Ari Phillips
/
November 21, 2024
Plastics plants dump 1,4-dioxane and other pollutants with no EPA limits
In South Carolina, a plastics manufacturing plant called Alpek Polyester Columbia dumped about 30,000 pounds of a chemical, 1,4-dioxane, into the Congaree River last year, with no limits on the pollutant – a likely carcinogen – in the plant’s discharge permit. The Alpek plant was the largest discharger of 1,4-dioxane among plastics plants in the U.S. last year, releasing a pollutant that EPA last week concluded “poses an unreasonable risk of injury to human health” including in drinking water. But despite this risk, EPA has set no national standards for plastics manufacturing plants to control 1,4-dioxane or several other harmful pollutants, according to a new report by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) called “Plastic’s Toxic River.”
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