Category: Chemicals
Today’s workplace uses thousands of chemicals, many of which are hazardous. The resources in this section will help guide you in the safe and legal identification, storage, transport, and use of these chemicals, and in making sure that your employees right to know how to be safe around such substances is provided, as required by law.
The EPA is proposing to add two questions to the list of questions chemical manufacturers (which include importers) and processors must answer to substantiate claims that the identities of chemicals must be protected from public disclosure. Both questions relate to reverse engineering, defined as a process “to disassemble and examine or analyze in detail (a […]
Methylene chloride, one of the most useful solvents ever developed and also one of the most dangerous, is the subject of a recently released EPA draft risk evaluation.
Congressional authorization and funding for the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program is once again nearing expiration. That means there will almost certainly be a new authorizing law carrying a fresh set of program amendments. While there is no meaningful opposition to the CFATS as a whole, there is also […]
Experts at Enviro.BLR.com® were recently asked the best way to determine what chemicals are considered “hazardous” when creating a hazard communication plan. Would you know which chemicals would be classified as such, specifically when it comes to cleaning supplies? Read on to learn more about the question and how it was answered by the experts.
The applicability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Risk Management Program (RMP) is reasonably clear, but facilities with chemicals in amounts less than the RMP thresholds are finding themselves in trouble with the EPA because they are overlooking EPA’s General Duty Clause (42 U.S. Code 7412(r)(1)). Several times over the last 6 months the […]
In a short letter, the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) informed registrants of pesticides that a statement on the label of a pesticide product warning that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans” is “false and misleading” and will be considered misbranding and in violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). Therefore, […]
Green chemistry and its close relative, sustainable chemistry, are concepts and practices that would seem to have no detractors, not within industry, not among environmental and public health groups, and not throughout the federal and state governments. And yet, while no one appears to publicly oppose these types of chemistry, their integration into the manufacturing […]
The EPA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission have released the first report in their investigation into recycled tire crumbs that are used in playing fields and playgrounds.
Since January 2011, the Preparedness Unit in the EPA’s Region 8 Office has published a quarterly newsletter that provides the public with “information on any and all aspects of preparedness.” One general goal of the newsletter is to educate the public and industry about federal programs specifically intended to prevent releases of hazardous substances that […]
Effective August 15, 2019, the EPA will no longer notify companies that they have not met the requirements to substantiate claims that information about their chemicals provided to that Agency is entitled to confidentiality, and they have 30 days to submit complete substantiations.