Policy News - October 27, 2004

Canada moves to eliminate PFOS stain repellents

Canada is proposing to eliminate perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), a stain repellent that causes cancer and birth defects in lab animals and is found in the blood of humans worldwide (Canada Gazette, Part I, Oct 2, 2004, pp 2646–2651; 1.4MB PDF). If upheld, the proposal would give the Canadian government more power to stop releases of PFOS than a similar but weaker restriction issued in the United States in 2002, experts say.

The Canadian public will have until December 1, 2004, to comment on the proposal by Environment Canada (EC) and Health Canada (HC) to list PFOS, its salts, and about 50 precursors as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA). The toxic designation would give the federal government wide-ranging powers to prevent releases, for example, by prohibiting the manufacture and importation of listed chemicals, says Robert Chénier, chief of the assessment division at EC.

A screening assessment by EC and HC revealed that PFOS and its salts meet all of the criteria for virtual elimination under CEPA, Chénier says: They are persistent in the environment, bioaccumulate, and are transported over long distances. PFOS levels in the environment are well below the threshold of effect for humans, according to both EC and HC. Nonetheless, agency officials concluded that the compounds are entering the environment in amounts that may have long-term harmful effects on the environment and should therefore be listed as toxic, Chénier says.

The 3M Corp., the lone North American manufacturer of PFOS and its precursors, voluntarily ceased production at the end of 2002, but the compounds could continue to contaminate the environment by degrading and migrating from discarded products into water in landfills, says Derek Muir, a research scientist at the National Water Research Institute in Canada. European scientists have demonstrated that landfills release PFOS, but they don’t yet know how important landfills are as a source, he says.

Listing these substances as toxic could give Canada stronger powers than those of the U.S. EPA's significant new use rule (SNUR) implemented in 2002, says Jon Martin, an environmental analytical chemist at the University of Alberta. The SNUR forbids the manufacture and importation of PFOS and related compounds for all but a handful of industrial uses. However, the SNUR does not automatically give EPA authority to tackle releases from waste, such as discarded rugs and upholstery. CEPA allows the Canadian government to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent the release of toxic compounds from waste, he says.

Meanwhile, the Swedish Chemicals Inspectorate (KemI) has recommended a global ban on PFOS and urges that it be included in international treaties on persistent organic pollutants. The EU currently has no legislation, but the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has completed a hazard assessment and is conducting a survey on production and use of PFOS by its member countries. —JANET PELLEY