Our blog has written on EPA’s placement of Trichloroethylene (TCE on the chopping block and the phase down of Perchloroethylene (PCE). And early this week, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized those proposed rules with the latest risk management regulations for those two chemicals.
Under the rule, “all uses of TCE will be banned over time (with the vast majority of identified risks eliminated within one year), and safer alternatives are readily available for the majority of uses.” Further, the rule will “ban[] manufacture, processing and distribution in commerce of PCE for all consumer uses and many commercial uses, while allowing some workplace uses to continue only where robust workplace controls can be implemented.”
According to EPA, PCE and TCE are both nonflammable chlorinated solvents that are volatile organic compounds (VOCs). PCE can biodegrade into TCE, and PCE may contain trace amounts of TCE as an impurity or a contaminant. The chemicals can often serve as alternatives for each other.
“Some examples of uses that will be prohibited under the TCE rule but will continue under the PCE rule include: industrial and commercial use as an energized electrical cleaner, in laboratory use for asphalt testing and recovery, use to make refrigerants and other chemicals, and for vapor degreasing.”
TCE is used as a solvent in consumer and commercial products such as cleaning and furniture care products, degreasers, brake cleaners, sealants, lubricants, adhesives, paints and coatings, arts and crafts spray coatings, and is also used in the manufacture of some refrigerants.
According to EPA, under the rule “many of the TCE uses that are continuing for longer than one year occur in highly industrialized settings that can adopt EPA’s new stringent worker protections, such as uses of TCE to clean parts used in aircraft and medical devices, to manufacture battery separators, to manufacture refrigerants, as well as in other transportation, security and defense systems.” EPA says that “All of these uses ultimately will be prohibited, but some of the exemptions associated with longer timeframes are necessary to avoid impacts to national security or critical infrastructure.”
PCE is also a solvent that is widely used for consumer uses such as brake cleaners and adhesives, in commercial applications such as dry cleaning, and in many industrial settings. Under the rule, “EPA is finalizing a 10-year phaseout for the use of PCE in dry cleaning to eliminate the risk to people who work or spend considerable time at dry cleaning facilities.” However, use of PCE in “newly acquired dry-cleaning machines” will be prohibited after just six months.
EPA’s compliance dates for such machines that are already owned will vary depending on the type of the dry-cleaning machine used, with older types of machines being phased out sooner than newer ones. For PCE, the rule also finalizes controls for continuing uses under a Workplace Chemical Protection Program (WCPP). These permitted continuing uses “generally occur in highly sophisticated workplaces that may be important to national security, aviation and other critical infrastructure…” (e.g., petrochemical manufacturing, agricultural chemical manufacturing, use in adhesives and sealants, etc.) In response to public comments on the proposed rule, most workplaces now have 30 months instead of 12 months to fully implement the WCPP.
EPA says that “as a follow-up to consultations with small businesses, EPA plans to release compliance guidance for the use of PCE in dry cleaning and energized electrical cleaning in the coming months, as well as for the TCE rule.” The EPA’s news release on this can be found here.
