Asbestos to be Reviewed Under TSCA

A short while ago we shared important progress being made under the recently amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This improves how we assess potentially unsafe chemicals in the US—mandating the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to evaluate chemicals under specific deadlines. If you missed the blog post, you can quickly catch up here.

For those up to speed with the legislation, we have more progress to share. The EPA recently announced on November 29th that asbestos is one of the first 10 chemicals to be evaluated. Asbestos is a toxic—even carcinogenic—chemical that can be found in a variety of consumer products.

Additional chemicals to be evaluated are:

• 1,4-Dioxane

• 1-Bromopropane

• Carbon Tetrachloride

• Cyclic Aliphatic Bromide Cluster [HBCD]

• Methylene Chloride [MC]

• N-methylpyrrolidone [NMP]

• Pigment Violet 29

• Tetrachloroethylene [perchloroethylene or TCE]

• Trichloroethylene

These 10 chemicals were chosen by the EPA from 90 chemicals listed on the 2014 Update to the TSCA Work Plan. Within three years the EPA must conduct risk evaluations on these chemicals. If an “unreasonable risk” is discovered they must mitigate the hazard within two years.

You might be wondering, what exactly is this evaluation? The EPA will release reports for each chemical within six months outlining potential health and environmental risks. At least twenty evaluations will underway at a time by the end of 2019.

While these evaluations will not be complete for a few years, you can count on us to keep on innovating responsibly with our Principles of Conscious Chemistry.