purchasing floor tiles
containing recovered materials. In today's final RMAN II, EPA is
publishing recommendations for 12 of the 13 items, as well as the floor
tiles clarification. For reasons discussed in subsection A below, EPA
has decided not to designate ink jet cartridges and, therefore, is not
publishing draft recommendations for purchasing this item.
EPA, once again, wants to stress that the recommendations in its
RMAN are just that--recommendations and guidance to procuring agencies
in fulfilling their obligations under section 6002. The designation of
an item as one
[[Page 60977]]
that is or can be manufactured with recovered materials and the
inclusions of recommended content levels for an item in an RMAN do not
compel the procurement of an item when it is not suitable for an
agency's intended purpose. Section 6002 is explicit in this regard when
it authorizes a procuring agency not to procure a designated item which
"fails to meet the performance standards set forth in the applicable
specification or fails to meet the reasonable performance standards of
the procuring agencies." Section 6002(l)(B), 42 U.S.C. 6962(c)(B).
Thus, for example, in the final CPG II published elsewhere in
today's Federal Register, EPA is designating shower and restroom
dividers/partitions as items that are or can be produced with recovered
materials. The Agency's research shows that these items are available
in either steel or plastic containing recovered materials. However, the
mere fact that these items are available containing recovered materials
does not require the procurement of steel or plastic dividers/
partitions in every circumstance. The choice of appropriate materials
used in construction remains with building engineers and architects.
The effect of designation (and section 6002) is simply to require the
purchase of items with recovered materials where consistent with the
purpose for which the item is to be used. Procuring agencies remain
free to procure dividers/partitions made of materials other than steel
or plastic (e.g., wood) where the design specifications call for other
materials.
III. Definitions
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