The Environmental Protection Agency says DuPont has agreed to virtually eliminate any new emissions from its plants making the non-stick surface Teflon by 2010. A chemical in the product, already widespread within the environment, is a growing health concern.
Studies on the chemical have linked it to cancer and organ damage in tests on animals. Other tests have suggested that it is already present in the blood of virtually every American.
"This program calls on virtually eliminating those uses in those products and substituting with other materials that aren't displaying any levels of concern," said Susan Hazen, the Environmental Protection Agency's principal deputy assistant administrator for the office of prevention, pesticides and toxic substances.
The issue has been simmering for years. Environmentalists identified the chemical years ago as a danger to humans, and DuPont has already paid millions of dollars to settle lawsuits brought by residents who live near a Teflon plant in West Virginia.
The Environmental Working Group, a public interest watchdog, praised the EPA for wringing the agreement out of DuPont. But it cautioned that this agreement appears to be the exception, not the rule.
"We hope that no one will conclude that this agreement proves that our current system for regulating industrial chemicals works, because it proves just the opposite. It proves we have learned very little since we banned DDT and PCBs a generation ago, chemicals far less persistent, less ubiquitous in the environment, and quite likely less toxic than PFOA," the group said in a statement.
"The controlling law for these chemicals, the Toxic Substances Control Act, has left government regulators toothless, purblind, and overly dependent on volunteerism since it was first passed, in 1976. It is the only major modern environmental law that has not been comprehensively reauthorized since its original passage," the organization said.
