Air Resources Board Targets 16 Products
In a new attack on smog, the state Air Resources Board on Thursday imposed the nation’s first restrictions on 16 consumer products from hair sprays to floor polishes that emit smog-forming chemicals.
The new standard, which takes effect in 1993, is expected to cost consumers from a penny to 23 cents more for the reformulated products but reduce smog-forming volatile organic compounds from these products by 45 tons a day by 1998--a 45% reduction.
The rule represents one of the biggest inroads into a significant non-vehicular source of air pollution ever achieved in the decades-long struggle to meet federal standards.
The state action comes less than a week after the South Coast Air Quality Management District imposed similar restrictions on barbecue lighter fluid and a year after the ARB first imposed regulations on underarm deodorants and antiperspirants.
Together, the anti-smog initiatives point to a growing fact of life during air quality regulation: In the uphill drive to meet federal clean air standards, virtually no product or business will be exempt from controls.
“This is uncharted territory. We are addressing an industry that heretofore has not been regulated,” ARB Chairwoman Jananne Sharpless said before the 7-0 vote approving the restrictions.
Ralph Engel of the Chemical Specialty Manufacturers Assn. told the board, “This is one of the most sweeping changes to confront us in many, many years.”
Compared to the 45-tons-a-day emission reductions under the consumer products rule approved Thursday, a single oil refinery spews 1.4 to 3.9 tons a day of VOCs.
Likewise, emissions from consumer products in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties account for 7% of VOC emissions from all sources.
None of the initial 16 consumer products to be regulated is expected to disappear from store shelves. Manufacturers are expected to reformulate the products to comply, although several protested Thursday that some of the standards were “unrealistic” and could not be met in time.
Other manufacturers pleaded for less stringent reductions in smog-forming chemicals, saying that some products could no longer be made, among them some aerosol bathroom and tile cleaners.
The rule is expected to cost manufacturers from $16,000 to $500,000 per product each year, the ARB staff said.
The 16 products account for half of all VOC emissions from consumer products.
They include air fresheners, automotive windshield washer fluids, bathroom and tile cleaners, engine degreasers, floor polishes, furniture maintenance products, general-purpose cleaners, hair sprays, hair mousses, hair-styling gels, glass cleaners, aerosol insect repellents, laundry prewash products, oven cleaners, nail polish removers and aerosol shaving creams.
Volatile organic compounds, sometimes called hydrocarbons, are one of two principal ingredients of ozone, a health-threatening air pollutant that reduces lung capacity, contributes to respiratory disease and makes up 95% of smog.
The four-county South Coast Air Basin exceeded the federal ozone standard an average 137 days a year in 1988 and 1989. In some areas of the Basin, ozone levels occasionally are three times higher than the standard.
The consumer products standards take effect Jan. 1, 1993, for six of the products and for the remaining 10 products a year later.
By far the biggest smog contributor among the 16 products is hair spray, accounting for nearly half of the smog-forming VOC emissions, or about 46 tons a day before controls. Aerosol hair sprays by weight are 94% VOCs. The rule calls for reducing that percentage to 80% in 1993 and 55% in 1998. Pump hair sprays are 70% VOC.
At one point, a remark by Engel of the chemical trade association that the consumer products were a “lesser source” of smog than motor vehicles and factories sparked a pointed exchange with Sharpless of the air board.
“Do you think 100 tons a day (of VOC emissions) is a ‘lesser source’? . . . It is not a lesser source. It is part of the problem . . . and your (smog contribution) gets bigger and other problems get smaller.”
Engel replied, “We are looking at it from two different vantage points and there’s no point in quarreling.”
ARB board member Brian Bilbray, a San Diego County supervisor, added: “We just can’t walk away from the environmental issue. We’re treating consumer products extraordinarily more leniently than we do the automobile.” Bilbray charged that some consumer products manufacturers appeared to be “prima donnas.”
