For decades, trichloroethylene — TCE — was the workhorse solvent of American manufacturing. Metal parts needed degreasing before assembly. Circuit boards needed cleaning before shipping. Aerospace components needed precision preparation before coating. And TCE did the job brilliantly. It dissolved grease and oil with ruthless efficiency, evaporated cleanly, and cost almost nothing.
It also poisoned groundwater at more than 850 Superfund sites, gave workers kidney cancer and liver damage, and contaminated the drinking water of over 19 million Americans.
On December 17, 2024, the EPA finalized a comprehensive ban on all manufacturing, processing, distribution, and use of trichloroethylene under the Toxic Substances Control Act. The manufacturing ban took effect on March 17, 2025. For the first time under TSCA, a widely used industrial chemical was pulled from the American economy entirely — not restricted, not phased down, but banned.
Industry groups predicted chaos. Production lines would halt. Costs would skyrocket. American manufacturing would lose its competitive edge.
None of that happened. And the reason is instructive: the alternatives were already there. They had been there for years. The only thing missing was the regulatory pressure to use them.
The Problem TCE Left Behind
Trichloroethylene belongs to a class of chlorinated solvents that were industrial staples throughout the twentieth century. They worked well. They were also, as we eventually learned, environmental and public health disasters.
TCE is a dense non-aqueous phase liquid — heavier than water, it sinks through soil and pools on bedrock, contaminating aquifers for decades. The federal maximum contaminant level for TCE in drinking water is 5 micrograms per liter. At some Superfund sites, groundwater concentrations have been measured at 50,000 micrograms per liter — ten thousand times the safe limit. At one site in New Hampshire, levels reached 760,000 micrograms per liter.
The health consequences are severe and well-documented. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has linked TCE exposure to kidney cancer, liver cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and Parkinson's disease. Studies have also demonstrated reproductive harm, developmental effects in children, and neurological damage in workers exposed to TCE vapor over time.
And the contamination is not confined to factory floors. Vapor intrusion — where TCE off-gasses from contaminated soil and groundwater into the indoor air of homes and schools — has been documented at Superfund sites across the country, from Texas to Iowa to Washington state. At the Delfasco Forge site in Grand Prairie, Texas, TCE vapor was detected inside nearby residences years after the facility closed.
This is the legacy of choosing cheap chemistry over safe chemistry. And it is a legacy that taxpayers, not the companies that profited from TCE, are largely paying to clean up.
What Replaced It — And Why It Works
The narrative that safer solvents cannot match the performance of chlorinated compounds was never true. It was convenient. It protected existing supply chains, existing equipment, and existing purchasing contracts. But the chemistry told a different story.
Three broad categories of alternatives have proven themselves in real industrial environments, at scale, across multiple sectors.
Aqueous cleaning systems use water-based solutions enhanced with surfactants, detergents, and mild acids to remove oils, greases, and particulate contamination. These systems produce lower volatile organic compound emissions, are non-flammable, and generate no hazardous air pollutants. Modern aqueous systems have been deployed in automotive manufacturing, electronics assembly, and pharmaceutical production with cleaning performance that matches or exceeds solvent-based methods. The EPA's own case studies document facilities that switched from TCE-based vapor degreasing to aqueous wash systems and saw not only equivalent cleaning results but significant cost reductions — primarily from eliminating hazardous waste disposal fees and the ventilation infrastructure that chlorinated solvents demand.
Bio-based solvents derived from renewable agricultural feedstocks represent perhaps the most promising category. Ethyl lactate, produced from grain starch through fermentation of lactic acid and ethanol, has emerged as a standout performer. It dissolves a wide range of polar and non-polar compounds — polymers, resins, oils, greases, waxes, and pigments — with a solvency power that competes directly with petroleum-derived and chlorinated products. It is biodegradable, breaking down into carbon dioxide and water. It is non-carcinogenic, non-ozone-depleting, and produces low VOC emissions. It has a high boiling point of approximately 154 degrees Celsius, a favorable flash point, and is both recyclable and inexpensive to reclaim.
Other bio-based alternatives are gaining ground rapidly. Isopropyl lactate and butyl lactate offer effective solvency with reduced toxicity. Bio-based glycol ethers and esters have captured significant market share due to their strong cleaning power and controlled evaporation rates. Levulinate esters, such as ethyl levulinate, provide plant-based, low-VOC performance in industrial degreasing applications. Even soy-based formulations have proven effective replacements for petroleum and chlorinated solvents in certain applications.
Engineered fluids and next-generation formulations fill the niches where aqueous and bio-based options face limitations. Hydrofluoroether-based fluids offer excellent solvency for contaminants like silicones, flux, and wax while providing non-flammability and low environmental impact. Modified alcohol solvents work effectively in vacuum degreasing systems. Several proprietary formulations have been specifically designed as drop-in replacements for TCE in existing vapor degreasing equipment, minimizing the capital costs of transition.
The Economics Are Not Even Close
The cost argument against safer solvents collapses under scrutiny — not because green alternatives are always cheaper per gallon, but because the total cost of ownership for hazardous solvents is enormous and largely hidden.
Consider what a facility using TCE actually pays for: the solvent itself, specialized ventilation and air handling systems, personal protective equipment, regulatory compliance monitoring, OSHA exposure testing, hazardous waste manifesting and disposal, environmental liability insurance, and the ever-present risk of a contamination event that could cost millions in remediation and litigation.
Aqueous systems eliminate most of those costs entirely. Bio-based solvents like ethyl lactate can be recycled and reused, reducing raw material consumption. Water-based solutions generate no hazardous waste streams. The insurance premiums alone can justify the switch.
The market has noticed. The global market for bio-based solvents in coatings and cleaning applications was valued at approximately $491 million in 2025. It is projected to reach $4.3 billion by 2035 — a compound annual growth rate of nearly 23 percent. The broader green solvents market for industrial cleaning is expected to reach $1.7 billion by 2036. These are not niche products. This is a fundamental restructuring of industrial chemistry purchasing.
Why It Took a Ban
If safer alternatives existed — and they did — why did industry cling to TCE for so long?
The answer is familiar to anyone who has studied environmental regulation. Incumbency bias is powerful. When a chemical is already integrated into a production process, switching carries real costs: new equipment evaluation, process revalidation, worker retraining, potential production downtime during transition. Even when the alternative is better on paper, the path of least resistance is to keep doing what you have always done.
Regulatory inertia reinforced that bias. TCE was a known hazard for decades before the EPA acted. The chemical was classified as a probable human carcinogen by the EPA in 2011. The risk evaluation under TSCA was completed in 2020. The final ban did not come until late 2024. That is thirteen years from cancer classification to prohibition — thirteen years during which alternatives continued to improve and TCE continued to contaminate.
There is a lesson here that extends well beyond solvents. When industry argues that regulation is premature because alternatives are not ready, the claim deserves scrutiny. In the case of TCE, the alternatives were not only ready — they were commercially available, proven at scale, and in many cases economically superior. What was missing was not technology. It was will.
What We Are Watching
At the EPR Foundation, we track these transitions because they illuminate a broader pattern in American environmental policy. The chemicals that built our industrial economy were selected for performance and cost, with little regard for what they would do to water, soil, air, and human health over decades of use. The cleanup costs — financial, medical, ecological — are staggering. TCE alone is present at roughly half of all Superfund sites in the United States.
Green chemistry is not an aspiration. It is an economic and public health necessity. The twelve principles articulated by Paul Anastas and John Warner — designing chemicals that degrade after use, minimizing toxicity by molecular design, using renewable feedstocks — are not academic exercises. They are the engineering specifications for an industrial economy that does not poison its own people.
The TCE ban is a case study in what happens when those principles are finally applied. Industry adapts. Innovation accelerates. Workers are safer. Communities are healthier. And the feared economic collapse never materializes.
We should not need to wait for a ban every time. The data on safer solvents has been available for years. The products are on the market. The performance has been validated. What remains is for companies — and the engineers and purchasing managers within them — to make the switch before they are forced to.
The next generation of industrial chemistry is not coming. It is here. The question is whether American industry will lead the transition or be dragged into it.
The EPR Foundation promotes science-based environmental policy through research, education, and public engagement. We believe that environmental protection and economic vitality are not competing interests — they are the same interest, viewed on different timescales.