The Environmental Safety Company (EPA) not too long ago proposed including 9 “endlessly chemical substances” to its checklist of hazardous constituents below the Useful resource Conservation and Restoration Act (RCRA). To qualify for the checklist, chemical substances will need to have confirmed “poisonous, carcinogenic, mutagenic, or teratogenic results on human life or different life varieties,” in line with the EPA’s web site.

The chemical substances are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a category used to make heat-, oil- and grease-resistant merchandise. Present in additional than 12,000 varieties, PFAS may be discovered on every part from menstrual merchandise to mattress pads to wall paint. PFAS are additionally an environmental menace as a result of they don’t break down, can transfer via soils and groundwater, and accumulate in wildlife, finally working their approach up the meals chain into people.

Producers who use PFAS have been unsurprised by the EPA’s announcement, in line with Kent Sorenson, chief expertise officer at Allonnia, a bioremediation firm.

“The document rule was undoubtedly anticipated,” mentioned Sorenson, “extremely anticipated within the market each by way of those that are cleansing up contaminated websites and coping with the waste, but additionally from the customers of these compounds that mainly personal that legal responsibility.” 

However whereas the rule was anticipated, the precise chemical substances chosen have been unknown, inflicting backlogs on the bottom.

“To some extent, [the unknown chemicals] have been holding up website cleanups and evaluations, as a result of it’s exhausting to do a correct analysis once you don’t know for positive which PFAS compounds are going to be thought-about hazardous constituents,” mentioned Sorenson.

One other essential a part of the announcement was the authority granted to each the EPA and the states to mandate chemical cleanup sooner or later.

“Due to sturdy partnerships with our co-regulators within the states, we are going to strengthen our capacity to scrub up contamination from PFAS, maintain polluters accountable and advance public well being protections,” mentioned EPA administrator Michael Regan, in an announcement.

Not everybody agrees with the EPA’s determination. “Grouping chemical substances, together with PFAS, into broad classes and creating one-size-fits-all insurance policies is inefficient, expensive and ineffective in attaining the meant environmental targets,” mentioned Robert Helminiak, vp of authorized and authorities relations on the Society of Chemical Producers & Associates, in an electronic mail to GreenBiz.

Helminiak careworn that the EPA’s ruling is “stopping essential chemistries that … have internet optimistic environmental impacts from coming to market.”

Individually, a brand new rule added to the Poisonous Substance Management Act (TSCA) in October requires new recordkeeping and reporting for producers and importers of merchandise containing PFAS. It mandates firms report PFAS makes use of, manufacturing quantity, disposal, hazards and environmental results in merchandise that have been offered commercially from 2011 onwards. The official language lists the industries probably affected by this replace, together with building, manufacturing, wholesale commerce, retail commerce and waste administration and remediation providers.

Allonnia’s Sorenson envisions this might create new financial alternatives resulting from firms’ sudden must entry this info. Presently, nobody is filling that want, he mentioned.

“Producers are in search of assist from folks to guage [the reporting process], and that’s an entire new market that has now opened up,” mentioned Sorenson.

Corporations that know or suspect they are going to be affected by the TSCA and RCRA rulings are suggested to behave rapidly to attenuate potential legal responsibility. In a commentary piece for Reuters, Miles Scully, a associate at Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP, endorsed companies to scrutinize their provide chains for PFAS, evaluate contracts for language concerning PFAS, and look into PFAS alternate options.

Sorenson suggested firms to spend money on nascent however rising applied sciences that may sort out PFAS elimination. He touted Allonnia’s floor energetic foam fractionation (SAFF) system as “essentially the most sustainable and sturdy expertise” commercially out there. SAFF leverages air bubbles to separate PFAS from water in small volumes, enabling the hazardous chemical to be retrieved and destroyed.

Correction: In a earlier model, Allonnia was misspelled.