Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
apartment house incinerators, and use of high-sulfur coal and fuel oil in
steam boilers.
Bans or use restrictions may be applied to products that have the poten-
tial for causing indoor contamination and contributing to health risks. Most
notable of these are bans on the use of (1) paints containing >0.06% lead and
(2) hand-friable and, more recently, mechanically friable asbestos-containing
materials (ACM), in building construction. These bans have effectively
reduced the potential for both ambient and indoor contamination by lead
and asbestos in buildings constructed after 1978 and 1980, respectively.
Initial NESHAP bans on hand-friable or potentially hand-friable asbes-
tos-containing materials in building construction were promulgated to
reduce emissions of asbestos fibers to ambient air during building renovation
or demolition. It had the unintended consequence of raising concerns about
potential exposures of building occupants to airborne asbestos associated
with ACM used in construction.
Urea-formaldehyde foam insulation was banned for use as an insulating
material in walls and ceilings of residences in Canada in 1980. A similar ban
promulgated in the U.S. by the CPSC was voided by a federal appellate court
in response to an industry appeal. A ban on the use of UFFI for residential
applications remains in effect in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Bans or use restrictions have been placed on methylene chloride in paint
strippers, chlordane for termite control, pentachlorophenol as a wood pre-
servative, chlorpyrifos for broadcast flea control, and mercury biocides in
latex paint by regulatory actions or voluntary industry agreements. Califor-
nia has placed use restriction on kerosene heaters.
Partial or complete bans can be applied to products whose use is discre-
tionary (such as tobacco smoking). Since the 1986 Surgeon General's report
on involuntary smoking, total or partial bans on smoking in public-access
buildings and public transportation have been imposed by regulatory action
or management in most public-access environments in North America.
Prohibitive bans, like product standards, are an attractive tool to improve
existing air quality in some cases and prevent future indoor exposures in
others. They are simple to implement and require no assessment of compli-
ance with numerical limits.
Application of a ban, or a proposed ban, on “bad products” can have
significant actual or perceived economic repercussions on affected industries.
As a consequence, an industry can be expected to use all legal and political
means to overturn the ban. Federal regulatory agencies in the U.S. must
conform to the Administrative Procedures Act, which is designed to ensure
that parties with an interest in proposed regulatory actions are accorded full
due process. They also have a right to appeal regulatory actions. As a con-
sequence, final disposition after appeals to state or federal courts following
the regulatory imposition of a ban or restriction on use of a product often
takes years. In two notable cases, federal courts in the U.S. voided the ban
on UFFI and greatly limited USEPA's phase-out rule on a number of asbestos-
