National Pollution Prevention Roundtable Food & Beverage Workgroup is hosting a webinar Alternative Sanitizers & Disinfectants for the Food and Beverage Industry. Food and Beverage companies must clean and sanitize equipment to specific standards to ensure Food Safety Modernization Act requirements are met and many of the chemicals used to accomplish this are harmful to workers’ health and the environment. The Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell has performed alternatives assessments for sanitizers in the food and beverage industry to allow businesses to use less toxic chemicals to meet these requirements. Alicia McCarthy, TURI’s Cleaning Laboratory Specialist will speak about alternatives assessments performed in the food and beverage industry highlighting some of the products tested, including ozone and plasma activated water (PAW) and Dan Lawson from Viking Pure will talk about using hypochlorous acid for disinfection.

Speakers

Alicia McCarthy - As the TURI Cleaning Laboratory Specialist at the Toxics Use Reduction Institute at UMass Lowell, Alicia McCarthy works with Massachusetts manufacturers, companies, organizations, and formulators to test safer cleaning and disinfection solutions and devices in the lab. She also provides and has experience training technical assistance organizations about on-site assistance with toxics use reduction identification and implementation. She manages UMass Lowell undergraduate and graduate student employees in the lab; mentoring them on how to apply toxics use reduction within their own department and field while gaining valuable laboratory experience and skills. She won the Most Valuable Student Pollution Prevention Award in 2016. Alicia earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Environmental Health and Master’s of Science in Occupational and Environmental Hygiene from the University of Massachusetts Lowell. She obtained a second Master's of Science in Molecular and Cellular Biotechnology at the University of New Hampshire.

Daniel Lawson spent over a decade in the medical device industry, earning unparalleled insight into the intricacies of our health care environment and some of the biggest needs yet to be addressed. Daniel partnered with Viking Pure’s co-executive team to introduce a disruptive, patent protected, and environmentally-conscious technology to transform cleaning and infection control in commercial facilities across a wide range of industries, including food and beverage production. He is dedicated to creating a movement to remove TOXIC CHEMICALS from the environment and to challenge the status-quo of what it means to truly clean and disinfect safely, sustainably and effectively.