REPORT: Vinyl Chloride: The Poison That Makes The Plastic | Considerations for EPA’s Evaluation of Vinyl Chloride Under the Toxic Substances Control Act
July 2024 | Beyond Plastics, Earthjustice, and Toxic-Free Future
This joint report describes the ways in which vinyl chloride has harmed and continues to threaten the health of frontline communities, workers, and consumers, and provides a sampling of the many vinyl chloride leaks, spills, fires and explosions that have occurred over the last five decades.
The report makes recommendations to the EPA to designate vinyl chloride as a high-priority chemical under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) process, building on the comment letter submitted by the same three organizations to EPA on March 18, 2024, and the accompanying technical report prepared by Material Research, L3C. Such a designation is the first step in a multi-year effort to get the EPA to restrict or ban vinyl chloride to protect public health.
You can learn more about vinyl chloride and its risks as well as the process required to ban it under TSCA at www.BanVinylChloride.org.
GET THE REPORT & OTHER KEY DOCUMENTS
TAKE ACTION
We need your help to urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban vinyl chloride, the human carcinogen that’s used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. Vinyl chloride is manufactured in low-income communities and communities of color in Louisiana, Texas, and Kentucky, where it threatens the health of local residents. The PVC plastic made from vinyl chloride is used to make everything from the iconic rubber ducky and other children's toys to pipes, floor coverings, shower curtains, raincoats, and vinyl siding. Fortunately, there are safer alternatives to PVC.
On December 14, 2023, the U.S. EPA announced that it would include vinyl chloride—a known human carcinogen that's been sickening workers and residents for almost 50 years—in its priority list of chemicals for risk assessment. This is a critical first step towards banning vinyl chloride under the federal Toxic Substances Control Act and your members of Congress must let EPA know they support this move and urge them to act as quickly as possible to prevent more harm from being done by vinyl chloride. As we've seen in East Palestine, Ohio where five tanker cars' full of vinyl chloride were intentionally spilled and mass burned following the Norfolk Southern train derailment in February 2023, no community is safe from vinyl chloride's negative health impacts. The only true solution is to ban it!
Please join us in urging EPA Administrator Michael Regan to continue to ban vinyl chloride as quickly as possible. Fill out the fields below or👉click here to email Administrator Regan about this directly.
Dear Administrator Regan,
I'm writing to urge you to please ban vinyl chloride as quickly as possible.
Vinyl chloride is a known human carcinogen whose production threatens workers and residents in primarily low-income and minority communities. As we saw last February in the East Palestine train derailment disaster, vinyl chloride also poses a threat to the health of any and all communities through which it travels.
99% of all vinyl chloride is used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. Fortunately, there are safer alternatives to PVC available to us right now. There are also potential risks to the general public because PVC and vinyl are so widely used in products and in packaging, including food packaging. You can find more details about the hazards of vinyl chloride in this thorough fact sheet from Beyond Plastics: https://www.beyondplastics.org/fact-sheets/vinyl-chloride
We have known that vinyl chloride sickens people since the 1970s and we simply cannot wait any longer to ban this toxic chemical.
Please use your position as head of the agency to push the process of banning vinyl chloride under TSCA as quickly as possible.
Thank you so much for your service to our nation and for your attention to this urgent threat to public health and environmental justice.
