Envionrmental Justice and ethylene oxide

Ethylene oxide (EtO) is produced in large volumes (click here) and is primarily used as an intermediate in the production of several industrial chemicals, the most notable of which is ethylene glycol. It is also used as a fumigant in certain agricultural products and as a sterilant for medical equipment and supplies. Unfortunately, EtO possesses several physical and health hazards that merit special attention. EtO is both flammable and highly reactive. Acute exposures to EtO gas may result in respiratory irritation and lung injury, headache, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, shortness of breath, and cyanosis. Chronic exposure has been associated with the occurrence of cancer, reproductive effects, mutagenic changes, neurotoxicity, and sensitization.

If the toxin isn't contained, then shut down the plant using it with abandon. There isn't anything difficult about this. Companies can either practice their craft with regard to human well being or they simply are shut down. End of discussion. This is the 21st Century. Okay?

This is the difference between Republicans and Democrats. The Democrats address dangers that are Environmental Justice and Republicans simply end the regulations that make a company accountable. Republicans let lawsuits win the day. It adds to the Wall Street wealth of more Widows and Orphans. It all works out, right?

May 17, 2021
By Michael Hawthorne

Nearly every major industrial source of ethylene oxide (click here) makes it relatively easy for Americans to know how much of the cancer-causing gas drifts into surrounding communities.

The only outliers are two Illinois-based companies that for years have failed to report emissions to the Toxics Release Inventory, a Tribune review of federal records found.

A Medline Industries plant in north suburban Waukegan last appeared in the inventory during the mid-2000s, even though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency later determined the facility has been responsible for some of the nation’s highest cancer risks from air pollution....

...Sterigenics closed the Willowbrook plant in 2019. It still uses ethylene oxide to fumigate medical equipment in eight other cities, including suburbs of Atlanta and Los Angeles. But the past four years of emissions are absent from the EPA’s inventory — omissions the agency refused to address during the Trump administration.

Annual pollution disclosures are the least that should be required from corporations, environmental activists said, especially when it comes to chemicals that thousands of Americans breathe every day....