These results led EPA to conduct more comprehensive testing, considering the length of time a pesticide product is stored, and whether the type of liquid stored in the barrel made a difference. At the time, Kyla Bennet, PhD, Policy Director at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, whose testing of the insecticide first raised the alarms, noted that, “EPA’s discovery has opened a Pandora’s Box of health risks.” The findings on HDPE containers have broad implications, as these barrels are often used to store food products. The chilling initial findings that widely used food storage containers may be leaching forever chemicals into America’s food supply forced EPA’s hand, leading the agency to issue a warning to manufacturers, processors, distributors, users, and those that dispose of fluorinated HDPE containers that they may be in violation of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
View the full article from Beyond Pesticides