Crumb Rubber Industries Offer Data and Cooperation to CPSC

Representatives of industries in the crumb-rubber supply chain March 22 expressed willingness to cooperate in the recently launched review of the material. Brought to CPSC by former Commissioner Nancy Nord, now with Olsson Frank Weeda, the visitors ranged from those involved in recycling tires to those focused in installing sports fields and play surfaces.

Their outreach included offers of research and safety-review data to those assembled at CPSC's Rockville lab, including an EPA staffer. The industry group had another meeting later at EPA. The visitors repeatedly expressed desires for definitive answers about the claims linking the material to cancer.

Highlights of some points made during the two hour session included:

• An in-the-works, two-phase study at Brown University (tissue and animal) is looking at effects via simulated bio-fluids (sweat, lung, and digestive).

 

• Access to sites will depend on willingness of the owners or managers: private groups, schools, local governments.

 

• CPSC's potential plans for a national survey might start with a focus group from the D.C. vicinity.

 

• The visitors offered citations to 96 studies they said have not found risks from the materials. They questioned the lack of peer-review, and in one case, availability, of two studies crumb-rubber critics say demonstrate cancer links.

 

• Tires used for crumb rubber are limited to automobile and light trucks due to their compositions. Others, like for airplanes, off-road, or forklifts, are excluded for similar reasons. Sources often are companies with tight control of inventories, such as those that supply tires to truck fleets.

 

• Ambient chemicals on installed surfaces need to be distinguished from ingredient chemicals. This also is a reason that assessment of water runoff can be difficult.

 

• Similarly, the visitors urged the weighing of risks from other materials. For example, pesticides can be on grass and organic fillers (like coconut husks) need maintenance to avoid their becoming dehydrated and thus hard.

 

• The controversy over cancer fears and media attention are leading users, such as schools, to wait to install fields until after the federal study. This is harming the business.

 

• Chemical safety reviews are occurring on about every 10th field installed. This is higher than is typically deemed necessary or cost effective and is driven by the controversy.

 

• Discussion of the information needed by consumers included suggestions that they need a point of reference, such as safety comparable to soil. On the other hand, they might want to know the rubber is safe versus safer than X.

CPSC is working with EPA and CDC's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to research the concerns about chemical content. They are aiming to provide preliminary results by late 2016 (PSL, 2/22/16). The work will focus on sports fields and playground surfacing, and CPSC says it will pay particular attention to the latter.

Meanwhile, California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is doing similar work in that state through 2017. CPSC is involved in an observational and advisory role. The current concerns were prompted by a 2014 NBC news story (PSL, 11/3/16) and a later one by ESPN.