This week, EPA finalized a rule to ban some uses of CTC that have already ceased and establish robust workplace protections, including a Workplace Chemical Protection Program (WCPP), including an inhalation exposure concentration limit, direct dermal contact controls, and related workplace exposure
controls, and prescriptive controls, for uses not prohibited to address the unreasonable risk to human health.
The final rule closes the door on discontinued uses of CTC that EPA found present unreasonable risk, like for metal recovery and as an additive in fuel and plastic components used in the automotive industry. For most uses that continue, the rule requires measures to ensure workers are protected. Some uses prohibited by the proposed rule will be allowed to continue under the final rule, because public comments and supporting information demonstrated both that the uses were ongoing and that the workplace protections could be implemented. Uses of CTC allowed to continue under the Workplace Chemical Protection Program (which includes inhalation exposure limits and dermal protections) include:
- Incorporation into formulation, mixture or reaction products in agricultural products manufacturing, vinyl chloride manufacturing (originally proposed for prohibition), and other basic organic and inorganic chemical manufacturing.
- Repackaging for use as a laboratory chemical.
- Use as a processing aid to manufacture agricultural products.
- Use as a processing aid to manufacture vinyl chloride (originally proposed for prohibition).
- Use in the elimination of nitrogen trichloride in the production of chlorine and caustic soda and the recovery of chlorine in tail gas from the production of chlorine.
- Import, recycling, disposal and domestic manufacture of CTC.
- Processing as a reactant in the production of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) and perchloroethylene (PCE).
The continued, safe use of CTC in the manufacture of low global warming potential chemicals used in refrigerants, aerosol propellants and foam-blowing agents is particularly important in the Agency’s efforts to support the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020 (AIM Act) and the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
In response to public comments on the proposed rule, companies now have 36 months instead of 12 months to fully implement the Workplace Chemical Protection Program, which provides sufficient time to refine test methods to measure the new inhalation exposure limits. Laboratory use of CTC will still require prescriptive workplace controls, but those controls are now better aligned with current Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards in the final rule.
The final rule also requires owners and operators to attest that engineering controls selected to comply with the rule’s inhalation exposure limits do not increase emissions of CTC to ambient air outside of the facility. This, along with existing National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs) for CTC under the Clean Air Act, helps to protect fenceline communities from increased exposure to CTC by prohibiting workplaces from simply ventilating more of the chemical outside of the workplace in order to meet their indoor inhalation exposure limits.
In the final revised risk determination, EPA determined that CTC presents an unreasonable risk of injury to human health under its conditions of use. The unreasonable risk determination found that 13 of the 15 conditions of use EPA evaluated contributed to the unreasonable risk to human health.
CLICK HERE for more on this topic.