Environmental groups are suing the Trump administration over a chemical found in medical-grade sterilizers. Charlotte-based nonprofit CleanAIRE NC recently joined three other nonprofits in the suit after the EPA rolled back regulations on ethylene oxide.
"These exemptions raise serious questions about whose health is being prioritized," said Jeffrey Robbins, executive director of CleanAIRE NC. "We are talking about a known carcinogen being pumped into neighborhoods already overburdened by industrial pollution, where so many families live, learn, and play.”
The pesticide is used in half of all sterilized medical devices in the U.S. and 30% of dried herbs and spices, according to the EPA. Ethylene oxide is an air pollutant associated with several types of cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute.
“The greatest risk is for people who work for their entire careers at facilities directly handling [ethylene oxide] with insufficient worker protections in place,” a spokesperson for the EPA wrote in a press release when the regulations were first put in place.
Trump pushed back the deadline for companies to comply with updated pollution-control guidelines by two years. Those guidelines were primarily geared toward lowering worker exposure by gradually reducing exposure limits.
“The law is clear, the science is clear, and the technology to control dangerous ethylene oxide pollution exists today,” said Irena Como, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Many of these facilities have shown that they are capable of complying with stronger standards that are effective in better protecting communities, yet the Trump administration’s unlawful actions continue to create chaos at the expense of the health and safety of communities on the ground.”
Sterigenics operates a facility in southwest Charlotte that emits ethylene oxide. Mecklenburg County air quality program manager Megan Green said the Charlotte facility complies with its permit and has installed control equipment to meet the updated guidelines.
