December 2016 Status Report: Federal Research Action Plan on Recycled Tire Crumb

Early in 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (CDC/ATSDR) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), launched a multi-agency effort called the Federal Research Action Plan on Recycled Tire Crumb Used on Playing Fields and Playgrounds. On December 30, 2016 the agencies released a status report on the Federal Research Action Plan which does not include research findings. It provides a summary of activities to date, including: (1) stakeholder outreach, (2) an overview of the tire crumb rubber manufacturing industry, (3) the final peer-reviewed Literature Review/Gaps Analysis (LRGA), (4) progress on the research activities, and (5) next steps and a timeline for completion of the final report.

The Literature Review/Gaps Analysis (LRGA) was developed to provide a current summary of the available literature and capture the data gaps as characterized in those publications. The Literature Review/Gaps Analysis identifies  90 references. Each reference was reviewed and categorized according to 20 general information categories (e.g., study topic, geographic location, sample type, conditions and populations studied) and more than 100 sub-categories (e.g., study topic subcategories: site characterization, production process, leaching, off-gassing, microbial analysis, human risk).

The full Literature Review/Gaps Analysis is in Appendix B of the Status Report.