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The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced a proposed ban on ongoing uses of chrysotile asbestos, the only form that is still imported into America. This new rule would be issued under TSCA and comes as an outcome of the 2016 Lautenberg Act overhaul which gave EPA more power to regulate chemicals in use today.
The Biden Administration has been making strides in regulating chemicals that threaten the health of millions of Americans. In a historic move on October 18th, 2021—the Biden administration announced that it will begin to regulate a group of long-lasting, human-made chemicals called PFASs (perfluorinated alkyl substances) that are known to cause cancer and other diseases. These chemicals can be found in products such as cosmetics, dental floss, food packaging, clothing, and cleaning supplies.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, better known as PFASs, are a group of man-made chemicals that include PFOA (perflourooctanoic acid), PFOS (perflourous sulfonic acid) with many other variations. These were made for various industries around the world including in the United States since the 1940s. The most extensively produced types have been studied more than others but both these chemicals persist to environmental conditions and can accumulate over time - meaning they break down very slowly or not at all within living organisms making them an unsustainable resource which could also lead to adverse human health effects like cancers observed by epidemiologists from different parts of America after decades ago when firefighting foam containing this type was used by the military to extinguish fires.
PFAS are a group of chemicals with industrial, commercial and home uses. They’ve been around since the 1930s and started being produced in quantity in the 1950s. Since then they’ve gotten into every corner of our lives, and many processes produce large quantities of PFAS-contaminated waste.
