U.S. District Judge John Murphy in Philadelphia allowed Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Center for Environmental Health to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which sued Inhance Technologies LLC in December, saying the groups’ participation was warranted “as of right.”
The EPA alleges in its lawsuit filed in December that Inhance is violating provisions of the federal Toxic Substances Control Act when it strengthens plastic packaging used to store things like food and cleaning products. The agency claimed the company creates “multiple” per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, as a byproduct of a process in which fluorine gas is used to reinforce packaging.