Chemical testing and products

To provide a means of evaluating new chemicals entering the marketplace, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was passed in 1979. Many question its effectiveness in keeping harmful toxins out of consumer goods because:

Most of the chemicals used in production today were introduced before 1979.¹ While TSCA addresses these pre-existing chemicals through testing rules, it can take decades to accumulate the required studies and evidence.
Under current policy, the presumption is that a chemical is safe until proven harmful, and it is the responsibility of EPA, not industry, to demonstrate that a chemical poses "unreasonable risk" to society.
Government has little authority over what kinds of testing can be requested from chemical companies. For new chemicals, the approval process may be as short as three weeks.²

If it takes decades to prove that a pre-existing chemical is harmful, is it realistic to expect that a new chemical can be presumed safe in three weeks? Once a chemical is approved, it is difficult to limit its use. There have been very few actions to limit the use of pre-existing chemicals. DDT and PCBs were used for many years before being banned, and persist in the environment.

There are thousands of chemicals in items we use everyday. The government tallied 5,000 chemical ingredients in cosmetics; over 3,200 chemicals added to food; 500 chemicals used as active ingredients in pesticides and 1,010 chemicals used in 11,700 consumer products.³ Many electronic products, for example, contain toxic components such as lead, cadmium, mercury, and brominated flame retardants. Some of these chemicals would be considered hazardous waste if they were byproducts from production, but when they are incorporated into a product, they are assumed safe for the intended purpose. We all have benefitted from the products and processes made from synthetic chemicals, but there is growing concern over what effects these have on our environment and our bodies.

Sources

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A 1997 EPA study found that of the 3,000 chemicals imported or produced in the United States in amounts over 1 million pounds, 43 percent had no publicly available data on toxicity.

Excess trimmings from the poly-vinyl chloride (PVC) molding process must be disposed of as hazardous waste because of the toxic constituents, yet the material inside the molding which becomes the product itself is virtually unregulated for the rest of its life.

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