For the past six months, southwest Memphis residents have pressured a local company to reduce its emissions of a cancer-causing chemical called ethylene oxide. On Tuesday, April 11, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed new regulations for facilities that use the chemical to sterilize medical equipment. 

Stronger regulations could mean lower EtO emissions by 2025. 

Health Department study finds no cancer clusters near EtO producer

Sterilization Services of Tennessee, located on Florida Street in Memphis, uses ethylene oxide, or EtO, to sterilize medical equipment. Across the U.S., the chemical is used to sterilize 20 billion medical devices each year, but the EPA learned seven years ago that EtO is 60 times more toxic than it previously thought. Since then, it’s been working toward imposing stricter limits on EtO emissions. 

“While many of these facilities have already taken steps to reduce emissions, the proposal would require all 86 (commercial sterilizers) and any new facilities to comply with the stricter pollution controls, which have already been proven to be effective and achievable,” Janet McCabe, deputy administrator of the EPA, said Tuesday. 

The EPA’s much-anticipated proposal applies to 86 facilities across the country, including Sterilization Services. The EPA estimates the new rule, which pairs stricter pollution controls with advanced monitoring methods, would cut EtO emissions from commercial sterilizers by 80% and bring emissions within the legally acceptable cancer risk.

The proposal targets previously unregulated fugitive emissions — the air that escapes through windows, doors and other openings — and it limits already-regulated emissions such as exhaust vents.

Along with the new emissions standards, employees at facilities using EtO would be required to use personal protective equipment if the chemical is detected in the air at more than 10 parts per billion. 

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The additional lifetime cancer risk for a worker exposed to EtO for eight hours a day, every work week, for 35 years in a sterilization facility was between 1 in 10 and 1 in 36. The risk for workers exposed to the chemical in health care facilities was between 1 in 12 and 1 in 25. 

Once fully implemented, the new guidelines should significantly reduce cancer rates from EtO exposure for people near and inside commercial sterilizers, according to the deputy assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, Tomás Carbonell.

For some, the new regulations still don’t go far enough. For others, there are concerns about how long it will take the EPA to finalize and enforce the new EtO rules. 

“While I welcome the proposal to expand monitoring of fugitive emissions, EPA must also require fenceline monitoring, so communities just outside plants’ perimeters know if this cancer-causing gas still is drifting into their neighborhoods,” said Darya Minovi, senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

Minovi authored a report earlier this year that estimated the cancer risk from toxic air pollutants in census tracts where facilities using EtO are located. That report found that those census tracts had an estimated cancer risk three times higher than the national average, with ethylene oxide a major factor in the overall cancer risk attributable to air toxics.

County poised to join city to ask facility to reduce cancer-causing emissions

Last week, the EPA proposed a different set of rules for the roughly 200 chemical plants that manufacture EtO and more than 80 other toxic air pollutants. Lucite International in Memphis was on that list.

Combined, the two proposed regulations target the biggest sources of EtO emissions, and the EPA estimates it would eliminate 77 tons of EtO in the air every year — an 84% reduction compared to 2020 levels.

“At EPA, we recognize that ensuring that all people have clean air to breathe is not just an important responsibility and our job under the law, but it’s also a moral imperative,” McCabe said.

Since the EPA came to Memphis last October, Memphis Community Against Pollution and other community advocates have been pressuring Sterilization Services to lower its emissions, even without stricter federal requirements. The Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commissions both passed resolutions earlier this year encouraging Sterilization Services to cut emissions. 

In a statement Tuesday, MCAP president KeShaun Pearson said the group “will remain vigilant in our efforts to fight alongside residents of southwest Memphis forced to live under these inhumane conditions and fight against environmental racism because People Power works. We continue to stand by our belief that everyone deserves access to clean air, clean drinking water, and safe housing regardless of zip code.”

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In February, MCAP and the Southern Environmental Law Center asked the health department to use its emergency powers to either force Sterilization Services to lower its emissions or shut the facility down altogether, but the Health Department said it didn’t have the legal authority to do so. An appeal of that decision is underway.

The public comment period for EPA’s proposed EtO regulations will remain open for 60 days once they are published in the Federal Register. After that, the EPA will publish a final rule in 2024, which will give EtO emitters up to 18 months to make changes.

“It can take years for the EPA to finalize and enforce these proposed ethylene oxide rules, leading to further harm to Memphis residents,” Pearson said. “A change in administration could cause further delay, and residents living near this facility deserve action today from our public health, city, and county officials.”

Sterilization Services of Tennessee has declined all interview requests since last October, including, most recently, one made by The Daily Memphian on Tuesday.

However, the Shelby County Health Department previously said Sterilization Services would consider cutting its emissions earlier than the federal deadline once it reviews the EPA’s proposal.