EPA to Consider Broadening Ethylene Oxide Reporting Requirements

The Environmental Protection Agency informed dozens of facilities that they may have to start reporting their ethylene oxide emissions to the Toxics Release Inventory, according to a Wednesday announcement.

Thirty-one facilities that use the carcinogenic chemical—often for medical equipment sterilization—received letters that the agency would activate authority under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act to consider expanding reporting requirements for use of ethylene oxide, or EtO, and ethylene glycol.

The request is part of an ongoing push to address community concerns that emissions are making plant workers and neighbors sick. Those concerns also have been the subject of hundreds ...