PCBs and the Environment

PCBs were used in electrical transformers that leaked into waterways and soil, creating pollution in locations nationwide. Because PCBs are oily, they were mixed with caulking to create a more flexible compound that was easily mixed with paints and adhesives. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that caulk found around windows and doors in hundreds of schools nationwide may contain PCBs, which can cause cancer.

Before being banned, PCBs contaminated the environment during their manufacture and use in the United States. Although banned, the chemicals have never been cleaned out and continue to be released into our environment in a wide variety of ways, such as via shoddily managed hazardous waste sites, illegal and improper waste dumping, release or leakage from PCB-containing electrical transformers, disposal of PCB-containing consumer products into landfills not meant to take in hazardous waste, and by waste burning at municipal and industrial sites.