EPA bans consumer use of a toxic chemical widely used as paint stripper but known to cause cancer

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday it has finalized a ban on consumer use of methylene chloride, a chemical widely used as a paint stripper but known to cause liver cancer and other health problems.

The EPA said its action will protect Americans from health risks while allowing certain commercial uses to continue with robust worker protections.

The rule banning methylene chloride is the second risk management rule to be finalized by President Joe Biden’s administration under the historic 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act. The first was a move last month to ban asbestos, a carcinogen that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year but is still used in some chlorine bleaches, brake pads and other products.

“Exposure to methylene chloride has devastated families across the country for far too long, including some who have seen loved ones go to work and never return home,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement. The new rule, he said, “puts an end to unsafe methylene chloride practices and implements the strongest possible worker protections for the few remaining industrial uses, ensuring that no one in this country is put in harm’s way by this dangerous chemical.”

Methylene chloride, also called dichloromethane, is a colorless liquid that emits a toxic vapor that has killed at least 88 workers since 1980, the EPA said. Long-term health effects include a variety of cancers, including liver cancer and lung cancer, and damage to the nervous, immune and reproductive systems.

The EPA rule would prohibit all consumer uses but allow certain “critical” uses in military and industrial processing, with worker protections in place, said Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.

Methylene chloride will continue to be allowed in the production of soft drinks as an alternative to other chemicals that produce greenhouse gases and contribute to climate change, Freedhoff said. It will also be permitted for use in electric vehicle batteries and for critical military functions.

“The uses that we believe can safely continue (all) are in high-end industrial settings, and in some cases there are no real substitutes available,” Freedhoff said.

The chemical industry has argued that the EPA is exaggerating the risks of methylene chloride and that adequate protections have mitigated the health risks.

The American Chemistry Council, the industry’s main lobbying group, has called methylene chloride “an essential compound” used to make many products and goods that Americans depend on every day, including paint strippers, pharmaceutical manufacturing and cleaning. and degreasing metals.

An EPA proposal last year could introduce “regulatory uncertainty and confusion” with existing exposure limits set by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the group said.

The chemical council also said it was concerned that the EPA had not fully evaluated the rule’s impacts on the national supply chain and could end up banning up to half of all end uses subject to regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Although the EPA banned consumer use of methylene chloride in 2019, use of the chemical has remained widespread and continues to pose a significant and sometimes fatal hazard to workers, the agency said. EPA’s final risk management rule requires companies to rapidly reduce the production, processing, and distribution of methylene chloride for all consumer uses and most industrial and commercial uses, including home improvement.

Consumer use will be phased out within a year, and most industrial and commercial uses will be banned within two years.

Liz Hitchcock, director of a safer chemicals program at the advocacy group Toxic-Free Future, praised the new rule but added: “As pleased as we are to see the current rule prohibiting all consumers and most uses commercial companies, we are concerned that limits on its scope will allow continued exposure of many workers to the dangerous and deadly effects of methylene chloride.”

Wendy Hartley, whose son Kevin died of methylene chloride poisoning after renovating a bathtub at work, called the new rule “a big step that will protect vulnerable workers.”

Kevin Hartley, 21, of Tennessee, died in 2017. He was an organ donor, Wendy Hartley said, adding that because of the EPA’s actions, “Kevin’s death will continue to save lives.”

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