#PFAS Chemicals
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The Guardian: In our blood: how the US allowed toxic chemicals to seep into our lives
For decades, it was the secret behind the magic show of homemaking across the US. Applied to a pan, it could keep a fried egg from sticking to the surface.Soaked into a carpet, it could shrug off spills of red wine. Sprayed onto shoes and coats, it could keep the kids dry on a rainy day.
But the most clandestine maneuver of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, was much less endearing: seeping into the blood and organs of hundreds of millions of people who used products containing the chemical.
Most people who have heard of the chemical likely know about it because it was found to be toxic and removed from consumer goods in 2015 after decades of use, leading to modern boasts of “PFOA-free” on product packaging. In recent years, PFOA has also become the target of widespread regulatory action, news media attention and even a Hollywood movieas contaminated drinking water was discovered in hundreds of communities across the country.
While most concerns about the chemical’s health risks have centered on communities where research has linked PFOA to cancer and other serious illnesses, public health researchers say it serves as a klaxon of something more insidious.
PFOA is just one of dozens of modern-day chemicals that are found in the bodies of the majority of Americans, regardless of where they live. Research has also shown that more Americans are facing a growing number of ailments and disorders, from autoimmune disease to developmental disorders such as autism and some cancers. Scientists are increasingly concerned these two truths are linked, and some believe that the American public and lawmakers alike are dangerously unaware of the perils lurking in their veins.
“It’s very hard for people to understand exposure and effects when they can’t see a smoking gun,” said Linda Birnbaum, a former director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences.
Sorting out the causes of troubling public health trends is extremely difficult. For example, how much is due to aging demographics, personal behaviors, diagnostic changes or environmental exposures? But in recent years, scientists have accumulated enough data to conclude with confidence that humans face significant health risks from exposure to common commercial chemicals,and that regulations designed to protect them are failing.
“I do think this area has been badly overridden by industry,” said Wendy Wagner, an attorney and professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law who has written about chemical contaminants. “People don’t realize that we actually encourage and even subsidize the production of tens of thousands of chemicals, while imposing essentially no requirements on manufacturers to test their safety. Nor do we ask whether we need the chemical, whether it’s useful, whether there are safer substitutes – or what it’s doing to the environment.”
When to declare a chemical safe or unsafe is critical. Experts say that due to flaws in federal regulation, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is perennially playing catch up. The majority of the 86,000 consumer chemicals registered with the agency have never received vigorous toxicity testing.
The EPA doesn’t dispute that untested chemicals have been approved for use, but told the Examination that “far fewer” than 86,000 chemicals are still used today. The agency further stated that it believes it has made “significant progress” in addressing the risks of chemicals over the past four decades and in recent years has worked to draft a bevy of new rules and actions to address remaining high-priority risks.
“Where we identify unreasonable risks from a chemical, we must take action to address [them]”, the agency wrote in an email. “These proposed rules are great examples of protective actions that have prompted strong engagement from industry and environmental [non-profit] stakeholders, but we made them by following the law and the science to protect human health.”
The American Chemistry Council (ACC), a trade group for the chemical industry, also pushed back on the notion that commercial chemicals are under-tested or there was a lack of toxicology data, saying in a statement: “Chemicals in commerce are subject to stringent government oversight.”
But PFOA is an example of how a chemical can slip through the cracks and cause damage even when its dangers are eventually identified.
A phaseout of that chemical in consumer products began in the early 2000s and concluded in 2015, but it remains in the bodies of more than nine in 10 Americans today, its impacts still unfolding.
Tracey Woodruff, director of the University of California San Francisco program on reproductive health and environment, said the dangers of PFOA exposure are real, if difficult to appreciate. A study she helped lead, published in 2014 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, calculated a relationship between decreased birth weight and PFOA.
“What we have learned is that even small amounts of these chemicals have an impact on fetal development, including increasing risk of infant death,” said Woodruff, who is on the advisory council of the Examination.
But the dangers of chemical exposure go far beyond PFOA.
Premature babies in intensive care units appear to have higher amounts of plastics chemicals called phthalates in their bodies, likely from exposure to breathing equipment, according to a 2020 paper authored by Chris Gennings, director of the division of biostatistics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and colleagues. Phthalate mixtures, the report noted, can impact “neurobehavioral development”, with other studies finding links to aggression, inattention and rule-breaking behavior in boys from prenatal exposure. Gennings adds that even healthy children face similar risks from plastics chemicals still commonly found in baby bottles.
And studies show even the most cautious parents may not be able to escape the sins of the past.
Over the last 10 years, new research in the field of epigenetics, which studies how behavior and environmental exposures can affect how genes work, has found increasing evidence that harm from chemical exposures may become inherited. The chemicals change how the body operates, passing the changes down through two or three generations, and maybe even more. While the effect is well established in animal studies, researchers are now going about the much more difficult task of studying people and sorting correlation from causation, according to Carrie Breton, an environmental epidemiologist at the University of Southern California who published a review of recent research on epigenetics in 2021.
But for Breton, the data linking some chemicals to toxic effects is already strong enough to warrant action, even if the exact mechanism – epigenetic or otherwise – is not yet fully understood.
“Should we understand how it’s happening? Can that help inform interventions? Yes,” Breton said. “But from a policy point of view … If we have evidence of that harm, we should be able to start regulating and doing something about it now.”
Why chemicals in consumer products aren’t better regulated
Sixty-one years ago, the marine biologist Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring, a book often hailed as revolutionary for its compelling communication of the risks of pesticides and other substances. The book is credited with helping propel a popular movement that led to the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as the federal Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, which have dramatically reduced environmental pollution over the past half-century.
But, experts say, health threats from commercial chemicals remain fundamentally the same. So what went wrong?
Sarah Vogel, senior vice-president for healthy communities at the non-profit Environmental Defense Fund, says US environmental standards have improved in some ways since the publication of Silent Spring, especially in the first few decades after the book was published. Urban waterways like Ohio’s Cuyahoga River aren’t catching on fire anymore. Neighborhoods are no longer being sprayed with dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT),which has been linked to breast cancer, hypertension and obesity in the daughters of women exposed to the bug killer. Vogel’s organization and others successfully pushed for a widespread ban of the pesticide in the US in 1972.
Progress on chemicals in consumer products, however, has lagged behind, Vogel said.
“On the chemicals piece – chemicals that are going into everything from paints and carpeting, cars and planes and all the rest of it,” Vogel said. “Think of the complexities of plastics that we use now. There have been a lot of new chemicals we’ve produced.”
Ostensibly designed to enable the EPA to collect information on chemicals from the companies that created them and ban the ones found to be unacceptably toxic, experts say the law had major flaws from the start. Perhaps none loom larger than the law’s “grandfathering” of tens of thousands of chemicals already in the marketplace, removing most from scrutiny. Vogel says the law was further diminished by rollbacks and budget cuts.
“TSCA effectively became a dead letter law,” Vogel said, meaning its original intentions were gutted.
In one of the most significant moments in the law’s history, in the 1980s the EPA moved to ban asbestos, a well-known carcinogen. But a 1991 US court of appeals decision tossed out most of the ruling, weakening the power of TSCA, and the administration of President George HW Bush declined to appeal. Contrary to popular belief, asbestos remains legal for various uses today.
“That really kneecapped the EPA,” said Melanie Benesh, legislative attorney for the non-profit Environmental Working Group. “It made it much more difficult for them to do much for existing chemicals.”
In 2016, the US Congress passed the Lautenberg Act, which overhauled the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act and gave the EPA new authority, leading to the creation of two separate programs at the agency to review old and new chemicals. The agency announced a plan last year to fully ban asbestos.
But policy specialists like Vogel are withholding judgment on the significance of the reform as the Biden administration makes its mark, introducing new regulations on PFOA and similar chemicals in drinking water and evoking TSCA to potentially regulate 10 more toxic substances, including those used in rubber, plastics and fuels.
Although the EPA told the Examination it agrees that TSCA “largely failed to serve its purpose” over its first four decades, it said the 2016 update allows the agency to “effectively protect human health and the environment” through a slew of new mandates and regulatory authorities.
“Despite facing a massive increase in responsibilities and statutory deadlines from the most significant piece of environmental legislation enacted in a generation, the [Trump] administration never asked for any additional resources to implement TSCA,” the agency said. “Still, we’ve taken the resources we have and managed to make significant progress.”
For its part, the American Chemistry Council says it has “consistently called attention to challenges with TSCA” and supports the law.
But others say the numbers tell the story. Kyla Bennett, a former EPA employee and current director of science policy at the non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told the Examination that at recent rates of review, it would takethousands of years to assess all 86,000 chemicals currently approved for use.
EPA staff interviewed by the Examination say the agency’s chemical programs remain understaffed, overwhelmed and burdened by still-ineffective regulations and a persistent culture that enables the chemical industry instead of counterbalancing it.
Martin Phillips, an EPA chemist, was reassigned from the agency’s new chemicals program in 2020 after filing a whistleblower complaint. In an interview, Phillips noted that the EPA is currently assessing risks associated with asbestos, phthalates and ethylene dibromide – a fuel additive considered highly toxic and likely carcinogenic – nearly 40 years after Bill Drayton, a former EPA assistant administrator, warned in a report that the agency was moving too slowly to regulate them. “The agency felt it had enough information back then to regulate the chemicals, but that regulation hasn’t happened in 39 years,” Phillips said.
Cancer isn’t the only health risk from modern chemicals
Cancer is perhaps the first ailment that comes to mind when most people imagine the risks of chemical exposure. And with good reason: the disease is the number two killer in the US and remains a persistent threat from many modern chemicals, say researchers.
But a focus on cancer can obscure other risks, including heart disease, which kills 90,000 more people annually.
Philip Landrigan, a world-renowned epidemiologist and director of Boston College’s global public health program and Global Observatory on Planetary Health, has been at the forefront of efforts to restrict toxic substances like lead and asbestos for decades. While asbestos is a potent carcinogen, lead impacts many parts of the body, including the brain and bones. Perhaps deadliest is its damage to the kidneys, which Landrigan says likely increases blood pressure and hypertension, raising the risk for heart disease and stroke.
“Cancer is a frightening disease,” Landrigan said. “But actually a larger number of pollution-related deaths are due to heart disease and stroke.”
Vogel says that over the past several decades, advancements in the understanding of the human genome, microbiome and other bodily systems have allowed researchers to begin developing a better picture of these types of non-cancer risks from exposure to even very small amounts of chemicals.
One of the most alarming varieties is “endocrine disruptors”, a moniker given to any substance that interferes with the body’s transmission of hormones – or even mimics them. This causes cascading effects in the body that may be difficult to predict or understand, impacting metabolism, energy levels, reproduction, development and mood. Scientists believe that many “forever chemicals”, including PFOA, operate this way by accumulating in the body and tinkering with its organs and systems.
Birnbaum, the formerdirector of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences,compares the effect to medicines such as birth control pills. Like medicines, commercial chemicals also alter the body’s processes.
Endocrine disruptors can compound the risks of exposure to other toxic substances. Landrigan points to bisphenol A, a plastics chemical American parents are perhaps most acquainted with because of the packaging of baby products marked “BPA-free.” Landrigan says research shows BPA, like lead, contributes to heart disease, likely by modifying cholesterol levels and increasing atherosclerosis.
But it is endocrine disruption during pregnancy and early childhood – what Landrigan calls “the first 1,000 days of life”– that most keeps researchers up at night.
“That’s when the organ systems in a child’s body are being formed,” Landrigan said. “The development of the brain, lungs, the immune system, the reproductive organs … It doesn’t take much to derail them.”
Studies show phthalates and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), both endocrine disruptors, can cause brain injuries in children, showing up as reduced IQ later in life, says Landrigan.
The health effects of endocrine disruption can be impossible for an individual to link to chemical exposure because they’re hidden among a sea of other variables, such as parenting, education and chance.
For some, the chemical effect will pale in comparison to other factors. But for an unknown percentage, it will be just enough to harm or kill.
“And multiply that by millions of people,” Landrigan said.
Changing how chemicals are regulated
Chemicals are everywhere in modern society.
The phthalates that Gennings’ research shows enter the bodies of babies in neonatal units likely come from the breathing apparatus they could otherwise die without. A slew of PFAS chemicals are integral in the manufacturing of microchips.
But Gennings says if certain types of breathing apparatus expose babies to fewer phthalates, simple awareness and selection of the better equipment could drive down exposures.
“People need to know about the chemicals they are exposed to. How can you make an informed consumer decision without knowing how to balance risks and benefits?” Gennings said.
Wagner, the University of Texas at Austin School of Law professor, doesn’t trust industry to be forthcoming. In 2008 she co-authored a book titled Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health Research.
Wagner has laid out a series of steps she believes the EPA could take to better regulate chemicals. The proposal includes requiring chemical companies to do more robust toxicity research and provide easy-to-understand analysis of a chemical’s risks and benefits to the EPA and the public. That would allow the agency to focus instead on enforcement.
Many experts say the EPA should ban entire classes of chemicals and create new regulations that consider cumulative risks from chemicals known to target the same organs.
The EPA told the Examination that it’s already thinking along these lines. For example, the agency said that earlier this year it released a “proposed approach” to assess the cumulative risk of phthalate chemicals and is also working to break hundreds of PFAS chemicals into subclasses based on shared characteristics.
“The agency is focused on improving its ability to address multiple chemicals at once, thereby accelerating the effectiveness of regulations, enforcement actions, and the tools and technologies needed to remove PFAS from air, land and water,” the EPA said.
Landrigan, the 81-year-old Boston College epidemiologist, takes the long view. Over his decades-long career, he’s worked with scientists and lawmakers to slowly but surely diminish the seemingly intractable global health threats of lead and asbestos. He’s optimistic it can be done again.
“There’s that old parable: ‘When’s the best time to plant a shade tree?’” Landrigan said. “The answer is 20 years ago. But the second best time is now.”
#pfos#pfas#forever chemicals#PFAS Chemicals#EPA#pollution in our blood#In our blood: how the US allowed toxic chemicals to seep into our lives#toxic chemicals
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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #13
April 5-12 2024
President Biden announced the cancellation of a student loan debt for a further 277,000 Americans. This brings the number of a Americans who had their debt canceled by the Biden administration through different means since the Supreme Court struck down Biden's first place in 2023 to 4.3 million and a total of $153 billion of debt canceled so far. Most of these borrowers were a part of the President's SAVE Plan, a debt repayment program with 8 million enrollees, over 4 million of whom don't have to make monthly repayments and are still on the path to debt forgiveness.
President Biden announced a plan that would cancel student loan debt for 4 million borrowers and bring debt relief to 30 million Americans The plan takes steps like making automatic debt forgiveness through the public service forgiveness so qualified borrowers who don't know to apply will have their debts forgiven. The plan will wipe out the interest on the debt of 23 million Americans. President Biden touted how the plan will help black and Latino borrowers the most who carry the heavily debt burdens. The plan is expected to go into effect this fall ahead of the election.
President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced the closing of the so-called gun show loophole. For years people selling guns outside of traditional stores, such as at gun shows and in the 21st century over the internet have not been required to preform a background check to see if buyers are legally allowed to own a fire arm. Now all sellers of guns, even over the internet, are required to be licensed and preform a background check. This is the largest single expansion of the background check system since its creation.
The EPA published the first ever regulations on PFAS, known as forever chemicals, in drinking water. The new rules would reduce PFAS exposure for 100 million people according to the EPA. The Biden Administration announced along side the EPA regulations it would make available $1 billion dollars for state and local water treatment to help test for and filter out PFAS in line with the new rule. This marks the first time since 1996 that the EPA has passed a drinking water rule for new contaminants.
The Department of Commerce announced a deal with microchip giant TSMC to bring billions in investment and manufacturing to Arizona. The US makes only about 10% of the world's microchips and none of the most advanced chips. Under the CHIPS and Science Act the Biden Administration hopes to expand America's high-tech manufacturing so that 20% of advanced chips are made in America. TSMC makes about 90% of the world's advanced chips. The deal which sees a $6.6 billion dollar grant from the US government in exchange for $65 billion worth of investment by TSMC in 3 high tech manufacturing facilities in Arizona, the first of which will open next year. This represents the single largest foreign investment in Arizona's history and will bring thousands of new jobs to the state and boost America's microchip manufacturing.
The EPA finalized rules strengthening clean air standards around chemical plants. The new rule will lower the risk of cancer in communities near chemical plants by 96% and eliminate 6,200 tons of toxic air pollution each year. The rules target two dangerous cancer causing chemicals, ethylene oxide and chloroprene, the rule will reduce emissions of these chemicals by 80%.
the Department of the Interior announced it had beaten the Biden Administration goals when it comes to new clean energy projects. The Department has now permitted more than 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects on public lands, surpass the Administrations goal for 2025 already. These solar, wind, and hydro projects will power 12 million American homes with totally green power. Currently 10 gigawatts of clean energy are currently being generated on public lands, powering more than 5 million homes across the West.
The Department of Transportation announced $830 million to support local communities in becoming more climate resilient. The money will go to 80 projects across 37 states, DC, and the US Virgin Islands The projects will help local Infrastructure better stand up to extreme weather causes by climate change.
The Senate confirmed Susan Bazis, Robert White, and Ann Marie McIff Allen to lifetime federal judgeships in Nebraska, Michigan, and Utah respectively. This brings the total number of judges appointed by President Biden to 193
#Thanks Biden#Joe Biden#student loans#student loan debt#debt forgiveness#gun control#forever chemicals#PFAS#climate change#green energy
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"Despite a huge amount of political opposition from the chemical industry, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its first regulations aimed at limiting quantities of PFAs, or ‘forever chemicals,’ in American drinking water.
For decades, Polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAs have been used for coatings that resist fire, oil, stains, and water and are now found in a wide variety of products like waterproof clothing, stain-resistant furniture, food packaging, adhesives, firefighting spray foams, and non-stick cooking surfaces.
There are thousands of PFAS compounds with varying effects and toxicity levels, and the new EPA regulations will require water utilities to test for 6 different classes of them.
The new standards will reduce PFAS exposure—and thereby decrease the health risk—for 100 million people in the U.S.
A fund worth $1 billion for treatment and testing will be made available to water utilities nationwide—part of a $9 billion investment made possible by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to assist communities impacted by PFAS contamination.
“Drinking water contaminated with PFAS has plagued communities across this country for too long,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan in a statement Wednesday.
Under Regan’s leadership, the EPA began in 2021 to establish a roadmap for dealing with widespread PFAS contamination, and so far they’ve gathered much data, including monitoring drinking water, and begun requiring more reports from businesses about use of the unregulated substances.
The agency reported that current peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that exposure to certain levels of PFAS may lead to a myriad of health issues that are difficult to specify because of the variety of compounds coming from different places.
Regardless, the 66,000 water utility operators will have five years to test for the PFAS pollution and install necessary technology to treat the contamination, which the EPA estimates that 6%–10% of facilities will need. [Note: Deeply curious where they got a number that low, but anyway.]
Records show that some of the manufacturers knew these chemicals posed health hazards. A few major lawsuits in recent years have been settled that sought to hold chemical companies, like 3M, accountable for the environment damage.""
-via Good News Network, April 13, 2024
#united states#pfas#forever chemicals#epa#environmental protection agency#water quality#water pollution#clean water#good news#hope
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This regulation was long overdue.
#VotingMatters #VoteBlue
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#hey why are they in makeup???????#to make them water proof?? oh fuck#good news#science#environmentalism#nature#environment#new zealand#pfas#forever chemicals
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PFAS have earned the name "forever chemicals" with good reason—the man-made compounds, which can take thousands of years to degrade and are found in everything from grease-resistant food packaging to water-repellent clothing, have made their way into nearly half the U.S. tap water supply.
Now, in a study featured in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, New Jersey Institute of Technology chemists have demonstrated a new lab-based method to detect traces of PFAS from food packaging material, water and soil samples in just three minutes or less.
Continue Reading.
#Science#Chemistry#Environmental Sciences#Water#Plastic#Forever Chemicals#PFAS#Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances
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STOP DRINKING PRIME!! I KNEW IT WAS BADD!!
Prime Lawsuit over forever chemicals!!
PFO chemicals, more commonly known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are a group of man-made chemicals used in a variety of consumer products for their water and grease resistance properties. These chemicals are considered harmful for several reasons:
Bioaccumulation: PFAS can accumulate in the environment, animals, and humans over time, leading to long-lasting effects and potential health risks.
Health Concerns: Exposure to PFAS has been linked to various health issues, including thyroid disruption, immune system effects, and an increased risk of certain cancers.
Persistence: One of the major concerns with PFAS is their persistence in the environment. These chemicals do not break down easily and can remain in the environment for long periods.
Regulatory Concerns: Due to the potential health and environmental risks associated with PFAS, there have been increasing regulatory actions to limit their use. 🤔
#pay attention#educate yourselves#educate yourself#knowledge is power#reeducate yourself#reeducate yourselves#think about it#think for yourselves#think for yourself#do your homework#do some research#ask yourself questions#question everything#lawsuit#pfas#forever chemicals#food supply chain#food supply#for your health#health tips#you decide
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"Based on the latest U.S. guidelines for PFOA in drinking water, rainwater everywhere would be judged unsafe to drink. Although in the industrial world we don't often drink rainwater, many people around the world expect it to be safe to drink and it supplies many of our drinking water sources," Cousins continue.
The Stockholm University team have conducted laboratory and field work on the atmospheric presence and transport of PFAS for the past decade. They have noted that the levels of some harmful PFAS in the atmosphere are not declining notably despite their phase out by the major manufacturer, 3M, already two decades ago. PFAS are known to be highly persistent, but their continued presence in the atmosphere is also due to their properties and natural processes that continually cycle PFAS back to the atmosphere from the surface environment. One important natural cycling process for PFAS is the transport from seawater to marine air by sea spray aerosols, which is another active research area for the Stockholm University team.
[...]
"So now, due to the global spread of PFAS, environmental media everywhere will exceed environmental quality guidelines designed to protect human health and we can do very little to reduce the PFAS contamination. In other words, it makes sense to define a planetary boundary specifically for PFAS and, as we conclude in the paper, this boundary has now been exceeded," said Scheringer.
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Excerpt from this New York Times story:
The Biden administration is designating two “forever chemicals,” man-made compounds that are linked to serious health risks, as hazardous substances under the Superfund law, shifting responsibility for their cleanup to polluters from taxpayers.
The new rule announced on Friday empowers the government to force the many companies that manufacture or use perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as PFOA, and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, known as PFOS, to monitor any releases into the environment and be responsible for cleaning them up. Those companies could face billions of dollars in liabilities.
The pair of compounds are part of a larger family of chemical substances known collectively as PFAS.
The compounds, found in everything from dental floss to firefighting foams to children’s toys, are called forever chemicals because they degrade very slowly and can accumulate in the body and the environment. Exposure to PFAS has been associated with metabolic disorders, decreased fertility in women, developmental delays in children and increased risk of some prostate, kidney and testicular cancers, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The chemicals are so ubiquitous that they can be detected in the blood of almost every person in the United States. One recent government study discovered PFAS chemicals in nearly half of the nation’s tap water. In 2022, the E.P.A. found the chemicals could cause harm at levels “much lower than previously understood” and that almost no level of exposure was safe.
The announcement follows an extraordinary move last week from the E.P.A. mandating that water utilities reduce the PFAS in drinking water to near-zero levels. The agency has also proposed to designate seven additional PFAS chemicals as hazardous waste.
#PFAS#forever chemicals#perfluorooctanoic acid#PFOA#also known as PFOA#and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid#PFOS
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Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances
#Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances#pfas#pfass#wikipedia#wikipedia pictures#afff#aqueous film forming foam#firefighter#firefighters#first responders#firefighting#firefighting foam#chemistry#chemicals#science
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FAS, a group of manufactured chemicals commonly used since the 1940s, are called ‘forever chemicals’ for a reason. Bacteria can’t eat them; fire can’t incinerate them; and water can’t dilute them. And, if these toxic chemicals are buried, they leach into surrounding soil.
Now, Northwestern University chemists have done the seemingly impossible. Using low temperatures and inexpensive, common substances, the research team developed a process that causes two major classes of PFAS compounds to fall apart—leaving behind only benign end products.
The simple technique potentially could be a powerful solution for finally disposing of these harmful chemicals, which are linked to dangerous health effects and may be common in your water supply.
#pfas#forever chemicals#northwestern university#chemistry#science#oh brave new world#good news network
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But what made my raincoat so trustworthy that day on the mountain could also, in theory, kill me — or, more likely, kill or sicken any of the thousands of people who live downstream of the manufacturers that make waterproofing chemicals and the landfills where waterproof clothing is incinerated or interred.
Outdoor apparel is typically ultraprocessed and treated using perfluoroalkyl and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, a class of water- and stain-resistant “forever chemicals” that are more commonly referred to as PFAS (pronounced “pee-fass”). After decades of work by environmental groups and health advocates, states and retailers are finally banning the sale of textiles that have been treated with the chemicals, which in the outdoor industry often manifest in the form of Gore-Tex membranes or “durable water repellent” treatments.
These bans are fast approaching: Beginning in 2025 — less than 12 months from now — California will forbid the sale of most PFAS-treated textiles; New York will restrict them in apparel; and Washington will regulate stain- and waterproofing treatments, with similar regulations pending or approved in a number of other states. Following pressure from activists, the nation’s largest outdoor retailer, REI, also announced last winter that it will ban PFAS in all the textile products and cookware sold in its stores starting fall 2024; Dick’s Sporting Goods will also eliminate PFAS from its brand-name clothing.
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It is also because of this bond that PFAS are so stubbornly persistent — in the environment, certainly, but also in us. An estimated 98% to 99% of people have traces of PFAS in their bodies. Researchers have found the molecules in breast milk, rainwater, and Antarctica’s snow. We inhale them in dust and drink them in our tap water, and because they look a little like a fatty acid to our bodies, they can cause health problems that we’re only beginning to grasp. So far, PFAS have been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, decreased fertility, elevated cholesterol, weight gain, thyroid disease, the pregnancy complication pre-eclampsia, increased risk of preterm birth and low birth weight, hormone interference, and reduced vaccine response in children.
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“The team created a composite of boron nitride and titanium dioxide and discovered that they had a substance with the best of both worlds. It was activated by the UV light in the atmosphere and it was capable of destroying PFOA very quickly. In deionized water, it took less than three hours to break down 99 percent of the PFOA into carbon dioxide, fluorine, and minerals. In salty water, the process takes about nine hours.
The team will now investigate how good this substance is at breaking down other perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – the broader class of forever chemicals.”
There’s been a lot in the news about PFAS lately--there is tremendous effort being put into addressing this issue and, while faster would be better, progress is being made.
#pfas#water pollution#plastic pollution#chemicals#forever chemicals#water treatment#science#technology#environment#good news
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