U.S. EPA proposes to ban Methylene Chloride under Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing to address the unjustified risk of human health injury caused by methylene chloride under its current usage circumstances. Methylene chloride is immediately lethal, neurotoxic, and a probable human carcinogen, with cancer and non-cancer hazards associated with chronic exposure. To address the identified unreasonable risk, the EPA proposes prohibiting the manufacture, processing, and commercial distribution of methylene chloride for consumer use, prohibiting most industrial and commercial uses of methylene chloride, requiring a workplace chemical protection program (WCPP), recordkeeping, and downstream notification requirements, and providing certain time-limited exemptions from requirements for methylene chloride uses that would otherwise be significant.