EPA Publishes Methylene Chloride Compliance Guide

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has published a compliance guide to accompany its recent methylene chloride rule. The rule, finalized in April, bans most uses of the popular but dangerous solvent.

The guide is intended to help those who manufacture, process, distribute, use, or dispose of methylene chloride comply with the new regulations. Importantly for research laboratories, the guide details how these facilities can comply with EPA’s Workplace Chemical Protection Program (WCPP).

The WCPP includes a set of requirements intended to reduce worker exposure to methylene chloride. However, since the EPA first proposed the program in 2023, academics and staff from the university’s Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) department have raised concerns about many of its elements.

In particular, they are critical of the provision that testing laboratories must conduct initial and periodic exposure monitoring, something such facilities are not required to do under current regulations such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Laboratory Standard unless they exceed exposure limits.

At least one small institution has responded to the regulations by opting to phase out methylene chloride from its research and teaching labs. Several academic scientists have said they are considering doing the same. Laura Dwyer, a chemistry lab coordinator at the University of Mount Union, told C&EN she is waiting for the EPA to issue clear guidance before deciding what to do.

EH&S staff waiting for a clear compliance guide are unlikely to be pleased, according to Kristi Ohr, associate director of academic safety at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “I don’t think it says anything beyond what the regulation itself already says,” Ohr says. “I think most people were hoping for more specific language,” especially on exposure monitoring.

Large institutions with large EH&S offices well-versed in exposure monitoring should be able to interpret the new guidelines, Ohr says. Small schools, on the other hand, likely won’t have the necessary expertise on campus.

“Having a clear idea that ‘this is what you need to do’ would be good for them,” he says. Otherwise, they’ll have to outsource those services, which can be expensive.