📎 Source Note: Transparency is essential in journalism. The facts and figures presented in this article are derived directly from the legal filings in this case. A copy of which can be found at the bottom of this article. We encourage readers to review the primary source document for themselves.

Corporate Misconduct Case Study: DAP Global, Inc. & Its Impact on Public Health

TLDR: For years, a Baltimore facility owned by DAP Global, Inc., a major manufacturer of sealants and adhesives, operated in violation of fundamental hazardous waste laws designed to protect workers and the public. An investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uncovered a pattern of misconduct, including leaving containers of flammable and toxic chemicals open, failing to label hazardous materials, and illegally storing universal waste like batteries and lamps for years beyond the legal limit. Despite these findings, the company settled the matter for a mere $5,000 civil penalty without admitting to the facts.

Continue reading to understand the specific violations and how they fit into a broader pattern of corporate behavior that externalizes risk onto communities while minimizing accountability.

Inside the Allegations: A System of Broken Safeguards

At its core, the case against DAP Global, Inc. reveals a systemic breakdown of basic safety protocols. DAP Global, which manufactures products like caulk and adhesives, is classified as a “large quantity generator” of hazardous waste, a designation that grants it the ability to temporarily store dangerous materials on-site without a full permit. This privilege, however, is contingent on strict adherence to safety rules—rules the EPA found the company repeatedly violated.

An EPA compliance inspection on March 12, 2024, at DAP Global’s Baltimore facility documented a series of failures. Investigators discovered that DAP Global was, in effect, operating an un-permitted hazardous waste storage facility by failing to comply with the conditions of its generator status. The specific violations paint a picture of prolonged and widespread negligence in areas designated as the “flame shed” and “maintenance shop,” putting employees and the environment at direct risk.

Timeline of Documented Failures

The violations were not a one-time mistake but a pattern of behavior that persisted over several years. The following timeline, constructed from the EPA’s legal filing, illustrates the duration of the misconduct.

Date	Event
May 19, 2020	DAP Global begins accumulating universal waste lamps, which would remain on-site and improperly stored for nearly four years.
March 24, 2021	DAP Global begins accumulating universal waste batteries, storing them for three years in violation of federal law.
March 12, 2024	An EPA inspection uncovers multiple, ongoing violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
April 4, 2025	The EPA officially notifies Maryland’s environmental agency of its intent to pursue an enforcement action.
June 10, 2025	A representative for DAP Global, Inc. signs the Expedited Settlement Agreement, agreeing to a fine but not admitting to the facts.
June 11, 2025	The settlement is filed and becomes effective, resolving the EPA’s civil claims for the identified violations.

The most serious allegations involve the improper handling of ignitable and toxic chemicals. Investigators found an open 55-gallon drum of waste ethylene in the flame shed. Elsewhere, in the maintenance shop, they observed ten open containers of solvent-based paints and oils, along with an open aerosol can-puncturing unit affixed to another 55-gallon drum of hazardous waste. Such practices create a significant risk of fire, explosion, and exposure to toxic fumes.

Furthermore, DAP Global failed in its basic duty to track and label its hazardous materials. The EPA inspector noted eight containers in the flame shed and another large drum in the maintenance shop that were not marked with an “accumulation start date,” making it impossible to ensure waste was being disposed of in a timely manner. This failure to track waste is a cornerstone of hazardous waste regulation, designed to prevent the exact kind of long-term, illegal storage that was also discovered on site.

Environmental & Public Health Risks: A Ticking Time Bomb

The materials at the center of this case are not benign. The facility generates hazardous wastes that include flammable solvents like acetate and mineral spirits, as well as toxic substances like diethanolamine and methyl ethyl ketone. These chemicals are identified by the EPA with waste codes D001 for their ignitability and D035 and F003 for their toxicity, underscoring the serious public health risks involved.

When containers of such materials are left open, as they were at the DAP Global facility, they release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the air. These fumes can cause respiratory issues and other health problems for workers, while the risk of a fire or explosion in a “flame shed” full of flammable waste threatens the entire facility and the surrounding Baltimore community. This is not a theoretical danger; it is the direct and predictable consequence of failing to follow basic safety laws.

The long-term storage of universal waste presents another significant environmental threat. A box of universal waste lamps, which often contain mercury, was left sitting in the maintenance shop since May 2020. Nearby, a five-gallon bucket of universal waste batteries had been accumulating since March 2021. Both were stored for far longer than the one-year limit, increasing the risk that these items could break down and release toxic heavy metals into the environment.

Regulatory Loopholes and Neoliberal Governance

This case exemplifies a core failure of neoliberal governance, where deregulation and weak enforcement create an environment ripe for corporate misconduct. The entire system of hazardous waste management for “generators” is built on a foundation of trust and self-policing. Companies like DAP Global are allowed to handle dangerous materials with less oversight than a permanent disposal facility, but only if they meticulously follow the rules.

When that trust is broken, the system fails. DAP Global benefited from the regulatory flexibility afforded to generators but allegedly cast aside the responsibilities that came with it. This reveals a structural flaw: the rules are only as strong as the enforcement behind them. Infrequent inspections allow patterns of non-compliance to become normalized business practice, as years can pass before violations are caught.

This model serves corporate interests by reducing the upfront costs of compliance. It is cheaper to leave a drum of chemicals open than to pay an employee to properly seal it after each use. It is easier to let old batteries and lamps pile up in a corner than to manage them for timely and legal disposal. These are not oversights; they are economic decisions made within a system that incentivizes cutting corners to maximize profit.

Profit-Maximization at All Costs: The Corporate Ethics Deficit

The violations documented at the DAP Global facility are classic examples of a corporate culture prioritizing profit over safety. Each failure—the unlabeled container, the open drum, the forgotten box of toxic lamps—represents a small cost saved. In isolation, they might seem minor, but together they form a pattern of behavior where environmental and human health risks are externalized to workers and the community.

Under the logic of late-stage capitalism, such behavior is not an anomaly but a feature. The pressure to increase shareholder value and boost quarterly earnings creates a powerful incentive to minimize operational costs. Proper hazardous waste management is a cost center, an expense that does not directly generate revenue. Consequently, it is often one of the first areas where standards are allowed to slip when budgets are tightened or when management fosters a culture of efficiency above all else.

The resulting penalty in this case, a mere $5,000, does little to disrupt this calculation. For a large corporation like DAP Global, this fine is not a punishment but simply the cost of doing business. It is a negligible sum that can be easily absorbed, far cheaper than the sustained cost of rigorous, long-term compliance. This demonstrates how corporate accountability mechanisms can fail, as penalties become too small to serve as a meaningful deterrent to future misconduct.

Exploitation of Workers: The Human Cost of Deregulation

The legal document does not give a voice to the workers in the DAP Global maintenance shop or flame shed, but it tells their story nonetheless. These are the individuals who spent their workdays surrounded by open containers of toxic solvents and flammable waste. They were the first and most direct victims of DAP Global’s negligence.

Placing workers in such an environment is a profound act of exploitation. It treats their health and safety as a secondary concern, a disposable variable in the equation of production and profit. The failure to label hazardous materials or keep them sealed is not just a regulatory violation; it is a betrayal of the fundamental duty an employer has to provide a safe workplace.

This situation is a direct outcome of a system that weakens labor protections and prioritizes corporate interests. When regulatory oversight is lax and penalties for non-compliance are trivial, companies can operate with a diminished fear of consequence. The health of workers becomes an externality, a cost borne by the employees themselves in the form of potential long-term illness, rather than a responsibility shouldered by the corporation that created the risk.

The PR Machine: Corporate Spin and Settling Without Admission

One of the most telling aspects of the settlement is a clause that is standard in corporate legal strategy: DAP Global, Inc., “neither admits nor denies the specific factual allegations.” This legal maneuver is a powerful tool of the corporate public relations machine, allowing DAP Global to make a legal problem disappear without ever having to confess to the underlying behavior.

By avoiding an admission of guilt, DAP shields itself from further liability.

An admission could be used against it in civil lawsuits from workers who may have been harmed or community members affected by pollution. It allows DAP Global to publicly frame the issue as a settled matter, a misunderstanding that has been resolved, rather than a documented pattern of unsafe practices.

DAP also certified that the violations “have been corrected.” This creates the appearance of a responsible actor taking corrective action, turning a story of negligence into one of redemption. The system allows corporations to manage their narrative in this way, ensuring that the legal resolution of a case also serves to contain and neutralize the damage to their public reputation.

Community Impact: When Corporate Risk Spills Over

A manufacturing facility does not exist in a vacuum. DAP Global’s Baltimore plant is part of a community, and the risks created inside its walls do not respect property lines. The storage of flammable and toxic materials in open containers poses a threat not just to the facility itself, but to the surrounding neighborhoods and environment.

A fire or chemical spill could have consequences that extend far beyond the company’s balance sheet, potentially impacting local air and water quality. This is the essence of externalized risk: the corporation reaps the financial rewards from its cost-cutting measures, while the public silently bears the burden of the potential environmental and health consequences. The community becomes an unwilling stakeholder in the company’s hazardous gambles.

This case highlights the fragility of the buffer zone between industrial activity and public life. That buffer is maintained by regulations—the very rules the EPA alleged were broken. When a company fails in this duty, it is the community that is left vulnerable.

Wealth Disparity and the Illusion of a Penalty

The concept of justice is deeply undermined when the penalty for corporate misconduct is divorced from the scale of the offender’s wealth. DAP Global, Inc. settled the claims of years-long hazardous waste violations for $5,000. To a multinational corporation, this amount is basically a rounding error in the budget. No real punishment!

This figure reflects a vast disparity in power and resources between regulators and the corporations they oversee. A fine that might be devastating to a small business is rendered meaningless to a large one. This creates a two-tiered system of justice, where the wealthy can treat violations of public safety law as a minor, predictable business expense.

This dynamic is a direct symptom of corporate greed and wealth inequality.

The system of penalties has not kept pace with the accumulation of corporate wealth, allowing companies to absorb fines with ease. True accountability remains elusive because the financial consequences are too insignificant to force a genuine change in corporate culture or behavior.

Corporate Accountability Fails the Public

This case is a distressing illustration of how the mechanisms of corporate accountability can fail the public they are meant to protect. While the EPA successfully identified violations and levied a fine, the outcome falls far short of meaningful justice. The settlement itself represents a negotiation, not a verdict, and its terms favor the corporation in significant ways.

The ability to settle without admitting the facts allows DAP Global to evade the full moral and legal weight of its actions. It avoids a public record of guilt, which is a powerful tool for reputation management. The public is left with a sanitized version of events, where a problem was identified and resolved with a modest payment, obscuring the severity of the initial wrongdoing.

Ultimately, the system processed a case and closed it, but it failed to deliver true accountability. The penalty is too small to serve as a deterrent, and the lack of an admission of guilt allows the narrative to be controlled by the offender. This outcome signals to other corporations that the consequences for neglecting public safety and environmental laws are manageable, predictable, and ultimately, affordable.

This Is the System Working as Intended

It is tempting to view the DAP Global case as a failure of the system. In reality, it is an example of the system performing exactly as it was designed under decades of neoliberal policy. A framework that prioritizes corporate growth, minimizes regulatory burdens, and relies on underfunded agencies will inevitably produce these outcomes.

The logic is simple: when enforcement is sporadic and penalties are negligible, it becomes economically rational for a company to roll the dice on non-compliance. The potential savings from cutting corners on safety and environmental protection often outweigh the risk of getting caught and paying a small fine. The system does not just allow for this calculation; it actively encourages it!

This case is a predictable result of a political and economic ideology that champions deregulation and views corporate oversight as an impediment to progress. From this perspective, the outcome is a success: corporate activity was minimally disrupted, and the state extracted a token fee. The true cost, measured in worker safety and environmental risk, remains off the official balance sheet.

Conclusion: A High Price for a Low Fine

The legal document detailing the settlement between the EPA and DAP Global, Inc. is more than just a case file. It is a story about how our society values corporate profit over human health and environmental safety. For years, a company allegedly stored flammable and toxic materials in open, unlabeled containers, risking the well-being of its workers and the surrounding community.

The resolution to these years of negligence was a

$5,000 fine and no admission of wrongdoing. This outcome is a profound indictment of a system where corporate accountability has been eroded to the point of becoming a public relations exercise. The settlement serves DAP Global’s interests by making a legal problem disappear quietly and cheaply.

This is not an isolated incident but a reflection of a deeply flawed economic and regulatory structure. It shows that the laws designed to protect us are only as strong as the will to enforce them and the penalties used to back them up. Until the cost of non-compliance is made to be greater than the cost of compliance, cases like this will continue to be the norm, and communities and workers will continue to pay the price.

Frivolous or Serious Lawsuit?

This was a serious enforcement action brought by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, not a frivolous lawsuit. The legal filing details specific, documented violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, a critical federal law governing the handling of hazardous waste.

The evidence cited by the agency was concrete, including the observation of eight unlabeled hazardous waste containers, an open 55-gallon drum of waste ethylene, ten other open containers of hazardous materials, and universal waste stored for years beyond the legal limit.

These are substantive failures that carry real-world risks of fire, explosion, and toxic exposure. The legitimacy of the EPA’s case is rooted in this clear, factual evidence of non-compliance. The only frivolous component of this case is the inadequacy of the $5,000 penalty relative to the gravity of the violations.

EPA DAP Global Inc_RCRA ESA_June 11 2025_Redacted Download

You can see that expedited settlement agreement on the EPA’s website: https://yosemite.epa.gov/OA/RHC/EPAAdmin.nsf/Filings/98ED54265BC7A12985258CA6006FA433/$File/DAP%20Global%20Inc_RCRA%20ESA_June%2011%202025_Redacted.pdf

💡 Explore Corporate Misconduct by Category

Corporations harm people every day — from wage theft to pollution. Learn more by exploring key areas of injustice.

💀 Product Safety Violations — When companies risk lives for profit.
🌿 Environmental Violations — Pollution, ecological collapse, and unchecked greed.
💼 Labor Exploitation — Wage theft, worker abuse, and unsafe conditions.
🛡️ Data Breaches & Privacy Abuses — Misuse and mishandling of personal information.
💵 Financial Fraud & Corruption — Lies, scams, and executive impunity.

NOTE:

This website is facing massive amounts of headwind trying to procure the lawsuits relating to corporate misconduct. We are being pimp-slapped by a quadruple whammy:

The Trump regime's reversal of the laws & regulations meant to protect us is making it so victims are no longer filing lawsuits for shit which was previously illegal.
Donald Trump's defunding of regulatory agencies led to the frequency of enforcement actions severely decreasing. What's more, the quality of the enforcement actions has also plummeted.
The GOP's insistence on cutting the healthcare funding for millions of Americans in order to give their billionaire donors additional tax cuts has recently shut the government down. This government shut down has also impacted the aforementioned defunded agencies capabilities to crack down on evil-doers. Donald Trump has since threatened to make these agency shutdowns permanent on account of them being "democrat agencies".
My access to the LexisNexis legal research platform got revoked. This isn't related to Trump or anything, but it still hurt as I'm being forced to scrounge around public sources to find legal documents now. Sadge.

All four of these factors are severely limiting my ability to access stories of corporate misconduct.

Due to this, I have temporarily decreased the amount of articles published everyday from 5 down to 3, and I will also be publishing articles from previous years as I was fortunate enough to download a butt load of EPA documents back in 2022 and 2023 to make YouTube videos with.... This also means that you'll be seeing many more environmental violation stories going forward :3

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

Aleeia (owner and publisher of www.evilcorporations.com)

Also, can we talk about how ICE has a $170 billion annual budget, while the EPA-- which protects the air we breathe and water we drink-- barely clocks $4 billion? Just something to think about....