Olivia LoDico
Clean Clothes & Polluted Bodies: Cancer-Causing Chemicals in Dry Cleaning
The same chemicals used for degreasing metal and stripping paint from walls are also staples in our laundry regimens. Trichloroethylene (TCE) and Perchloroethylene (PCE) are toxic, cancer-causing chemicals in consumer and commercial producers such as cleaners, stain removers, lubricants, and glue. These carcinogens are known to cause liver, kidney, and brain cancer with the capability to cause damage to the nervous, immune, and reproductive systems. In addition to its adverse health effects, TCE and PCE also serve as contaminants, polluting soil, groundwater, and drinking water supplies. TCE has infamously been known for its contamination of drinking water nationwide, so much so that the phenomenon became a movie, “A Civil Action,” starring John Travolta. Communities in the proximity of factories, airports, dry cleaners, and other sites utilizing these chemicals have long suffered the consequences of exposure to these toxic chemicals.
After decades of exposure and pleas from those affected, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Biden Administration have finally banned all consumer uses for PCE and TCE. Under these new amendments to the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), PCE will be phased out of dry cleaning in the next ten years, while the more harmful and more researched TCE will be banned within one. Proposed in 2023 and enacted on December 9, 2024, these new restrictions are receiving heavy criticism from industry groups. This includes concerns over the far-reaching collateral consequences on several industries as well as the national economy. To counter this uneasiness, Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget requests funding to assist small businesses in this transition. The dry cleaning industry has reached out in backlash to the EPA, asserting the phasing out of PCE will burden thousands of cleaners. However, the EPA estimates that 68,000 workers—1,200 pregnant—may currently be exposed to TCE annually. It further estimates that approximately 291,000 workers are exposed to PCE. Therefore, the benefits likely outweigh the costs of this ban, especially since safer alternatives to these toxic ingredients exist.
Whether or not this ban holds with the incoming Trump Administration is another story altogether. The controversy over the prohibition of these cancer-causing chemicals may be in vain if Trump’s first administration is any indication. During his first time in office, his administration withdrew an initial Obama-era effort to ban some uses of TCE and weakened chemical regulations altogether. He also named a former executive of the American Chemistry Council—a forefront industrial critic of the 2024 ban—a top deputy in the EPA’s chemical safety office, further embedding corporate influence into the regulatory process. Before leaving office, the Biden administration is scrambling to secure chemical regulatory rules to prevent any environmental and public health policy regressions under the next administration.
However, these late-term regulations are vulnerable to the Congressional Review Act (CRA), allowing the incoming Republican-controlled Congress to overturn certain federal agency regulations finalized near the end of a presidential term. Under the special Congressional procedure of joint resolution of disapproval, Congress can undo this ban as quickly as it was enacted. The long-term implications that banning TCE and PCE in dry cleaning will have on public health, the economy, and future federal environmental regulations remain to be seen. The incoming administration and Congress will dictate whether our clothes remain contaminated with carcinogenic toxins or if there are truly cleaner wash days on the horizon.
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