Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 10/10/18
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump Taps Former Industry Executive for EPA’s Science Arm
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
After a number of recent cutbacks to US EPA departments, President Trump has named David Dunlap deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development. -
New Ethics Official Named
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
EPA has a new ethics official in place at the agency. -
Dems to Wheeler: Withdraw Pruitt's 'Unsound' Rules
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are warning acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler that his predecessor's work could put him in legal trouble. -
EPCA '18: Europe Petrochemicals Must Face Up to Multiple Challenges - Consultant
Oct 10, 2018 | ICIS
By Will Beacham
Europe's petrochemical sector must prepare now for the trade war, US start-ups, Brexit and the circular economy, a leading chemicals consultant says. -
Interior Embracing Transparency, 'Best Available Science' in Rulemaking
Oct 10, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
The Interior Department has ordered its bureaus and offices to base its decisions "on the best available science," and to make any scientific data, analyses and methodologies used for a rulemaking available to the public. -
Wheeler Faces Firestorm After Liking Racist Anti-Obama Post
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is again under fire for his social media activity, prompting at least one Democratic lawmaker to call for his resignation. -
US EPA Issues 28 Snurs, Intends to Withdraw Rule on 27 Others
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has issued a new batch of TSCA significant new use rules (Snurs) – its sixth release since 1 August. But it has also signalled that it will be withdrawing a rule addressing a previous grouping. -
Data and Toxicology: The Challenges Ahead
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Improved efforts to achieve greater human and environmental safety also lead to increased data requirements. Producing these data solely by (vertebrate) animal testing stretches all kind of resources, including laboratory capacity, time and expertise, to their limits. -
FDA Far from Achieving Clarity on BPA
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Heather Patisaul
There is, perhaps, no more controversial chemical than bisphenol A (BPA). Despite reams of data, debate remains intense over its toxicity. -
Even 'Non-Toxic' Nail Polish May Contain Harmful Chemicals, Study Says
Oct 10, 2018 | TIME
By Jamie Ducharme
Cosmetics are subject to very few regulations in the U.S. While they fall under Food and Drug Administration (FDA) purview, current laws do not require beauty products and their ingredients to be FDA-approved before hitting shelves. -
J&J Talc: Second California Mistrial in Two Weeks
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
Just two weeks after a previous case in California ended in mistrial, a jury has failed to reach a verdict on whether Johnson & Johnson's baby powder caused a plaintiff's mesothelioma. -
California Dreaming
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Warmington
There is an old saying that what California does today, the East Coast of America does tomorrow and the rest of the country does next week. -
Should You Worry About Herbicides In Your Food?
Oct 10, 2018 | SELF
By Yvette d'Entremont
If you've read the news lately, you've probably wondered if you should worry about herbicides in your food. -
European Initiative Urges 'Uniform and Unanimous' Nanomaterial Definition
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
Five European countries have issued a set of recommendations to address regulatory gaps on nanomaterials, including the use of a "uniform and unambiguous" definition across all relevant EU legislation. -
Shell CEO Makes Case for Natural Gas, Promises Company Not Going ‘Soft’ on Fossil Fuels
Oct 10, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Royal Dutch Shell plc CEO Ben van Beurden on Tuesday made a forceful case about the future of natural gas, noting that the supermajor has a quiver of arrows targeting multiple projects worldwide. -
Texas Pipeline Company Buys NGL Fractionator
Oct 10, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
A company building major petroleum pipelines from the Permian Basin to Corpus Christi is buying a natural gas liquids fractionator. -
New Frac Sand Mine Planned for Oklahoma
Oct 10, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
A new 1.5 million ton a year frac sand mine is being planned for Oklahoma. -
City Proposes Aggressive Plan to Cut Carbon Emissions
Oct 10, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
Several city legislators in the nation’s capital have proposed an aggressive plan to cut carbon emissions following a bleak report by the world’s top scientific panel studying global warming. -
Wehrum Calls for Dramatic Acceleration of NAAQS Reviews
Oct 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
Bill Wehrum, head of EPA's Office of Air & Radiation, is calling for dramatic acceleration of the process the agency uses to review its national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), aiming for completed reviews in as little as three and a half to four years -- a far shorter timeframe than the agency typically achieves. -
Reducing Your Carbon Footprint Downstream
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Mark Rossi
Are you a downstream user of chemicals? -
Conservatives Shouldn't Be Afraid to Talk About Climate Change
Oct 10, 2018 | The Hill - Opinion
By Josiah Neeley
Climate change is back in the news, with a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calling for major action to reduce emissions. Climate change often seems like an issue designed to trip up conservatives. -
Ewire: How is the UN climate report playing at the White House?
Oct 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
At the outset of the week, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a dire new report about the array of consequences tied to global warming, but the warnings appear to be making few ripples with the Trump administration that is moving to roll-back Obama EPA greenhouse gas rules. -
Market Forces Put America’s Recycling Industry in the Dumps
Oct 10, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
America’s recycling industry is in the dumps.
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump Taps Former Industry Executive for EPA’s Science Arm
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
After a number of recent cutbacks to US EPA departments, President Trump has named David Dunlap deputy assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development. The ORD is the research arm of the agency, tasked with providing the science to underpin its work.
A chemical engineer, Mr Dunlap served as the director of environmental affairs for Koch Industries. He worked for the company from 2010 until recently. Koch is the second-largest privately held corporation in the US, and makes and refines chemicals, petroleum, fertilisers and plastics.
"Mr Dunlap has worked on environmental issues for nearly 30 years with a focus on assessing risk," said EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson. "His extensive experience on regulatory issues will be pivotal in our mission to protect human health and the environment."
The ORD is one of the EPA's 12 central offices. The National Center for Computational Toxicology and the Chemical Safety for Sustainability programme are included within its purview.
Mr Dunlap's appointment comes just weeks after the EPA announced plans to shut down the Office of the Science Adviser, which "provides leadership on science and technology issues and policy". The outgoing science adviser, Dr Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, is an expert on the risks of chemicals to human health.
Reports have also indicated that the EPA placed the director of its Office of Children's Health Protection, Dr Ruth Etzel, on administrative leave in September.
NGO the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has criticised the appointment of Mr Dunlap, calling him "a longtime chemical and fossil fuel industry executive". The group's president Ken Cook said: "This dumbing down of the agency that is supposed to use science to protect Americans from toxic pollution is irresponsible, and will have real consequences for public health."
Mr Dunlap replaces Richard Yamada – a mathematician and former congressional committee staffer – who left after 15 months in the post in mid September. No explanation was given for his departure.
Dr Yamada's name came up in May in leaked internal documents that showed concern that draft toxicological profiles for four PFASs from a separate federal agency could result in a "public relations nightmare". Four House of Representatives Democrats later asked questions about a January meeting he had had with the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
https://chemicalwatch.com/70929/trump-taps-former-industry-executive-for-epas-science-arm?q=%22american+chemistry+council%22
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Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
EPA has a new ethics official in place at the agency.
Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler has appointed Dave Cozad as EPA's designated agency ethics official. Cozad started last week in the role, according to an internal memo obtained by E&E News.
Cozad, a career EPA attorney, is acting deputy general counsel at the agency. He was regional counsel for EPA's Region 7 branch, based in Lenexa, Kan.
Former EPA officials praised Cozad.
"I always found Dave to have good, solid advice, provide excellent counsel," said Mark Hague, who served as Region 7 administrator during the Obama administration. "My style was tell me what I needed to know, not what I wanted to hear. Dave handled that well and was always very professional in his dealings."
Hague noted that Cozad advised him on ethics issues while he was at EPA.
Dave Cozad. Dave Cozad/LinkedIn
Avi Garbow, who was EPA's general counsel during the Obama era, said he has "enormous respect for Dave and his integrity."
"He has many years under his belt — and has served in both regional, and more recently in headquarters, roles — and I view him as someone who is committed to upholding the governing rules, and providing steadfast advice to EPA officials, whether in the political leadership or amongst the career civil servants," Garbow said.
Cozad's job now is to manage the regional counsels spread throughout the agency. He is filling one of two career deputy general counsel positions created in a recent reworking of EPA's legal office that also had the principal deputy general counsel post filled by a political appointee (E&E News PM, Sept. 20).
As EPA's top ethics official, Cozad will manage the agency's ethics program and work with the Office of Government Ethics. He also will review EPA employees' financial disclosure statements as well as conduct ethics training and give ethics advice.
The position came under scrutiny during former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's tenure.
Pruitt's rent of a Capitol Hill condo tied to a lobbyist with business before EPA was subject of two separate ethics memos. Kevin Minoli, then EPA's top ethics official, also ended up referringethics allegations against Pruitt to the EPA Office of Inspector General for investigation.
Pruitt resigned from EPA in July under a crush of scandals related to his spending and management of the agency.
Cozad replaces Minoli, who left EPA last month for a job with a private law firm, in the ethics official position.
Nancy Marvel, who was regional counsel for EPA Region 9, said Cozad would be able to deliver tough ethics advice, if needed, at the agency.
"Based on my experience with Dave, I believe he would take very seriously his responsibility to provide critical ethics advice to top agency officials, political and career, and would not shy away from doing so, even if it were uncomfortable to do so," Marvel said.
Hague said he hopes Cozad's ethics advice will be heeded at the agency.
"Hopefully, there is a return post-Pruitt to relying on career professionals on how to navigate the bureaucracy and play by the rules," Hague said.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/10/10/stories/1060102205
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Dems to Wheeler: Withdraw Pruitt's 'Unsound' Rules
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Kevin Bogardus
Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee are warning acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler that his predecessor's work could put him in legal trouble.
In a letter sent yesterday, the committee's ranking member, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), and others on the panel said former EPA chief Scott Pruitt's tenure "included a profound disregard for the mandates of statutory law, as well as attempts to obstruct the public's ability to hold EPA accountable for fulfilling the laws' requirements." Pruitt resigned in July after being overwhelmed by allegations of excessive spending and mismanagement at the agency.
The senators cited several examples of Pruitt's losses in court. Judges blocked Pruitt's move not to enforce air pollution limits on new truck cabs with refurbished diesel engines known as glider kits, turned back his decision to revoke a ban on the pesticide chlorpyrifos and tossed out his delay of Obama-era safety rules for chemical plants. The Democrats also noted that EPA under the Trump administration has been swamped with Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.
"Under former Administrator Pruitt's direction, EPA improperly delayed the effective date of rules, delayed its responses to FOIA requests, failed to properly document rule proposals, and ignored administrative procedure," they said.
The senators asked for information about EPA's litigation, including lists of deadline lawsuits and FOIA lawsuits as well as how much EPA had to pay in attorneys' fees and costs to opposing parties in each case. They asked that EPA turn over the information by Nov. 2.
The senators asked Wheeler to restore "the rule of law" at EPA by withdrawing proposed rules that are not supported or conflict with statute.
"The failure to quickly correct course will not only unduly and further delay the implementation of vital environmental protections and create an extended period of regulatory uncertainty for industry," they said.
"In fact, continuing down this unwise path will also cost taxpayers money, since the federal government spends time and money defending these unsound rules in court."
EPA said the agency would respond to the letter.
"We will respond through the proper channel," said EPA spokeswoman Molly Block.
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/10/10/stories/1060102195
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EPCA '18: Europe Petrochemicals Must Face Up to Multiple Challenges - Consultant
Oct 10, 2018 | ICIS
By Will Beacham
Europe's petrochemical sector must prepare now for the trade war, US start-ups, Brexit and the circular economy, a leading chemicals consultant says.
With higher tariff barriers going up between the US and China, the market in Europe is likely to experience an influx of polymers and other chemicals from exporters looking for a new home for their production, International eChem chairman, Paul Hodges said.
Speaking on the sidelines of the European Petrochemical Association's annual meeting in Vienna, he said: "The thing we have to watch out for is displaced product which can’t go from the US any more to China and therefore will likely come to Europe."
In addition to polyethylene, there is an indirect effect as domestic demand in China is also falling, he said, leaving other Asian producers which usually export there to also seek new markets and targeting Europe.
"The US isn’t buying consumer goods from China any more – and that seems to be the case because container ships going from China to the US for Thanksgiving and Christmas aren’t full. So northeast and southeast chemical producers haven’t got he business they expect in China and are exporting to Europe instead."
Hodges said there are signs of this effect already happening in acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). "We don’t know how disruptive this will be but it has quite a lot of potential."
US polymer start-ups
Hodges believes that the new US polymer capacities (4m tonnes/year are still scheduled for start-up) will go ahead even if the demand is not there for the product. This is because the ethane feedstocks they use need to be extracted by the producers and sellers of natural gas who must remove ethane from the gas stream to make it safe.For these producers some of the cost advantages have already disappeared because of rising ethane prices.
"The exports of US ethane are adding one or two more crackers to the total. And without sufficient capacity ethane prices have become higher and more volatile."
Hodges points out that pricing power is being lost as poor demand means producers cannot pass on the effect of rising oil prices. "Margins are being hit with some falling by 50-60%," he said.
Circular economy
EU targets mean that all plastic packaging must be recyclable or recycled in Europe by 2025. For the industry this could be a huge opportunity, but only if it acts fast, said Hodges: "We have to develop the technology that allows that to happen. We will need the [regulatory] approvals and if we don’t get moving in the next 12-18 months we are in trouble."Brexit beckons
According to Hodges: "We are in the end game for Brexit. We talk to senior politicians from both sides who don’t think there is a parliamentary majority for any Brexit option."He fears that if no deal can be agreed there is a chance the UK will refuse to pay its £39bn divorce bill.
"Then what happens to chemical regulation and transport? Although the bigger companies have made preparations, only one in seven in the supply chains are getting prepared," he added.
Hear the full interview in this ICIS EPCA podcast
https://www.icis.com/resources/news/2018/10/10/10264778/epca-18-europe-petrochemicals-must-face-up-to-multiple-challenges-consultant/
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Interior Embracing Transparency, 'Best Available Science' in Rulemaking
Oct 10, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
The Interior Department has ordered its bureaus and offices to base its decisions "on the best available science," and to make any scientific data, analyses and methodologies used for a rulemaking available to the public...
Access to full text unavailable – subscription required.
Story can be found here:
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116064-interior-embracing-transparency-best-available-science-in-rulemaking?v=preview
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Wheeler Faces Firestorm After Liking Racist Anti-Obama Post
Oct 10, 2018 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler is again under fire for his social media activity, prompting at least one Democratic lawmaker to call for his resignation.
The acting EPA chief was featured in recent media reports showing he used his private social media accounts — Facebook and Twitter — to interact with inflammatory content, including "liking" a racist photo of former President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama in 2013.
Wheeler isn't the first Trump official to face backlash for tweets, posts, likes and shares. President Trump himself has repeatedly been criticized for his online comments, including those targeting lawmakers and athletes. The EPA chief was criticized for his social media activity before the latest reports surfaced yesterday in a HuffPost report (Greenwire, July 9).
But the renewed scrutiny of Wheeler's online presence comes at a time when he's attempting to calm the waters at an agency that was roiled by a flurry of ethics allegations against ex-EPA boss Scott Pruitt. Wheeler is also said to be eyeing a formal nomination for the top EPA post, which could be complicated by these revelations.
The renewed controversy stems from Wheeler's activity, including "liking" a racist Facebook image of the Obamas in 2013. The photo depicts the presidential couple staring at a banana. In another case, Wheeler retweeted a message on Twitter from Jack Posobiec, who promoted the now-debunked "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory that high-ranking Democratic Party officials were involved in a child sex ring.
HuffPost, which first reported the activity, credited American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic political action committee, for finding the posts.
Ethics watchdogs say the issue could surface at a confirmation hearing should President Trump nominate Wheeler to officially lead EPA.
Nick Schwellenbach, director of investigations at the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said the activity is not only "disgusting" but also contrary to the Code of Ethics for Government Service, the first plank of which requires government workers to put loyalty to the highest moral principles and country above persons, party or government department.
"Racism is very much at odds with that ethics plank. When you're supporting or enabling racist content in the public or private domain, that's very much the opposite of the highest moral principles that a government official, particularly a senior government official, should uphold," Schwellenbach said.
Wheeler, a former Senate staffer and coal lobbyist from Ohio who took the agency's helm in July after Pruitt's abrupt exit, said in a statement that he doesn't remember "liking" the racist social media content and wasn't aware of the origins of other material.
"Over the years, I have been a prolific social media user and liked and inadvertently liked countless social media posts," Wheeler said in an email. "Specifically, I do not remember the post depicting President Obama and the First Lady. As for some of the other posts, I agreed with the content and was unaware of the sources."String of controversies
Other Trump administration officials have resigned after their Twitter activity drew scrutiny.
Last summer, William Bradford, a political appointee at the Department of Energy, publicly apologized after calling former President Obama a "Kenyan creampuff," urging attacks against law professors and labeling people pressing for action on climate change "nuts" on Twitter. Bradford, who led DOE's Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, later resigned (Greenwire, June 23, 2017).
And in March of 2017, another political appointee at DOE — a former massage therapist from New Hampshire — left his post after reports surfaced about his divisive posts on his Twitter account, including one linking Obama to "radical Islam" (E&E News PM, March 10, 2017).
The bulk of Wheeler's controversial online activity occurred before he took the helm as acting administrator.
Some of that activity has touched on climate change, an issue he's now squarely tasked with regulating.
In January, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume tweeted criticism of former Vice President Al Gore for connecting a cold snap as proof of a "climate crisis." "Next he'll tell us that if the earth cools, it will cause hot weather —>," tweeted Hume.
When a commenter responded, "Hey Brit where did you get your climate science degree?," Humes replied, "Same place Al Gore got his."
Wheeler, who at the time was being vetted by the Senate to serve as the EPA's No. 2, likedHumes' response from his personal Twitter account, @AndrewRWheeler. Four months later, Wheeler was confirmed by the Senate.'Sends the wrong signal'
Exactly how — or if — Wheeler's online activity will trigger repercussions is unclear.
Schwellenbach said the Code of Ethics for Government Service lays out "squishy" principles that rarely draw penalties or investigations.
"A lot of this comes down to norms and do people feel ashamed and what kind of political firestorm is developed and what does the White House think of this," he said. "It's not so much, 'Will an IG investigate and find a violation?' It's more, 'Is this beyond the pale?'"
The issue could be affecting staff at the agency already, he added.
"It sends the wrong signal to everyone, that he views people of different ethnicities differently," he said. "Clearly, these Obama photos are definitely strongly implied racial messages."
While the White House didn't immediately respond when asked for comment, at least one Democratic senator has called for Wheeler to resign.
"The head of a government agency has no place 'liking' racist memes or promoting the work of Pizzagate conspiracy theorists. If these are indeed Wheeler's actions, he should do the right thing for the @EPA and resign immediately," tweeted Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
News of Wheeler's activities was circulating on Capitol Hill today, where Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told reporters he wasn't aware of the controversy but would soon look into it.
"This is news to me," Carper told reporters. "I have not heard anything."
https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2018/10/10/stories/1060102215
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US EPA Issues 28 Snurs, Intends to Withdraw Rule on 27 Others
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US EPA has issued a new batch of TSCA significant new use rules (Snurs) – its sixth release since 1 August. But it has also signalled that it will be withdrawing a rule addressing a previous grouping.
The latest 28 Snurs cover a variety of substances brought to market in the first quarter of this year. The rules are intended to hold users of the substances to the same requirements as those negotiated with the original pre-manufacture notice (PMN) and reflected in section 5(e) consent orders.
The Snurs seek to impose protective measures to address information gaps or potential unreasonable risks the EPA identified while reviewing the request to bring each new substance to market.
In line with the other recent Snur groupings – 26 on 3 October, 28 on 17 September, 29 on 27 August, 27on 17 August and 145 others on 1 August – the agency simultaneously issued them under a direct final rule and a proposed rule.
A direct final rule can be used to advance non-controversial requirements on an expedited timeline. If the agency receives no significant adverse comment, the direct final rule for these 28 Snurs will take effect from 10 December.
But for any individual Snur receiving significant adverse feedback before 9 November, the EPA will drop it from the direct final rule and address it through the proposed rulemaking process.Rule withdrawals
The agency has received critical feedback on its approach of issuing simultaneous proposed and direct final rules, with some complaining that it limits the time they have to formulate responses.
As a result of adverse comments to this end – along with other concerns – the EPA withdrew its 1 August direct final rulemaking and signalled its intent to address the substances through the formal rulemaking process.
With regard to the second batch, issued on 17 August, a pre-publication Federal Register notice indicates the agency intends to withdraw this direct final rule as well. The notice on the group of 27 Snurs is scheduled to publish on 11 October.
It remains to be seen whether the EPA will withdraw other rules issued after the first two. But such a scenario could well play out, as the agency has continued to receive a steady stream of critical feedback on each grouping.
For example, business groups protested against the EPA’s plan to impose time-based Snur requirements on a set of medium- and long-chain chlorinated paraffins (MCCPs and LCCPs).
https://chemicalwatch.com/70928/us-epa-issues-28-snurs-intends-to-withdraw-rule-on-27-others
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Data and Toxicology: The Challenges Ahead
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
Improved efforts to achieve greater human and environmental safety also lead to increased data requirements. Producing these data solely by (vertebrate) animal testing stretches all kind of resources, including laboratory capacity, time and expertise, to their limits. Therefore it is necessary to further develop alternative methods to traditional animal toxicity testing.
In silico methods offer an efficient alternative, since they make it possible to generate data faster and thus minimise costs, as well as the use of other resources. Furthermore, they support the principle of the ‘3Rs’ (replacement, refinement and reduction), relating to the use of animals in research.
In the context of regulatory hazard assessment of chemicals, the term ‘in silico methods’ refer to computer-based calculation models based on the hypothesis that similar structural features lead to similar effects or properties. They cover a broad group of techniques, including the use of existing data, read-across (also known as analogue or category approaches), quantitative structure-activity relationships (Qsars) and expert systems.
Application areas
Typical applications of in silico methods in the regulatory framework include: filling data gaps where no experimental data are available;organising substances into groups based on structural or functional similarities facilitating, for example, read-across;screening metabolites and impurities in the context of an integrated testing strategy; and screening chemicals at an early stage of R&D.
Thus in silico methods can also play an important role in identifying alternative chemicals with a safer profile. They are able to identify specific key mechanisms, like the DNA-or protein-binding potential of molecules and enzyme inhibition, or they can simply detect chemical moieties for which a specific mode of toxic action is known.
In silico methods have been used in various regulatory frameworks, including those for biocides, industrial chemicals, cosmetics, plant protection products, pharmaceuticals and food contact materials. The main driver for their use varies. For example, in cosmetics it is the ban on vertebrate testing, whereas for other sectors, such as plant protection products, it is because there are practical or technical limitations to overcome, such as the very high number of metabolites and residues, which make experimental testing practically impossible.
Regulatory acceptance
Increased awareness and acceptance of in silico methods as an alternative for experimental data in the hazard assessment of chemicals is driving the adoption of their use for regulatory purposes. However, the reliability of the results and their acceptance by authorities remain inconsistent and are challenging issues.
In 2007, the OECD took a key step by introducing guidance with five main principles for the validation of Qsar models for regulatory purposes. These have created a basis for assessing the quality of the models and have been implemented in guidelines among a number of regulatory frameworks.
However, little information is available on authorities’ acceptance criteria for computational methods. Consequently, industry and regulators are often reluctant to accept in silico solutions for assessment and prefer testing as the ‘safer’ option. It is therefore essential to understand how and why a prediction can actually be an acceptable alternative to experimental testing.
One way to overcome this uncertainty is to develop detailed guidance documents including illustrative examples. To date, several such documents have been created among various regulatory frameworks to improve the standardisation and harmonisation of in silico predictions. These include: the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH) M7 guideline, describing the assessment of mutagenic impurities in pharmaceuticals; Echa’s ‘Guidance on information requirements and chemical safety assessment - chapter R.6: Qsars and grouping of chemicals;Echa’s ‘Practical guide how to report and use (Q)sars’; and the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) residue guidance.
In the latter, Qsars and read-across are used in a screening step for mutagenicity to identify candidates for testing. This is a positive example of a regulatory guidance document where illustrative examples are used. It gives examples describing the workflow of using Qsars and read-across in the assessment of the mutagenic potential of residues.
Such guidance documents increase confidence in in silico predictions for both regulatory bodies and industry within specific regulatory frameworks in which they can be applied. A second and more general means to overcome doubts over the acceptability of the methods is to develop harmonised acceptance criteria covering various regulatory frameworks.
G Myatt and others recently introduced the concept of ‘in silico protocols’. This describes a general concept of the information needed for protocols to support in silico predictions for major toxicological endpoints of concern. The assessment is based on such predictions, combined with available experimental data, and introduces assessment and confidence scores to support the hazard assessment for a specific toxicological endpoint.
These protocols contain information to ensure predictions are performed in a consistent, repeatable and transparent, and therefore valid, manner. They include a checklist to guide an expert review of the information. Further work is now needed to develop individual protocols for specific human health endpoints, such as genetic toxicity, carcinogenicity, acute toxicity, and reproductive and developmental toxicity.
This concept is so far the only example of guidance on the acceptance of in silico predictions being provided independently of the regulatory background. Extending this concept to environmental endpoints and the development of further appropriate acceptance criteria would be highly beneficial to both regulatory bodies and industry.
Outlook
Big data acquisition and the creation of large databases have facilitated important steps in improving and developing new Qsar tools. Although the advantages of in silico methods within the regulatory context have been broadly recognised, clear instructions on their acceptance are still lacking.
Further introduction of clear guidance documents concerning the use of in silico tools or the introduction of standardised acceptance criteria would support both regulators and registrants. At the same time, improving their consistency and quality will promote their use and acceptance.
Irina Julia Adaktylou, specialist in e-fate and ecotoxicology at Knoell Germany, also contributed to this article. The views expressed in it are those of the expert author and are not necessarily shared by Chemical Watch
https://chemicalwatch.com/70942/data-and-toxicology-the-challenges-ahead
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FDA Far from Achieving Clarity on BPA
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Heather Patisaul
There is, perhaps, no more controversial chemical than bisphenol A (BPA). Despite reams of data, debate remains intense over its toxicity. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has resolutely maintained that BPA "is safe at the current levels occurring in foods". The Endocrine Society, many scientists and consumer groups strongly disagree, arguing that for years the FDA has ignored nearly all published research and cherry-picked data to support its evaluation.
The Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on BPA Toxicity (CLARITY-BPA) was specifically designed to rise above that acrimony. It was envisioned as a groundbreaking collaboration, capable of transforming chemical evaluation by using the unique strengths of regulatory and academic studies. It is described as the most ambitious effort ever undertaken to "study the full range of potential health effects from exposure to BPA and to provide data that can be used for regulatory decisions".
Critically, the FDA agreed to withhold judgement until all the work was completed and integrated. That was key to the whole premise of the project. Unfortunately, the agency broke its promise and thus jeopardised the final and most critical phase of the project:data integration.
In February, Dr Steven Ostroff, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine at the FDA, issued a press release, which boldly claimed that data from CLARITY-BPA "supports our determination that currently authorised uses of BPA … continue to be safe for consumers." That premature declaration set off a firestorm, angered the other participants and painted a misleading picture of the status and outcome of the project.
By design, CLARITY-BPA is a multi-pronged study that should be considered as a whole, with each piece contributing uniquely valuable data. The FDA conducted an in-house study akin to a classical guideline study (called the ‘core study’), to look for overt pathological effects.
Over a dozen academics received tissues from the same animals for more specialised ‘grantee studies’, using a broad range of molecular, cellular and behavioural endpoints. These studies were intended to provide mechanistic insight and examine organs and endpoints not typically included in a guideline study, such as the brain.
The entire CLARITY-BPA study design, including the doses used (2.5-25,000 µg/kg body weight (bw)) and the endpoints examined, were collaboratively agreed upon at the outset. Because generation of data that could, and would, be used in FDA risk assessment was a primary goal, all participants agreed to abide by study rules set by the agency, including the use of the NCTR-Sprague Dawley rat, dosing by oral gavage, sample blinding, and sharing of raw data. Grantee data was submitted for quality control and archiving before decoding for analysis.
The National Toxicology Programme (NTP), an interagency programme of the US Department of Health and Human Services, is coordinating and tasked with releasing the final report, integrating all study results (due in 2019) to achieve the stated goal of "link[ing] more effectively academic and guideline-compliant research". This study design and data integration plan was affirmed by the
FDA and NTP participants at the recent European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) conference in Parma, Italy. In reality, it was always a tenuously arranged marriage, with all sides deeply sceptical of each other and uneasy about how the data would be integrated and interpreted.
Laudably, the investigators navigated substantial cultural differences between academic and regulatory science, and achieved the major data goals. Six years into the project, 11 grantee study papers have been published and the outcomes were recently summarised.
They include impacts on the brain, prostate, ovary, heart and immune system, even at the lowest dose of 2.5 µg/kg bw. The FDA’s core study also found significant effects. Most notably, at the lowest dose, females only exposed during early development displayed increased incidence of mammary adenocarcinoma.
This is consistent with a large literature linking developmental BPA exposure with heightened risk of abnormal mammary gland development and carcinogenesis, which is particularly concerning given the current reference, or ‘safe’, dose for humans is 50 µg/kg bw/day in the US and 4 µg/kg bw/day in the EU.
In total, 36 statistically significant endpoints were found in the core study and a combined 75 statistically significant effects identified to date across all CLARITY-BPA studies, with more than half occurring at 250 µg/kg bw or lower.
Interpretation of that data is the remaining challenge and there are already worrisome hints that old biases, cultural differences and deeply entrenched opinions that were largely held in check during the data acquisition phase will now resurface and pose significant impediments to that reconciliation. The February press release ignited fears that the FDA appears steadfastly unwilling to conclude anything other than that BPA is safe, regardless of how the data integration ultimately turns out.
This is an old frustration. For years, I and many other academic scientists have gone to extraordinary lengths to try and work with the FDA to generate data it will use in risk assessment, albeit to no avail. For example, in its 2014 literature review for risk assessment of BPA in food packaging, the agency says that over 300 studies were considered. In reality, the number actually deemed appropriate for risk assessment was a paltry handful.
Neurodevelopment is considered one of the most sensitive endpoints for BPA. In the 2014 review, 36 studies with neural endpoints were identified. Of those, only one, an industry-funded study looking at acute exposure in adult ovariectomised female rats, was judged useful for risk assessment. That study found no effects, which is not surprising given the experimental design.
The other 35 studies were summarily discounted. These were diverse and, arguably, valuable with 20 mouse, 11 rat, one sheep, one monkey and two human (epidemiology) studies. All found BPA-related effects.
Two of them were mine, performed in collaboration with FDA scientists specifically because I wanted to generate data that could be used for risk assessment. As in CLARITY-BPA, I used their animals, adhered to strict sample blinding, turned over my raw data and subjected my manuscripts to internal review prior to publication. They were still deemed unfit.
Unfortunately, this is the typical pattern. For some endpoints in the 2014 review, every single available study was excluded. A 2008 review was heavily criticised for much the same reason. That one, which even drew the ire of the FDA’s own science board, relied on only two studies, both industry-funded, to conclude that BPA poses no human risk.
CLARITY-BPA was supposed to avoid data exclusion by creating a culture of partnership. Instead, there is concern that the FDA will revert to its historically rigid preference for traditional guideline studies over academic ones – a preference that was affirmed by FDA scientist Dan Doerge in an Efsa conference panel discussion. This view is anathema to the spirit of CLARITY-BPA and concerning to the grantees.
All studies have limitations. It is well accepted that guideline studies were not designed to assess endocrine disruption and lack sufficiently sensitive endpoints. They also sometimes lack scientific rigour.
Most notoriously, in their 90-day subchronic BPA study, FDA scientists inadvertently contaminated their control and low-dose groups with exogenous BPA. Despite what should have been a fatal flaw, they still concluded that BPA had no effects, except at high doses. The agency continues to hold up this study as the ‘gold standard’ of BPA research.
After the project was well under way, the FDA made the bombshell admission that it may have inadvertently contaminated some of the CLARITY-BPA animals as well. The issue can never be resolved, because internal dose levels were not assessed. Some grantees considered that an insurmountable flaw and stopped work. I, and others who persisted and published, worry about this significant caveat but we remain deeply committed to the project.
The draft release of the core study data was the subject of the controversial press release and deepened the growing rift. Despite numerous statistically significant outcomes, some of which are consistent with effects seen by the grantees, the core study concluded that "BPA produced minimal effects that were distinguishable from background".
Peer review brought extensive criticism of the dismissive language and questions about the data analysis and interpretation tools typical of guideline studies, including selective use of historical controls, unblinded pathological evaluation and the vaguely described ‘weight-of-evidence assessment’ to evaluate biological plausibility. For some, this signifies that the FDA is going to extraordinary lengths to dismiss data that does not align with their preheld position.
Data discrepancies could, and should, all be resolved in the highly anticipated final report, when all data is integrated and interpreted as a whole, but this seems worryingly perilous. For those not wanting to wait, all of the raw data from the core and grantee studies is now freely available through the NTP.
The NTP continues to affirm that the multi-million dollar project will "produce a robust study design that unites standard research practices used by regulators with innovative studies conducted at universities." That unification is in jeopardy but urgently needs to happen as planned. The data is in. Until it is synthesised and collectively interpreted, ‘clarity’ on BPA, and the success of the ambitious partnership that was CLARITY-BPA, remains elusive.
The views expressed are those of the expert author and are not necessarily shared by Chemical Watch
https://chemicalwatch.com/70949/fda-far-from-achieving-clarity-on-bpa
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Even 'Non-Toxic' Nail Polish May Contain Harmful Chemicals, Study Says
Oct 10, 2018 | TIME
By Jamie Ducharme
Cosmetics are subject to very few regulations in the U.S. While they fall under Food and Drug Administration (FDA) purview, current laws do not require beauty products and their ingredients to be FDA-approved before hitting shelves. Even laws that pertain to cosmetic labeling are somewhat loose; many buzzwords that show up on product packaging mean, effectively, nothing.
That’s also the case for many nail polishes. And even brands that tout safe formulations may be substituting some toxic chemicals for equally dangerous alternatives, suggests a new study published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
“It’s sort of like playing a game of chemical Whac-A-Mole, where one toxic chemical is removed and you end up chasing down the next potentially harmful chemical substituted in,” says study co-author Anna Young, a doctoral student at Harvard University.
In the early 2000s, many nail polish companies began labeling their products “three-free,” to signify that they were made without dibutyl phthalate (a plasticizer used to enhance a polish’s texture and function, but that is linked to potential reproductive and developmental problems), toluene (a nervous system and developmental disruptor) and formaldehyde (a carcinogen). Since then, many brands have eliminated even more chemicals commonly used in nail polish, labeling their products “five-free,” “10-free” and even “13-free.”TIME Health NewsletterGet the latest health and science news, plus: burning questions and expert tips. View SampleSIGN UP NOW
But even with these labels, it can be difficult to determine which chemicals are actually excluded, and which have been added in their place. To find out, Young and her colleagues purchased and tested the contents of 40 nail polishes from 12 different brands, labeled three-free all the way up to 13-free. While the study did not name specific brands, the authors noted that two of the tested brands made up a combined 15% of the nail polish market.
“We found that the meaning of these claims isn’t standardized across brands, and there’s no clear information on whether these nail polishes are actually less toxic,” Young says. “Sometimes, when one known harmful chemical was removed, the polish instead contained another similar chemical that may be just as toxic.”
While most five-free polishes lacked the the same handful of ingredients, the researchers found far less consistency among polishes marked 10-free and above, and the brands varied in terms of how well they adhered to the claims on their labels.
None of the samples contained toxic dibutyl phthalate. But polishes with a range of labels tested positive for at least one of two other plasticizers shown to be similarly risky to health. One polish even contained a plasticizer it claimed to exclude from its formula.
While the sample wasn’t representative of the entire nail polish market, it did include some of the industry’s most popular brands. Young says that makes the findings relevant to anyone who wears nail polish, even though it’s not yet clear how much exposure it takes for these chemicals to affect a person’s health. The results are especially significant for nail salon employees, who are subjected to range of health risks and often poor working conditions.
“This is especially important for the over 400,000 nail salon workers in the U.S. who could be exposed on a daily basis, for many years, to chemicals that have been linked to health effects on fertility, the reproductive system, fetal development, thyroid function and possibly even obesity or cancer,” Young says.
An occasional manicure probably isn’t cause for major concern, Young says, but the study underscores the need for better transparency and consistency in the beauty world. She’s not alone in that belief: Senators Dianne Feinstein and Susan Collins last year proposed a bill that would update the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to ensure the safety of cosmetics.
“These labels should try to be more standardized and validated by an unbiased third-party,” Young says. “It’s not as simple as what’s not in the polish; you have to address what’s still in the polish, or what’s being substituted in as a replacement chemical. We need more clear information and explanations of what these exclusions mean for health, and whether they actually reduce the overall toxicity of the nail polish.”
http://time.com/5419483/nail-polish-chemicals/
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J&J Talc: Second California Mistrial in Two Weeks
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Lisa Martine Jenkins
Just two weeks after a previous case in California ended in mistrial, a jury has failed to reach a verdict on whether Johnson & Johnson's baby powder caused a plaintiff's mesothelioma.
In the case – the sixth mesothelioma trial against the company – Kirk Von Salzen, a retired computer salesman, claimed exposure to asbestos fibres in J&J’s powder caused his cancer. He had been using the baby product for 30 years when he was diagnosed in 2017. He was seeking over $12m in damages.
The Los Angeles jury was deadlocked 8-4 against J&J – one juror short of victory for Mr Von Salzen. The state judge declared a mistrial.
This comes hot on the heels of a similar case – concerning a woman with mesothelioma in Pasadena – that also ended in a mistrial. The last case that had a conclusive result came in St Louis, Missouri in July. Then the jury ordered J&J to pay nearly $4.7bn in damages to 22 women who claimed to have contracted ovarian cancer after using the product.
The evidence on the presence of asbestos in J&J talcum powder is mixed, and the company continues to maintain that their products are free of the carcinogen.
In a statement after the latest mistrial, J&J representative Kim Montagnino said: "We look forward to a new trial to present our defence – which rests on decades of independent, non-litigation driven scientific evaluations, none of which have found that Johnson’s Baby Powder contains asbestos."
https://chemicalwatch.com/70888/jj-talc-second-california-mistrial-in-two-weeks
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Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Andrew Warmington
There is an old saying that what California does today, the East Coast of America does tomorrow and the rest of the country does next week. This has often been quoted with regard to chemical regulation too and evidently there is some truth in it. Why otherwise would the global cosmetic compliance summit I attended recently in New York have a paper specific to California in it? However, there is always the exception that proves the rule.
California’s Proposition 65 has just turned ten, as Leigh Stringer reports in this month’s lead article (pages 1-3). Uniquely, Prop 65 regulates by threat of lawsuit, but it has not yet found any imitators, even in litigation-addicted America. Under it, consumers are entitled to sue companies which fail to provide them with warnings of potential exposure to a long list of carcinogens and reproductive toxicants, and to keep up to 25% of any award of damages. Entirely predictably, this has created work for ‘bounty hunter’ attorneys, who somehow manage to hang onto more than 75% of the spoils.
As Kelly Franklin reports in our new pages this month, there is plenty more to come from Prop 65. Some significant amendments that were enacted in 2016 came fully into force at the end of August and confusion is arising over what they mean in practice. Regulators are now fielding a high volume of questions over what constitutes a ‘clear and reasonable warning’ about exposure, internet warnings and those in languages other than English, among other things. This will in time lead to more work for the bounty hunters – again, entirely predictably.
Meanwhile, and more in keeping with the state’s tendency to lead the way on regulation, we also report on how California governor Jerry Brown signed two bills into law on the same day, 1 October. One bans most flame retardants in residential upholstered furniture, children’s products and mattress foam, citing concerns over endocrine disruption and cancer and their supposed ineffectiveness in providing fire safety. The other bans the sale of cosmetic ingredients tested on animals.
It does not automatically follow that other states will emulate this example. Indeed, Maine already has its own legislation on flame retardants that in some ways goes further than California’s. However, we can undoubtedly expect more because of the influence of a state which has the world’s fifth largest economy in its own right. It was only sixth until recently, but has now overtaken the UK. And now I’ll stop before I get going on Brexit again ...
https://chemicalwatch.com/70920/california-dreaming
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Should You Worry About Herbicides In Your Food?
Oct 10, 2018 | SELF
By Yvette d'Entremont
If you've read the news lately, you've probably wondered if you should worry about herbicides in your food. We all want to know that what we’re eating is safe. And by now we can be pretty confident that when we go to the store or sit down at a restaurant that whatever we put in our mouths won’t be bad for our health or kill us (save the rare outbreak of norovirus in your burrito bowl that merely makes one pray for death). So it’s understandably shocking to hear that those of us who think breakfast is the most important meal of the day may be slowly poisoning our bodies with a weedkiller present at high levels in our cereal.
Wait, what? Let’s back up a bit.
Chances are you’ve heard of Roundup, the herbicide popular with both farmers and homeowners and owned by Monsanto, the now dissolved (and acquired by Bayer) agricultural company. The active ingredient in this weedkiller is an herbicide known as glyphosate. Recently the Environmental Working Group (EWG), an advocacy group that has been accused of having a bias against conventional farming, released a report warning consumers about the “hefty dose” of glyphosate in popular breakfast foods like cereal, oatmeal, and granola bars. The findings seem, at face value, very worrisome: of the 61 products tested, 31 had levels of glyphosate above the EWG’s acceptable threshold. All of the seemingly high-glyphosate-containing products were conventional, not organic.
But what the EWG’s report didn’t mention is that the levels were calculated to be 100 times lower than even the lowest proposed state governmental standard (California wants to place limits on glyphosate that are lower than even the current EPA standard). Although the FDA is currently doing additional testing on herbicide residues in foods before it officially releases its findings, the agency’s current established tolerance for glyphosate in foods is between 0.1 and 310 parts per million (ppm). According to the EWG, the highest amounts of glyphosate found were .53ppm in Cheerios and 1.3ppm in Quaker Old Fashioned Oats. Both amounts are well within the acceptable range of what the EPA considers the acceptable limit. The report also didn’t clarify that levels of Roundup found in cereal were about as trace as any other herbicide (organic or conventional) you’d find in your food. This is important because, as any scientist will tell you, dose matters.There’s no reason to believe that ingesting glyphosate at well under established EPA levels is unsafe.
By all measures, glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup, according to the EPA, has low toxicity for humans.WATCH THIS10 Skin-Care Products for Sensitive Skin
Poisons are both species- and dose-specific. A well known example of species specificity is theobromine in chocolate, which is toxic to dogs but not at all for humans (thank fucking Christ). Antibiotics in the appropriate dosage kill bacteria, but not you. Just because herbicides kill plants very well, we can’t assume that means they kill humans just as well, or at all. Roundup is pretty bad for weeds because it’s targeted to inhibit a specific enzyme that’s necessary to synthesize protein, and this pathway just doesn’t exist in humans.
But we’re talking about long term, chronic toxicity, not an acute poisoning. I get that the question isn’t if eating one bowl of cereal will kill you. Though most people don’t contest the relatively low toxicity of an acute exposure to Roundup, the concern about Roundup’s effects is more regarding long-term carcinogenicity—that is, if eating a bowl of your favorite Roundup-tinged cereal every day will eventually give you cancer. You feel fine now, but the question lurks if it causes you to be sick years from now. Let’s look at the evidence here.Glyphosate fear was recently in the news again when a jury ordered Monsanto pay $289 million to a groundskeeper who had developed cancer.
The plaintiff, Dewayne Johnson, was a California groundskeeper who regularly used Roundup. He has a kind of cancer called non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and according to reporting by the Guardian, has months to live. The jury found that Johnson’s use of Roundup, which his attorneys estimated happened at a rate of 20-30 times per year, led to his terminal cancer.
The American Cancer Society, however, has stated that the causes of most cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma are unknown. Unlike diseases where you can test for presence of toxins or microbes that cause the illness, you can’t remove a tumor or examine someone’s blood and find a smoking gun. In this case, Johnson had to prove that he wouldn’t have gotten cancer without his exposure to Roundup. Johnson’s attorney, Timothy Litzenburg, maintained that glyphosate on its own is not carcinogenic per se, but that it became so when mixed with the other ingredients in Roundup.
Monsanto has said that it will appeal the case, saying that at this point, with over 800 studies on it, no study has shown the components in Roundup to cause cancer.If no studies have found a causal link between glyphosate and cancer, where is the idea that glyphosate is unsafe coming from?
You may have heard news reports that the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified Roundup as a probable carcinogen. The IARC is part of the World Health Organization (WHO), so its findings seem pretty legit. But let’s unpack this a bit.
When the IARC report came out defining glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, it didn’t just raise the ire of giant agricultural firms. A large swath of scientists, journalists, and both American and European environmental organizations voiced their disagreement with the IARC. WHO, of which the IARC is a subsidiary, disagreed with their analysis, finding in their own joint analysis done with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, that glyphosate was “unlikely to pose a carcinogenic risk to humans from exposure through the diet.” Though the IARC’s report was on overall exposure and not just through diet, one of the largest epidemiological studies on Roundup toxicity somewhat rectifies this by studying about 52,000 people who apply glyphosate regularly, including farmers, found that “no association was apparent between glyphosate and any solid tumors or lymphoid malignancies overall, including NHL and its subtypes.” Additionally at this point, there haven’t been major credible studies showing a causal link between Roundup and cancer.So...is it okay for me to stop worrying about Roundup in my food?
Roundup was not the first herbicide to grace our amber waves of grain, and it seems to be less toxic to humans than its predecessors. As the popular science blogger Credible Hulk explains using data from the U.S. Geological Survey, as Roundup’s popularity has increased, use of older, more toxic agricultural chemicals has decreased. Furthermore, only about a half a pound of glyphosate is sprayed on an average acre of crop.
Whether or not you think that any amount of glyphosate in food sounds unsafe, I’d take a look at the evidence that informs every major environmental and health organization in the world. When used correctly, the trace amount detectable in food is, by all measures, harmless. Should you drink it? No, but you also shouldn’t drink other things that you’re exposed to regularly (personally, I will pass on drinking my body wash, but I don’t know your life). Species, route of exposure, and quantity matter, and by all these measurements, this is something you can stop worrying about.
https://www.self.com/story/herbicides-in-your-food
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European Initiative Urges 'Uniform and Unanimous' Nanomaterial Definition
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Clelia Oziel
Five European countries have issued a set of recommendations to address regulatory gaps on nanomaterials, including the use of a "uniform and unambiguous" definition across all relevant EU legislation.The so-called Berlin Declaration, drawn up by Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland, was presented to the the EU's Environment Council on Tuesday. In it, they recommended:using a uniform and unambiguous definition of nanomaterials – with the exception of legislation on medicinal products;determining which definition forms the basis for advanced materials;drawing up and adopting a regulating strategy for advanced materials. This must include studying patterns of dust generation and assessing the threat posed by the release of nanoscale and microscale inhalable and biopersistent particles and fibres;securing the permanent operation of the nano-observatory to ensure, in particular, that data from registration dossiers can be incorporated from 2020;ensuring the development of all relevant test and detection methods to provide the basis for implementing existing and future regulations for nanomaterials;providing sufficient resources for regulation research; andsupporting SMEs in characterising nanomaterials pursuant to regulatory requirements.
The five issued the declaration in June, following recommendations from the 12th International Nano-Authorities Dialogue meeting in Berlin. These recommendations were acknowledged by each of the states' environment ministers.
The group acknowledge that progress has been made on nanomaterials, especially with the changes made to REACH annexes, but said "it is clear that further action is required."
The process of revising the European Commission's recommendation on a definition has been ongoing since November last year.
The declaration says that the REACH annex changes, voted through by EU member states in April after long delays, will make it possible to carry out systematic risk assessments using information from the registration dossiers.
The amendments will enter into force in 2020, however, and test methods need to be adapted to nanomaterial requirements before then. While work has begun, there are concerns that the update and validation of test guidelines, and guidance documents by an OECD working group on nanomaterials, will not be ready in time.
The declaration does not relate to current or proposed legislation, so a formal response or decision from the Council is not required, a spokesperson told Chemical Watch. The move was designed to build political momentum and "it is up to the Commission to table a legislative proposal."
A separate initiative led by Germany and involving 12 other EU member states "aims to adapt the necessary test methods as quickly as possible", the declaration says. The group is working with industry, Echa and the Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) on the initiative.
https://chemicalwatch.com/70890/european-initiative-urges-uniform-and-unanimous-nanomaterial-definition
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Shell CEO Makes Case for Natural Gas, Promises Company Not Going ‘Soft’ on Fossil Fuels
Oct 10, 2018 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Royal Dutch Shell plc CEO Ben van Beurden on Tuesday made a forceful case about the future of natural gas, noting that the supermajor has a quiver of arrows targeting multiple projects worldwide.
Access to full text unavailable – subscription required.
Story can be found here:
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/116066-shell-ceo-makes-case-for-natural-gas-promises-company-not-going-soft-on-fossil-fuels?v=preview
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Texas Pipeline Company Buys NGL Fractionator
Oct 10, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
A company building major petroleum pipelines from the Permian Basin to Corpus Christi is buying a natural gas liquids fractionator.
San Antonio-based EPIC Midstream Holdings will buy the 64,000 barrel a day natural gas liquids fractionator in Robstown, about 15 miles west of Corpus Christi, from Dallas-based Southcross Holdings.
The cost of the deal was not released.
RELATED: Company to invest nearly $300 million in West Texas natural gas pipelines
Fractionators separate natural gas liquids into components such as ethane, butane and propane.
The facility is being upgraded to be able to process 68,000 barrels a day of natural gas liquids. EPIC said its natural gas liquid customers will be able to utilize the Robstown fractionator through the Sand Hills pipeline.
EPIC is currently building a 700 mile, 440,000 barrel a day of oil equivalent natural gas liquids pipeline out of West Texas' Permian. The company is also building a 600,000 barrel a day crude oil pipeline from the Permian to the Corpus Christi region.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Texas-pipeline-company-buys-NGL-fractionator-13295698.php
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New Frac Sand Mine Planned for Oklahoma
Oct 10, 2018 | Houston Chronicle
By Rye Druzin
A new 1.5 million ton a year frac sand mine is being planned for Oklahoma.
The mine will be developed by Vista Proppants and Logistics of Fort Worth in an area northeast of Fay, Ok.
The company has bought a 1,150 acre site and when operational the mine will have a capacity to produce between a million and 1.5 million tons of sand a year to be used in hydraulic fracturing or fracking, the process of pumping a mix of water, chemicals and sand underground to tap shale oil and gas reserves.
The mine will serve the region's SCOOP and STACK oil and gas plays. More companies have been entering the locally-sourced frac sand market as oil and gas drillers continue to seek savings as they use more of the material in fracking operations.
RELATED: Midwest frac sand mines idled due to weakening demand
A slowdown in West Texas due to pipeline constraints and the growth of sand mines nearer to oil and gas shale fields has forced some mines to idle their operations recently as production outstrips demand.
Vista also said its West Texas sand mine in Winkler County was approved in Aug. to expand from 3 million tons a year to 5 million tons a year.
RELATED: Two companies sign deal to ship West Texas oil by rail
The company signed a deal with JupiterMLP in August to ship crude oil by rail out of West Texas' Permian Basin.
https://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/New-frac-sand-mine-planned-for-Oklahoma-13296155.php
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City Proposes Aggressive Plan to Cut Carbon Emissions
Oct 10, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
Several city legislators in the nation’s capital have proposed an aggressive plan to cut carbon emissions following a bleak report by the world’s top scientific panel studying global warming.
The Washington Post reports the bill supported by five Washington city council members aims to have the city’s power grid supported by entirely renewable energy sources in 14 years. A U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report released this week warned that there’s little time left for governments to prevent catastrophic environmental changes.
The report comes at a time when the federal government is easing policies to combat climate change. But some cities and states such as Maryland and Virginia are stepping in to take responsibility and adopting voluntary goals related to renewable energy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/city-proposes-aggressive-plan-to-cut-carbon-emissions/2018/10/10/fff0bbd4-cc8b-11e8-ad0a-0e01efba3cc1_story.html
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Wehrum Calls for Dramatic Acceleration of NAAQS Reviews
Oct 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
Bill Wehrum, head of EPA's Office of Air & Radiation, is calling for dramatic acceleration of the process the agency uses to review its national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), aiming for completed reviews in as little as three and a half to four years -- a far shorter timeframe than the agency typically achieves.
"We have to reinvent" what we do when reviewing the agency's six NAAQS, Wehrum told a recent meeting of the Clean Air Act Advisory Committee (CAAAC) in Arlington, VA.
"We need a way of doing NAAQS reviews that not just gets them done, but gets them done comfortably" within statutory deadlines, Wehrum said.
The Clean Air Act requires EPA to review its NAAQS, set for criteria pollutants like ozone and particulate matter (PM), every five years. But EPA has routinely taken far longer to complete reviews.
The Trump EPA has set a goal of completing the next ozone review on time, by Oct. 1, 2020, five years after the Obama administration issued its toughened ozone standard of 70 parts per billion. EPA further wants to complete its already-overdue review of the PM NAAQS, last reviewed in 2012, by December 2020.
Achieving such ambitious schedules will require a fundamental shift in the way EPA reviews NAAQS, likely with less consultation of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) that advises EPA on how to set the NAAQS, and possibly reducing the number of steps in the review process.
Currently, EPA produces an integrated review plan to chart the course of a review, an integrated science assessment to synthesize the latest available science, sometimes a risk and exposure assessment to weigh risks to the population, a policy assessment to present the administrator with policy options, and then proposed and final rules either changing the NAAQS, or leaving them in place.
Former Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in a May 9 memo outlined his vision of a faster process, possibly with fewer steps, before resigning in July following a series of ethics scandals.
Pruitt also required CASAC to dispense advice on issues it has previously avoided addressing, such as the technical feasibility and implementation costs of NAAQS. Although the committee is mandated by the air law to do so, it has never reviewed such issues, and critics argue that Supreme Court precedent bars EPA from weighing these issues in setting NAAQS, given that the limits must be set based on data about threats to public health and the environment.
But Ted Steichen, representing the American Petroleum Institute (API), at the Sept. 26 CAAAC meeting expressed his concern that EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) is not making the necessary changes.
Citing the traditional process now unfolding in EPA's review of "secondary," or welfare-based NAAQS for nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and PM, Steichen said ORD "still doesn't know how else to do it."
He also questioned whether EPA has given specific direction to the agency's independent Science Advisory Board (SAB), which manages CASAC, on how to speed up reviews.
API in its comments to EPA on the ozone NAAQS review has advocated a substantially shorter review process, with fewer drafts of documents and less repeated consultation of CASAC.
Wehrum answered that first Pruitt, and now Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, support the ambitious schedule for ozone and PM, and "we work backwards from there."
EPA has in the past consulted CASAC multiple times during reviews, sometimes on several drafts of the same document. "We need to be a bit smarter about when and where we go back to CASAC," Wehrum said.
He compared reviewing NAAQS to "driving a supertanker. You need to be turning the wheel early and often" to get the "bow to come around."
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/wehrum-calls-dramatic-acceleration-naaqs-reviews
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Reducing Your Carbon Footprint Downstream
Oct 10, 2018 | Chemical Watch
By Mark Rossi
Are you a downstream user of chemicals? Are you interested in chemical health and safety performance beyond regulatory compliance? Do you want to know where you are on the path to UN sustainable development goal (SDG) 12, indicator 12.4 – ‘environmentally sound management of chemicals’? Do you strive to meet increasing market demands for inherently safer chemicals and transparency in chemical and material selection?
The Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) survey is for downstream users answering ‘yes’ to these questions. It provides an unbiased evaluation of chemical health and safety management, using a publicly transparent question and response survey. Clean Production Action (CPA) developed the survey and the associated scoring rubric with business leaders, other NGOs and our co-founders at the University of Massachusetts Lowell Centre for Sustainable Production and the consultancy Pure Strategies.
Using a 0-100 point scale, the survey distills the complexity of chemicals management into four pillars: management strategy;chemical inventory;footprint measurement; and disclosure and verification.
Companies participate voluntarily, providing answers to the questions, which we then evaluate and score.
The major storylines from the 2018 annual report are that: investors and institutional purchasers want to know where companies are on their chemical health and safety journey; andcompanies responding are demonstrating continuous improvement in their chemicals management policies, procedures and practices.
Investors, mirroring the interests of their clients, want to know how companies manage and reduce chemical risks and the financial liabilities of hazardous chemicals. Partners in the sustainability group at wealth management firm Loring Wolcott & Coolidge emphasised that investors need "reliable, replicable, independent, and comparable data on how companies are answering these questions and managing these risks".
Similarly, institutional purchasers, especially in the healthcare sector, want to know that their suppliers are moving beyond regulatory compliance and using inherently safer chemicals in their materials and products.
"Vizient encourages its suppliers to participate in the CFP survey as a way to measure their own progress toward comprehensive chemicals management systems," said Cristina D. Indiveri, senior director of programme services (environmentally preferred sourcing) at Vizient, a US-based healthcare group purchasing organisation with $100 billion/year in contracting power.
"These systems enable our suppliers to make informed choices about chemicals in the products they produce, allowing them to reduce their chemical footprints in alignment with health care priorities," she added. Organisations like Vizient reflect and reinforce broad societal trends and demands: customers want products made from safer and healthier ingredients and investors want to invest in companies that make and sell those products.
So, where are downstream users on their chemicals health and safety journey? Twenty-four companies from diverse sectors and sizes participated in the 2017 survey in the following categories:apparel and sporting goods: Burton and Levi Strauss;building and furnishings: Construction Specialties, Herman Miller, Humanscale, Kimball Hospitality, Milliken, Naturepedic and Nora Systems;cleaning and personal care: Beautycounter, California Baby, Ecolab, Gojo Industries, Reckitt Benckiser, Sealed Air/Diversey and Seventh Generation;medical device and supplies: Becton Dickinson (BD), Case Medical, Johnson & Johnson and Kimberly-Clark;technology: HP and Seagate Technology;retail: Walmart; andtoys: Radio Flyer.
Over the three years, the scores of participating companies increased from an average of 41% to 59% of total possible points. Driving the increase in scores are:more comprehensive chemical policies; greater knowledge of chemicals in products; increased supplier engagement;more chemical footprints being calculated; andincreased transparency on policies and practices.
Key questions
Among the questions the survey asks is: ‘Do you have a comprehensive chemicals management policy that addresses chemicals of high concern (CoHCs) and prefers safer alternatives from products to supply chains?’ We define ‘comprehensive in two ways:addressing chemicals in products, manufacturing operations, supply chains, and packaging; and disclosing that policy publicly.
The comprehensiveness policies rose from 42% in 2015 to 67% of possible points in 2017.A second question is ‘Do you strive to know all the chemical ingredients in all of your materials and products?’ Survey participants increasingly know more about the chemicals in their products.
In 2015 (Figure 1), 38% of companies did not attempt to collect full chemical ingredient information for any of their products. By 2017, this figure was 17%, while 63% now collect full chemical ingredient information for more than 75% of their products. As Philip Ivey, strategic sustainability leader at Milliken’s floor covering division, stated: "We are committed to understanding 100% of the chemical ingredients used in the materials we select."
We also ask ‘Have you ever tried to calculate your chemical footprint?’ The survey provides two pathways to doing this. First, report the number and/or mass of REACH substances of very high concern (SVHCs) in products. Second, and more comprehensively, report the number and/or mass of over 2,000 CoHCs specified CoHCs using GreenScreen List Translator.
Building from their knowledge of full chemical ingredient information, companies are increasingly calculating their chemical footprint and reporting progress in reductions. The proportion of companies measuring their footprint in different ways grew from 29% in 2015 to 75% in 2017 (Figure 2).
Companies also reported reductions in the use of 19,000 tonnes of CoHCs over the past two years. Gabe Wing, director of safety and sustainability at Herman Miller, responded: "We believe that safe chemistry is a requirement for any sustainable product."
Companies were also asked ‘Would you publicly share your CFP survey responses and scores?’ They are increasingly willing to do so, reflecting growing comfort with the survey questions and response options, recognition of how their scores compare with the average and willingness to report on their journey to comprehensive chemicals management.
The proportion of companies disclosing their CFP responses rose from 13% in 2015 to 42% in 2017 while the percent disclosing their scores rose by exactly the same percentages from 2016 to 2017 (the latter was not an option in 2015).
Companies publicly sharing their answers and/or scores are: Beautycounter;BD;Case Medical;Gojo Industries;Humanscale;Levi Strauss;Milliken;Naturepedic;Radio Flyer;Seagate Technology; and Seventh Generation.
Business leaders in chemicals management leverage the CFP survey to create internal value and to publicly demonstrate their work and journey to safer chemicals and healthier materials. Chemical management leadership, as defined by CPA, means:reporting to a replicable, independent and comparable framework;providing meaningful disclosure to investors, purchasers and the general public;unlocking chemical and material health strategies to drive long-term growth; andjoining peers in the aforementioned sectors in participating in the CFP survey.
I encourage all downstream users interested in demonstrating their leadership chemicals health and safety to participate.
The views expressed are those of the expert author and are not necessarily shared by Chemical Watch
https://chemicalwatch.com/70946/reducing-your-carbon-footprint-downstream
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Conservatives Shouldn't Be Afraid to Talk About Climate Change
Oct 10, 2018 | The Hill - Opinion
By Josiah Neeley
Climate change is back in the news, with a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calling for major action to reduce emissions. Climate change often seems like an issue designed to trip up conservatives.
Given the size and scale of the problem, many people naturally assume that any attempt to deal with climate change through public policy will require a massive expansion of government. Some conservatives have responded by attempting to downplay the problem. Yet the irony is that there are plenty of ways to address climate change that would actually make government smaller.
Take electricity for example. The American power sector is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. It is also divided between states that allow electrical competition in wholesale or retail markets and those where electrical service is provided by government-protected monopolies. Over the last 20 years, states that promote competition have done a better job of moving to a cleaner power grid.
Texas, which has the most free-market electrical system in the nation, also produces the most wind power. Furthermore, competitive states have adopted cleaner technologies and shuttered uneconomical coal plants more quickly than states with monopolistic markets.
This isn’t a coincidence. Utilities in regulated states are guaranteed to recover their costs. This mean the more they spend the more they make. As a result, they are more willing to keep an uneconomical plant in operation. Protected from competition, monopolies also have less incentive to respond to the growing consumer demand for clean energy. Promoting competition among power companies is thus a free-market way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.
And there are plenty of other ways conservatives can combat climate change with small-government principles. Whether it’s through subsidies for fossil fuel companies or lengthy regulatory processes for clean energy sources like nuclear and hydro, the government does a great deal to increase our vulnerability to climate change.
Conservatives could mitigate these effects simply by cutting red tape and stopping the government from encouraging environmentally harmful practices.
Even in big-picture terms, the best ideas for dealing with climate change are rooted in conservative principles. As famed conservative economist Milton Friedman once noted, protecting the environment is properly the business of government “because there's always a case for the government [to act] to some extent when what two people do affects a third party.”Yet that doesn’t mean the best solution is government regulation. Instead, the best way to deal with, say, air pollution from cars, would be “to impose a tax on the cost of the pollutants emitted by a car and make an incentive for car manufacturers and for consumers to keep down the amount of pollution.”Applied to climate change, this thinking would call for a carbon tax to encourage innovative ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Aside from its environmental benefits, a carbon tax could provide a vehicle for long-sought-after tax reforms.Conservatives have long advocated a consumption-based tax system that would not disincentivize work and investment.
A carbon consumption tax would provide the revenue needed to reduce or eliminate other, more burdensome taxes, leading to a net win for the economy. A carbon tax would also allow for the repeal of a host of environmental regulations—from renewable mandates to vehicle efficiency standards—that are currently justified as being necessary to deal with climate change.
Conservatives needn’t fear the climate discussion. Far from being out of ideas, conservatives have plenty that are based on the principles of limited government, markets and simplified taxes. Indeed, these ideas may have the best chance of actually solving the climate conundrum.
Josiah Neeley is director of Energy Policy at the R Street Institute.
https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/410748-conservatives-shouldnt-be-afraid-to-talk-about-climate-change
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Ewire: How is the UN climate report playing at the White House?
Oct 10, 2018 | Inside EPA
At the outset of the week, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a dire new report about the array of consequences tied to global warming, but the warnings appear to be making few ripples with the Trump administration that is moving to roll-back Obama EPA greenhouse gas rules.
President Donald Trump told reporters Oct. 9 that he was aware of the report and that he would “absolutely” look at it.
However, he also appeared to cast doubt on the veracity of the findings. “I want to look at who drew it, you know, which group drew it,” he said. “Because I can give your reports that are fabulous, and I can give you reports that aren't so good.”
The IPCC is the leading world body for assessing the science of climate change, impacts and possible solutions. Its latest report stems from countries' request in the Paris Agreement to study the implications of a 1.5-degree Celsius warming above pre-industrial levels, as well as emissions “pathways” needed to hit that goal.
Elsewhere, a White House spokesperson issued a statement to E&E News touting an oft-repeated statistic about the United States' carbon emissions dropping by 14 percent from 2005 to 2017 -- a trend largely attributable to the fracking boom and dropping prices for renewables.
“This has been possible through the development and large-scale deployment of new, affordable, and cleaner technologies to capitalize on our energy abundance.”
The statement omits how the country would do its part to achieve the deep greenhouse gas cuts by 2030 that are needed to limit warming to the 1.5-degree goal, or even the less stringent 2-degree Celsius goal that many others have adopted in the international arena.
As Trump might put it, the report is “not so good.”
Inside EPA's Doug Obey did a deep dive on the IPCC's findings, reporting that settling for the 2-degree target would have a wide range of negative environmental implications, including the loss of essentially all coral reefs, compared to at least 70 percent loss of such reefs under a 1.5-degree target.
Other implications include that the percentage of the world population exposed to extreme heat -- which can cause deaths and other risks -- would also double, according to one analysis by the World Resources Institute. The analysis notes that 37 percent of the global population would be exposed to extreme heat at least once every five years, compared to 14 percent under the stricter emissions pathway.
The transition in energy and other sectors needed to hit the 1.5-degree target is possible, the IPCC says. It is “unprecedented in terms of scale, but not necessarily in terms of speed.”
Hitting that target will require an array of climate mitigation strategies, and the IPCC suggests that the average annual investment in low-carbon energy technologies and energy efficiency should be “upscaled by roughly a factor of five” by 2050.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/ewire-how-un-climate-report-playing-white-house
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Market Forces Put America’s Recycling Industry in the Dumps
Oct 10, 2018 | AP (In The Washington Post)
America’s recycling industry is in the dumps.
A crash in the global market for recyclables is forcing communities to make hard choices about whether they can afford to keep recycling or should simply send all those bottles, cans and plastic containers to the landfill.
Mountains of paper have piled up at sorting centers, worthless. Cities and towns that once made money on recyclables are instead paying high fees to processing plants to take them. Some financially strapped recycling processors have shut down entirely, leaving municipalities with no choice but to dump or incinerate their recyclables.
“There’s no market. We’re paying to get rid of it,” says Ben Harvey, president of EL Harvey & Sons, which handles recyclables from about 30 communities at its sorting facility in Westborough, Massachusetts. “Seventy-five percent of what goes through our plant is worth nothing to negative numbers now.”
It all stems from a policy shift by China, long the world’s leading recyclables buyer. At the beginning of the year it enacted an anti-pollution program that closed its doors to loads of waste paper, metals or plastic unless they’re 99.5 percent pure. That’s an unattainable standard at U.S. single-stream recycling processing plants designed to churn out bales of paper or plastic that are, at best, 97 percent free of contaminants such as foam cups and food waste.
The resulting glut of recyclables has caused prices to plummet from levels already depressed by other economic forces, including lower prices for oil, a key ingredient in plastics.
The three largest publicly traded residential waste-hauling and recycling companies in North America — Waste Management, Republic Services and Waste Connections — reported steep drops in recycling revenues in their second-quarter financial results. Houston-based Waste Management reported its average price for recyclables was down 43 percent from the previous year.
“A year ago, a bale of mixed paper was worth about $100 per ton; today we have to pay about $15 to get rid of it,” says Richard Coupland, vice president for municipal sales at Phoenix-based Republic, which handles 75 million tons of municipal solid waste and 8 million tons of recyclables nationwide annually. “Smaller recycling companies aren’t able to stay in business and are shutting down.”
Kirkwood, Missouri, announced plans this summer to end curbside recycling after a St. Louis-area processing facility shut down. Officials in Rock Hill, South Carolina, were surprised to learn that recyclables collected at curbside were being dumped because of a lack of markets. Lack of markets led officials to suspend recycling programs in Gouldsboro, Maine; DeBary, Florida; Franklin, New Hampshire; and Adrian Township, Michigan. Programs have been scaled back in Flagstaff, Arizona; La Crosse, Wisconsin; and Kankakee, Illinois.
Other communities are maintaining recycling programs but taking a financial hit as regional processors have raised rates to offset losses. Richland, Washington, is now paying $122 a ton for Waste Management to take its recycling; last year, the city was paid $16 a ton for the materials. Stamford, Connecticut, received $95,000 for recyclables last year; the city’s new contract requires it to pay $700,000.
A big part of the problem, besides lower commodity prices overall, is sloppy recycling.
In the early days of recycling, people had to wash bottles and cans, and sort paper, plastic, glass and metal into separate bins. Now there’s single-stream recycling, which allows all recyclables to be tossed into one bin. While single-stream has benefited efficiency, and customers like it, it’s been a challenge on the contamination side.
A tour of Republic’s facility in Beacon, about an hour’s drive north of New York City, makes the challenges clear. A third of the material dumped by collection trucks is non-recyclable “contaminants” such as garden hoses, picnic coolers and broken lawnmowers. Workers have to pull that out and truck it to a landfill, adding to overall costs. Plastic bags contaminate bales of other materials and tangle machinery. Spilled ketchup and greasy pizza boxes turn otherwise marketable material into garbage.
“The death of recycling was completely avoidable and incredibly easily fixed,” says Mitch Hedlund, executive director of Recycle Across America, which advocates standardized labeling on recycling bins so people understand what goes in and what doesn’t.
A range of initiatives have been launched to get people to recycle right. Chicago is putting “oops” tags on curbside recycling bins with improper contents and leaving them uncollected. Rhode Island is airing “Let’s Recycle Right” ads.
While some recyclables have been diverted to other Asian markets since China’s closure, there are also signs of market improvement in the U.S. to offset the lost business, said David Biderman, CEO and executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America. He noted Chinese paper manufacturers that had relied on recyclables imported into their country have recently purchased shuttered mills in Kentucky, Maine and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, recyclable materials processors are re-negotiating contracts with municipalities to reflect the fact that prices paid for recyclables no longer offset the cost of collecting and sorting them.
“What we’re advocating is to step back and re-look at recycling,” Republic’s Coupland said. “This is the new normal. The model no longer funds itself.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/market-forces-put-americas-recycling-industry-in-the-dumps/2018/10/09/4619ddcc-cc3a-11e8-ad0a-0e01efba3cc1_story.html?utm_term=.4c6e9fdfbc7f
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