United States. Retail store Home Depot and paint and coatings company Sherwin-Williams announced they would eliminate the use of methylene chloride in paint removal products.
The retailer announced on June 19 that the company would phase out products containing methylene chloride and n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) by the end of this year. Home Depot was the third major retailer this month to commit to removing products from store shelves.
Sherwin-Williams announced on June 15 that it will phase out the use of methylene chloride in its paint removal products by the end of this year. The company, which operates more than 4,600 company-owned stores in the United States, Canada and Latin America, also confirmed that it does not and does not plan to sell paint separators containing NMP.
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and the Natural Resources Defense Council sent both companies a letter urging them to eliminate the sale of these products. Sherwin-Williams' announcement came two weeks after Lowe's became the first major U.S. retailer to announce a ban on paint removers that contain chemicals that pose unacceptable health risks, such as cancer, damage to the nervous system and child development and even death.
In 2017, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a ban on paint removers containing methylene chloride and NMP. Methylene chloride has been linked to more than 60 deaths nationwide since 1980 and is also linked to lung and liver cancer, neurotoxicity and reproductive toxicity. In turn, NMP, which can be replaced by methylene chloride in paint removers, affects fetal development and can cause miscarriages and stillbirth. According to the EPA, more than 60,000 American workers and 2 million consumers are exposed to methylene chloride and MPN annually.
