EPA seeks to protect workers from carbon tetrachloride

The US Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a rule that allows current uses of the toxic solvent carbon tetrachloride to continue, as long as manufacturers meet new worker safety requirements—including a new inhalation exposure limit—within 3 years. The rule, released Dec. 11, bans uses of the chemical that have already been phased out.

Carbon tetrachloride is used primarily as a raw material to make other chemicals. Manufacturers claim that it is a critical feedstock for making refrigerants, aerosol propellants, foam-blowing agents, vinyl chloride, and a handful of other products.

The chlorinated solvent can cause liver cancer, as well as brain and adrenal gland tumors, according to the EPA. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission banned the use of carbon tetrachloride in consumer products in 1970. Most industrial uses, with the exception of chemical manufacturing, were phased out decades ago.

The EPA justifies allowing the chemical’s continued use, noting in a press release that it is essential for producing hydrofluoroolefin refrigerants, which are replacements for climate-damaging hydrofluorocarbons.

“With this action, we’re ensuring that the chemicals we need to power our economy are used safely,” Michal Freedhoff, assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, says in the release. “This rule puts necessary protections in place for workers, while also ensuring that important uses of this chemical can continue safely without unreasonable risk.”

Environmental groups say the rule will leave communities surrounding chemical facilities unprotected from unsafe levels of carbon tetrachloride in the air. In comments submitted to the EPA last year in response to the proposed rule, 14 groups urged the agency to eliminate all uses of carbon tetrachloride and promote safer alternatives.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC), which represents chemical manufacturers, questions the feasibility of the new worker inhalation limit. In comments about the proposed rule, the industry group pointed out that the EPA’s occupational exposure limit is much lower than the one set by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the European Chemicals Agency, and dozens of other agencies around the globe. Nonetheless, the EPA finalized a strict limit of 0.03 ppm (the average exposure during an 8 h work shift) in its rule. OSHA’s permissible limit is 10 ppm.

Carbon tetrachloride is one of the first 10 chemicals the EPA evaluated under the Toxic Substances Control Act after Congress updated the law in 2016. The agency found unreasonable risks to human health from all 10 chemicals, but it has finalized rules to manage the risks for only 5 of them. In addition to the rule for carbon tetrachloride, the EPA finalized rules for 2 other solvents—trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene—this week. The agency finalized rules for chrysotile asbestos and methylene chloride earlier this year.