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The necessity of finding a replacement for formaldehyde in commercial hatcheries must include careful assessment of the user and environmental friendliness of the compounds. It would be a pointless exercise to replace existing technology (i.e., formaldehyde fumigation) with an equally toxic procedure, or to replace formaldehyde with an ineffective hatching egg sanitizer. This is the first paper of a series describing the screening procedures applied to 23 different sanitizers available in the market. The procedures outlined may be used to screen or compare other products. Brand names which met our standards for user and environmental friendliness include Bioguard, Germex, Iocide-14, Lysovet, Super Quam, Chlorwash, Quam, Quat 800, 1-Stroke, and Coverage 256. Compounds of questionable user and environmental safety are reported in this paper, and some of these compounds (bleach, peroxide, and ozone) are being used routinely in the industry. In order that a more complete comparison could be made, these compounds were further screened for effectiveness against microbial loads on the egg shell and for toxicity to the embryo.