Forty-Five Years After Banning, PCBs Continue to Be a Problem

Ecology petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to initiate rulemaking to protect public health against polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in consumer products. Currently, some inadvertent PCBs are allowed in consumer goods. Ecology would like to work with state and tribal governments to establish new, lower federal limits on allowable inadvertent PCBs in consumer products. In its petition, Ecology suggests an eventual limit of zero, phased in over a ten-year period, along with identification of applicable test methods.