EPA should be changed to EBA, environmental banning agency. First thing to go was our semiconductor industry, unfortunately some deformed babies were born because the chemical were dumped in the sewer system. Could have collected that stuff and shipped it to Mexico, the Philippines, and even Japan, but instead the entire industry was shipped to these countries.
Or just added some cost to distill it. This was in the early 70's/
Next to go was trichlorethylene, very fast and efficient way to clean metal parts. Was reuseable, distilled, yeah, some got out, but not very much, remmants was mostly oil sludge, that could be recycled. Instead, acid baths were used, so-called biodegradable. Since a water rinse was required, parts had to go through a heated chamber or a rust coat would build up, extra production expense. And people were getting sick from acid fumes. Late 70's as I recall.
Next was solvent based paints, mostly affected us with transformer varnish, could be vacuum impregnated, and air dried. With water based varnishes, more heat energy had to be used, water took a heck of a lot longer, didn't adhere as well, more discards, less profit.
Water based paints were new, not perfected, and would chip off, doing a better job today, but was a disaster when this first started. Early 80's as I recall.
Next to go was electroplating, all electric contacts had to be plated. A first the terminals were embedded in a plastic housing, had to be soldered in place, always an expensive operation, for harnesses, went to Mexico for cheaper labor. Then as time went by more and more of these connectors had to be used to meet EPA emission requirement.
When electrical switches were made here, just bare copper was used, this was done for most of the 90's, grease was used, but would quickly wear off, and copper oxide is an excellent insulator, a tone of problems. To ease on soldering, connector housings switched to push in terminals. At first the end of the wires were stripped for a much better air tight seal. Copper wire was pretinned, switch to bare copper wire, have this in your battery terminals connectors. Are you having problems with these?
Then someone came up with the brilliant idea of eliminating that stripping operation and using an insulation displacement terminal would pierce the insulation making just a point contact to bare copper wire, talk about brand new problems. After a few years, corrosion would set in, again copper oxide.
Getting terminals from China really isn't that bad, not Mexico, they still can plate. Really all this is done by automation so the cost advantage with long shipping expenses isn't that much, but congress making these laws, didn't realize when the buck leaves here, they can't tax it. So are going deep in debt.
Look what they did to our steel industry, Gary, IN, is a flat field today. Yes, there was problems, never solved, just exported. Someone is coming up with the strange idea that its not local pollution, but global instead. Ha, California moved all of their coal burning electrical plants to Nevada. This is how the government thinks. Strong on electrical vehicles as long as electricity is produced across the state line.
How could I forget about asbestos? This was really a major nightmare, we were fabrication this stuff in an air filtrated area, workers where wearing dust masks, really no problems. Banned and had to find something else, the dust could be buried in a hole, this is where this stuff came from. But the law is the law. Also used in building materials that was banned with excellent fire protection properties. Was said if the World Trade Centers used asbestos materials, they would be still standing.
After it was manufactured, a very hard substance and dust free. But even hair dryers were recalled on the premise that a spec of dust would blow off, not very likely, would go up the uses nose and cause cancer. A very natural material, and the ground is loaded with this stuff.
Major headache was in brakes and clutch discs, guy went crazy trying to find a substitute. Maybe a good point in this application, in use, would put plenty of brake dust in high traffic areas. This is one thing this country has, high traffic areas with a traffic light every short block.