By: Almeta E. Cooper, National Manager for Health Equity, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: July 27, 2023
Event: East Palestine Residents, Environmentalists, Policy Experts, Call on EPA to Ban Vinyl Chloride
Good morning. My name is Almeta Cooper. I am the National Manager for Health Equity for Moms Clean Air Force. We are 1.5 million moms, dads, and caregivers nationally who are united in protecting clean air and our children’s health.
As the National Manager for Health Equity for Moms Clean Air Force and as an African American woman, I am deeply concerned about implementing commonsense solutions to alleviate the disproportionate environmental and health harms on Black, Brown, and low-wealth communities. Vinyl chloride, a dangerous pollutant, is produced, processed, transported, landfilled, and incinerated in these communities, which are some of the most underserved and overburdened communities in this country. “Environmental justice” must be more than just words; we must ensure that there is meaningful action taken to protect families in vulnerable communities.
Moms Clean Air Force is urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to exercise its regulatory authority under the nation’s chemical safety law, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), to ban vinyl chloride without further delay. Vinyl chloride is dangerous for human health and even more dangerous for children.
Vinyl chloride is used to make PVC plastic and is widely used to make many common products, such as plumbing pipes, floor covering, shower curtains, and children’s toys. But there are safer alternatives available.
Vinyl chloride is toxic, extremely flammable, and potentially explosive. My high school chemistry lab teacher would have labeled it a trifecta of danger to human health. Vinyl chloride can be harmful through short-term or long-term exposures.
EPA’s fact sheet based on the findings of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease explains vinyl chloride’s acute/immediate effects as well as longer-term effects.
- Acute or short-term exposure to high levels of vinyl chloride causes nose and throat irritation, coughing, shortness of breath, eye irritation, headaches, dizziness; exposure to extremely high doses may even be fatal.
- Long-term or chronic effects of exposure through inhalation and oral exposure include liver disease and cancers (including liver cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, brain, and lung cancers).
Vinyl chloride is particularly insidious not only because it is a dangerous chemical on its own, but also because when vinyl chloride is on fire even more hazardous chemicals are released, including dioxins and other cancer-causing substances or carcinogens. Dioxins are among the most toxic chemicals on the planet—and they’re especially harmful for children, whose small bodies are still developing.
Vinyl chloride can contaminate the air we breathe and the water we drink. This explosive and toxic chemical puts innocent lives in danger in their homes, schools, and playgrounds. Vinyl chloride is often manufactured or incinerated in neighborhoods such as those located in Louisiana, Texas, and Kentucky that are already overburdened by pollution and the long-term impact of discriminatory housing policies like redlining. It’s unfair and unjust that these communities of color and low-wealth communities bear the health risks of producing PVC plastic.
In addition to the horrors of vinyl chloride disasters related to its production in communities like Mossville, near Lake Charles, Louisiana, alarmingly there is inadequate regulation of the potential danger to unsuspecting neighborhoods when vinyl chloride is transported across the country resulting in disasters such as the train derailments in February 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio, and in Paulsboro, New Jersey, in November 2012.
In closing, vinyl chloride is a dangerous chemical that doesn’t belong in our homes and in our communities. Its use in cosmetics, household paints, and air fresheners has been prohibited for decades. Now is the time to stop using this toxic substance in any form. We urge EPA to use the full extent of its regulatory authority to end the use of vinyl chloride. A first step is to add vinyl chloride to the priority list of chemicals to be reviewed under the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act amendments (the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act).
LEARN MORE ABOUT VINYL CHLORIDE
Learn more about Moms' work on vinyl chloride and chemical safety.