Seeing people ask why PFAS hasn’t just been immediately banned. Like a lot of things, “it’s complicated.”
1. These compounds are extremely good at what they do. From lubrication to fire retardants there’s a reason these compounds are everywhere.
2. The press and many activists tend to treat things in a binary manner but science doesn’t really work like that. It’s clear that very high levels of these compounds are bad. It’s less clear that lower levels are bad. Lots of things (like vitamins) are toxic at high levels and actually good at low levels. Not saying PFAS is good, but it’s not as simple as just saying any is terrible either.
3. The ability to detect these compounds has gotten much better over the years. We’re now talking parts per trillion measurements. At those levels you can find just about anything. A lot of the current panic is a combo of this ability to measure things combined with “2” above around any detection being slated as terrible.
4. Both the reporting and public’s reactions tend to be illogical. PFAS found at a nearby factory? Shut it down. Sue everyone. However a growing body of evidence is finding PFAS in things like synthetic turf playing fields and yet with rare exception most school districts seem perfectly happy having these instead of plain old grass. As such the amount of “outrage” is often rooted in the convenience of it supporting existing activist movements (close the factory!) than it is based in any science or defensible reality.
Not for a moment trying to suggest we shouldn’t pay attention to this, and we probably should look for alternative compounds. But the near hysteria from some corners creates more of a distraction than actually helping anything.
The calls the shut down the factories are rational. They might not be reasonable, but that is debatable.
Typically, if you find someone is lying or manipulating repeatedly, you jump to stricter outcomes. If you ban a specific substance in cookware and they just create a slightly different, untested, one... If they promise that waste won't escape the facility because there are safe ways to handle it, yet it continues to happen...
It's like having a child that continually pushes the limits of the rules and repeatedly causes trouble. At some point you must realize they are lying and will hurt themselves or others. You can't play with that ball responsibly? Guess what, it's gone.
When are we gonna have stricter outcomes for the people who use such tactics to peddle things like bag bans, onerous management of residential water consumption, vehicle inspection requirements and other things that waste resources and political capital treating something that is at best a tiny fraction of whatever the problem supposedly is? These people at best do nothing and at worse sully the good name of people who want to enact smarter but less emotionally appealing policy to treat those problems. They've been caught repeatedly using the same sleazy tactics you say are worthy of stricter treatment.
Not everything is a slippery slope. PFAS are causing health and hormone dysregulation issues across the globe. Working to eliminate them in the interests of improved health and happiness for all humanity is not a bad thing and will not necessarily lead to banning whatever the bogey of the month happens to be.
Can you explain more? It seems like you're arguing with yourself.
You say if we ban one substance, they'll just come out with a less tested, less understood, and likely worse new one. I probably agree with this!
Then you say we have to just take it away, like a kid who is being irresponsible with a ball. I understand this means you think we should ban the materials.
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If we ban these substances, won't research just pour all the more heavily into the new ones, causing the 1st scenario you mentioned? Are you suggesting we ban research into _any_ new materials whatsoever?
"Are you suggesting we ban research into _any_ new materials whatsoever?"
Quite the opposite. I'm saying the items should be tested/researched. Hence my use of untested, as you also point out.
Essentially, stop trusting the company because they are acting like a child. You ban that class of chemicals until they can prove they are responsible and the chemical can realilistically be handled safely (unlikely for consumer products since the waste at product life end would be unmanageable). You can do this through a strict certification and surveillance program as well as limiting the use of the product to industrial applications where no alternatives exist.
But the only real point I was trying to make is that people are more likely to support bans on a rational basis that the companies have fucked up before and lied/manipulated and are likely to cause more harm like that in the future. The stuff we are discussing at this point is a little outside of that as we are getting into what people would debate considering what is reasonable.
It's like no one remembers the "BPA-Free" crap where manufacturers replaced it with other, untested, possibly-just-as-bad analogues. Those manufacturers have already acted in bad faith, why would anyone trust them to do better next time? They weren't punished and they have all the wrong incentives.
He's simply suggesting new materials be banned by default, and research and studies that prove it is safe are needed to allow a material to be mass produced.
It's always funny when people pretend such policies would be the end of the world, when Europe has been doing this for years.
> These compounds are extremely good at what they do. From lubrication to fire retardants there’s a reason these compounds are everywhere.
You could make the same argument about asbestos (and people probably did at the time).
You could also argue that it took class action lawsuits to finally push the cost of using it from "wonder product" to "only when really needed" to "not worth it" to "it's now illegal". (Granted the last step is not 100% tied to the financial cost).
Counter-example: ozone layer hole and CFC's (iirc), where the clear message of "this stuff causes this" led to a global ban and monitoring system on that generation of refrigerants.
It's a response to at least #1; CFCs were similarly widely used and good at what they did. It just turned out that "you're not allowed to use these any more" sparked some significant innovation in alternatives.
Interestingly there are still some CFCs for which no truly viable replacement exists. For instance aviation fire extinguishers still use reclaimed Halon largely produced before the ban.
Alternatives exist for aviation fire extinguishers; https://www.sportys.com/blog/which-fire-extinguisher-right-p.... Halotron needs a larger extinguisher (2x the weight/size, but it's not gonna be the thing to break your weight/balance budget) but is otherwise very similar, with a 96% reduction in environmental impact.
Interesting, wasn't aware Halotron had gotten any approvals. I imagine a lot of people will want to stick with their existing Halon ones since they're already there and, in the event of a fire, they'll want the most effective/maneuverable product available.
This is a valid point until you killed it with hyperbole. I know this from experience. This forum is probably okay for the hyperbole, but I always used the hyperbole even on non-friendly forums which caused me to "cede the higher ground".
If a product was being used where it "has no need to be", that would mean the manufacturer is doing something that is costing them money (the PFAS isn't free nor is the application of it) which ultimately cuts into the bottom lines. So if they are using it, maybe it is that something is needed in that fashion and they already have a large investment in it so use it vs let's just put this stuff everywhere because it's freeeeee.
i read the "no need" like there's no functional need for it to be there. benefit of doubt on my part that it is needed even if the "no need" commenter doesn't understand the need.
For cardboard packaging and cans they use to use some (more expensive) edible plant based wax. I see a video one time from someone with some healthy canned food business trying to return to it. Lack of demand drove up the prices even further. I suppose food is just to cheap?
>It just turned out that "you're not allowed to use these any more" sparked some significant innovation in alternatives.
Source? My impression was that alternatives were already being developed prior to widespread ban. A quick wikipedia search confirms this. The montreal protocol was signed in 1987 and came into effect in 1989, but by that time alternatives already existed.
"DuPont began producing hydrofluorocarbons as alternatives to Freon in the 1980s."
>Source? My impression was that alternatives were already being developed prior to widespread ban. A quick wikipedia search confirms this. The montreal protocol was signed in 1987 and came into effect in 1989, but by that time alternatives already existed.
The Montreal Protocol was signed in '87 but things had been underway since the 70s, including a partial ban on aerosols in in US in '78. DuPont saw the writing on the wall.
"In 1976 the United States National Academy of Sciences released a report concluding that the ozone depletion hypothesis was strongly supported by the scientific evidence. In response the United States, Canada and Norway banned the use of CFCs in aerosol spray cans in 1978."
Any widespread message must be simple. Even a moderate, sane movement will have hysteria on the fringes, just owing to it being large enough to have a fringe.
Message simplicity, discipline, and repetition, to maybe somewhat mitigate the inevitable and very effective nutpicking by corporate media (and other shills) for the purpose of discrediting any reform, accountability, etc.
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"The practice of sifting through the comments of blogs, email threads, discussion groups and other user generated content in an attempt find choice quotes proving that the advocates for or against a particular political opinion are unreasonable, uninformed extremists."
"Don't let children work in sweatshops" and "let women vote" were once the "hysterical fringes" of public policy. There's often a benefit to exploring the edges of the Overton window.
The implication of your first claim seems to be that fringe opinions would never become mainstream in society. I think essentially all of human history contradicts that pretty well...
Obviously children should not work in sweatshops and rather go to school instead, but do good numbers exist, that the "hysterical" campaigns increased those numbers and not just put the kids on the street to do scavenging on toxic dumbsters?
Well intended is not always well done and hystery is seldom helping. I remember from my youth(in germany), that work for kids was also forbidden. With some exceptions like delivering advertisement to every door. The result was, that this was a very shitty job, very badly paid (you were replaceble) and the ones illegally working for the bike shed for example, made way more money.
> do good numbers exist, that the "hysterical" campaigns increased those numbers and not just put the kids on the street to do scavenging on toxic dumbsters?
So let me get this straight your hypothesis is that campaign to get kids out of sweatshops were harmfull, and the reason we stopped putting them insweatshops is not public pressure but spontanous mass enlightenment?
Maybe it is your perception of these campaignes as hysterical thats wrong.
"So let me get this straight your hypothesis is that campaign to get kids out of sweatshops were harmful"
My hypothesis is, that just banning kids working in sweatshop is not enough to improve living conditions for those kids, but can in fact worsen them. So I repeat my question, do you have good numbers, that the living conditions actually improved?
Hysteric campaigns from the west often stop exactly there - so the companies can place a label on their product that says free of child labour, but it does not say at all, where those kids are now, but the consumers now feel better.
Do you have good numbers that being polite, reasonable and timid activism will get large corporations to give up billions in profits to please you?
We've had 26 climate change conferences, the issue was known for 40 years, nobody gave a flying fuck. Some kids blocked traffic in London for 1 day, and suddenly people paid attention.
How are you going to solve Nestle level of indignity and inhumanity?
"Nestlé admits slavery in Thailand while fighting child labour lawsuit in Ivory Coast"
If people were more hysterical, and the HQ of offending corporation burned down occasionally, then Nestle would sort itself out prompto
"Some kids blocked traffic in London for 1 day, and suddenly people paid attention."
Yeah, I know. We have the same in germany. The common people now do pay attention to the road blockers and want them all jailed as terrorists. I just do not see, how this will help the cause.
"If people were more hysterical, and the HQ of offending corporation burned down occasionally, then Nestle would sort itself out prompto"
Yes, they would simply tighten up security.
Rage is just rage, it does not solve anything, unless it is channeled constructivly. Lynch mobs just create a state of fear and people driven by fear seldom act smart. We do need the rage to act, but just acting does not improve anything. It is the right act, that can improve.
There was this big rage about poverty and exploitation that lead to socialism. But do you really think, that the socialist states improved anything? I was born into such a state. I do not think so. They were worse for the workers and worse for the environment.
They are trying to get the world to wake up and realize how desperate the situation is. The fact that we’re more worried about getting our BMWs to work on time says a lot more about us than it does about them.
> But do you really think, that the socialist states improved anything?
For some it did. In many places socialism was replacing some form of tyrany, foreign tyrany or feudalism, so it was hard to make things worse.
Before the revolutions some of my ancesteors were literally property. They were serfs, with all the fun bits like regular whippings, and living in a wooden hut. They went to nirmal-ish 2nd world life.
The other side of my family had someone who was repressed, i.e. dissapeared.
Today suffragettes are universally praised and
noone remmbers that they invented the letter bomb.
I don't advocate violence, but if you want a social movement to suceed, it has to have some teeth and power, either through court, money or civil disobedience.
"Before the revolutions some of my ancesteors were literally property. They were serfs, with all the fun bits like regular whippings, and living in a wooden hut. They went to nirmal-ish 2nd world life"
Before the revolution in russia, there were indeed quite some slaves. After the revolution, there were only slaves. Someone who is locked in and cannot leave the country and has otherwise little freedom to move and act, is a slave by my definition, so for me there was no overall improvement, rather the contrary.
"I don't advocate violence, but if you want a social movement to suceed, it has to have some teeth and power, either through court, money or civil disobedience."
I think it mainly needs to have a clear vision of what to achieve, if it wants to achieve that goal and not just blow of steam and create drama.
So, I am not saying, that blocking roads for example, is always bad, if it creates necessary attention to get a important message across. But what exactly is the message of extinction rebellion? We are all doomed, if we don't stop consuming so much? Because this is the message people are getting.
This is not helping the common people, who struggle daily to feed their family - and if those people have to fear of loosing their job, because they missed work because of a road block, then they certainly will not join the movement.
If you want to convince people, you have to provide solutions.
Green tech is a solution, but activism alone can only bring awareness towards it and not solve anything by its own. Otherwise I would join the road blocks.
> Before the revolution in russia, there were indeed quite some slaves. After the revolution, there were only slaves. Someone who is locked in and cannot leave the country and has otherwise little freedom to move and act, is a slave by my definition,
This is fictitious argument.
My Grandmother lived in USSR, she had education, a choice of career, could move across thousands of kilometers if she fell like it. She had axess to functional, if basic, medical care.
Her grandmother was property, she was illiterate and had to grind wheat by pulling the mill, untill her legs gave out. She died in agony. She could not leave the place to get medical care, even if she could afford it.
Sure living in USSR wasn't great, but if you think that's equivalent to being forced into slavery, you have left the plane of reasonable discourse.
"Sure living in USSR wasn't great, but if you think that's equivalent to being forced into slavery, you have left the plane of reasonable discourse. "
A house slave in the US was way better of, than a field slave, who were also way better off, than a slave in the mines. Their conditions were not equivalent, but slavery anyway.
"a choice of career"
Only as long as you strictly stayed in political line and had not the bad luck of someone denouncing you falsely. Or the bad luck of being born into the wrong family, etc.
The slaves in the gulag surely had it worse, than the better off ones in Moscow. So yes, the average peasant might have their living standard and freedom raised, but everyone else (except party members) had theirs lowered. Equivalisation of misery, hurey.
But we can probably end it here, because yes, generally not being allowed to leave the country, along with the daily terror of political totalitarian secret police qualifies clearly as a condition of slavery by my definition, to which you disagree in a discourse ending manner "you have left the plane of reasonable discourse."
> But do you really think, that the socialist states improved anything?
Socialism is a big tent term.
One one end you have "social democracy" where a market economy exists with some state ownership and taxation is used to ensure a good standard of living for all. This is also referred to a social capitalism or a social market economy. This is the kind of socialism you find in the Nordics and to a lesser extent Canada. Your Bernie Sanders socialism if you will.
On the other end you have "authoritarian state socialism" - the kind of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism you may be thinking of.
Then there's communism in which, in it's final form, there is no state at all.
These are all socialism but each has had very different outcomes.
So to answer your question with a question, to which kind of socialism are you referring? I'd say the former has worked out very well. The middle, not so much. The latter may not even be possible?
"So to answer your question with a question, to which kind of socialism are you referring?"
Obviously Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and add Pol Pot to that list, among Che Guevara and Castro.
Good intentions, but horrible outcome.
"Then there's communism in which, in it's final form, there is no state at all. The latter may not even be possible"
And it is up to debate and depends greatly how you would define "state".
Humans have existed and lived, before formal states were a thing, so it is definitely possible, but apart from that, Humans will always have organisations, to well, organize things. The question is, are these organisations mandatory and formal, or not. And then there are informal hierachies etc. so the main question is, will things improve and how and why, when we get rid of the nation states.
Eugenics was controversial too. What's your point?
No naive rules of thumb like "well if the public health experts like it then it must be good" or "bigger overton window = better" will ever come close to being a viable replacement for critical thinking on any specific policy matter. If the extreme fringes can't convert people to their cause then is their cause really that worthy?
Eugenics absolutely was fringe in the early 1900s. To claim otherwise is revisionist. The fact that they got as far as they did, even passing laws in some states, is testament to what happens when people outsource their thinking to the experts and the experts engaged in extreme policy not supported by the people. Make no mistake, the policy would have worked but the end did not justify the means outside of the circle jerk in which the "experts" and were living.
The fact that the fringe was unable to convert the broader public is why the overwhelming majority of eugenics policy was unilaterally adopted by institutions (government or otherwise) vs being legislated by politicians and that's because people didn't really want it en-masse.
Eugenics came and went over the careers timeline of the people who peddled it (as most of these policy fads do). At best it was tolerated by the uninvolved masses. Things like women voting, gay rights, etc. managed to persist after the people who staked their careers on it and would be compelled to peddle it croaked. Eugenics failed to convert the masses (good).
That official policy of what you speak is just that, unilateral policy by various government institutions (usually prison systems and public health institutions). Most states didn't manage to get it through the legislature in any meaningful capacity because it was not something the masses cared for and therefore not something that a politician could earn votes peddling. It was as endorsed by the masses as some DOT policy about pothole patching would be.
You don’t think the outcome of WWII might have changed minds and hearts instead? Most literature I’ve read was eugenics became deeply unpopular following a realization of what the Nazis had done.
"the policy would have worked" - in what sense? Are you genuinely arguing that eugenicists would have objectively and accurately determined which genes led to strongest/most intelligent/most productive humans and only allowed people with those genes to reproduce, and successfully ensured "defective" genes were eliminated from the homo sapiens gene pool? Even if somehow they had achieved that, the thought of living in a society where a human life is only considered valuable if it fits some predefined criteria is frankly far too high a cost to pay.
(Interestingly I was watching Man in the High Castle last night, the episode that "celebrates" the choice of one of the characters to have himself be euthanised because of an incurable medical condition. It was an odd experience because superficially it came across as a very powerful and moving scene, despite the horrid underlying creepiness of it. But it didn't seem hard to believe that people could genuinely be swayed into thinking that it was a "noble" thing to have your life terminated just because of a particular genetic condition. I suppose at least it's a more justifiable stance than believing that anyone not of a particular race was undeserving of a fulfilling life, though clearly many eugenicists believed exactly that too).
This is more or less where we are now with mainstream macroeconomics - a previously fringe theory becomes dominant and too many people stop thinking in deference to the experts.
Do you have any references that support this lack of support? Everything I have ever read points to a general acceptance as being a modern and scientific theory if not a direct moral imperative at that time. It wasn’t until the results of WWII were unpacked and civil rights debated was it really revisited on a humanist basis. I would be genuinely glad to read material that refutes this.
> How about denying megaphones to the hysterical fringes?
Do you think it is an accident that, when there is a popular movement, whether it is punk rock or protests against vietanm war, the media will invite the most crazy person possible and portray them as maniacs?
>How about denying megaphones to the hysterical fringes?
Most megaphones today are in the hands of private corporations who profit off of "engagement", that is, giving megaphones to the fringes. How do you suppose we do that?
Not to mention that the line between not providing a megaphone and suppressing free speech is a thin one.
So then why is HN, a community full of people who are much more educated than average and much more frequently employed in fields where logic and reason are key, so constantly receptive to the "hysteria on the fringes" take on such issues?
Reddit, 4cham, other cesspools like that I get, but why HN? This community fancies itself as having a little more rationality and self awareness than that. So either there's an explanation for why those takes gain as much traction here or...
Smarter people on average != less emotional ones. What parent is complaining are emotional reactions. Here we have a proof that even HN readers do have emotions and sometimes they get the best and worst out of us, just like everybody else.
Is more education and being employed in a field of logic and reason likely to make one less receptive to fringe beliefs?
For example, engineers are probably overrepresented amongst Islamic extremists[1] and, from what few studies there are, may be skewed conservative and religious compared to other higher education fields.
Is that empirically the case? Maybe in the marketing world but policy tends to get debated with more vigor. From my view 'defund the police' seems to have severely backfired.
The comparison with Vitamins seems absurd. But really, what are "very high levels" then in ppm and exposure time?
Also the public's reaction is logical since information has been kept from the public for decades to hinder proper regulation. I think the successful class action lawsuit speaks for itself.
PFAS were the highest level national security secrets during WW2 due to their amazing properties (which haven’t been improved upon due to the periodic table/fundamental properties of fluorine), so it’s not a surprise the information was kept from the public for many decades.
Do you have a link for this? In the movie about it which plays around 2000 the corporate lawyer has a hard time finding someone who can say anything meaningful about it. That would be more than half a century later.
> 3. The ability to detect these compounds has gotten much better over the years. We’re now talking parts per trillion measurements. At those levels you can find just about anything. A lot of the current panic is a combo of this ability to measure things combined with “2” above around any detection being slated as terrible.
Unfortunately, unlike many other common toxins, PFAS is actually toxic at parts per trillion levels. It’s not just a matter of “we detected trace amounts.”
> 4. Both the reporting and public’s reactions tend to be illogical. PFAS found at a nearby factory? Shut it down. Sue everyone. However a growing body of evidence is finding PFAS in things like synthetic turf playing fields and yet with rare exception most school districts seem perfectly happy having these instead of plain old grass
Shutting down a factory is logical. Using a PFAS turf field is illogical. Is that what you meant? Or did you really mean to imply that we shouldn’t shut down the factory until we remove the turf field as well?
You could say the same things about lead I think? But then maybe we are more scared of lead than we should be, there's just more alternatives to it now?
Indeed the very first "science" on leaded gasoline was a study conducted by the bureau of mines, which concluded that leaded gasoline was entirely safe... Spoiler alert: It was not entirely safe.
PFAs aren't even proven safe, they're just not-yet-proven-dangerous-in-small amounts, but that's so hard to measure it doesn't really assure us of anything.
Yes. People are often shocked when asbestos is found and the recommended response is to do nothing. Messing with it is likely to cause more issues than just letting it be. If it’s intact and unlikely to be disturbed it’s not going to hurt anyone. The public has been trained to think this stuff is so bad that any mention of it has people doing full blown evacuations running for the hills.
Nuclear power has, unfortunately, suffered a similar fate.
Leaving asbestos "alone" or encapsulating it is the common advice. It can also terrible advice, especially if the material is non-friable. Take something like vinyl asbestos tile as an example. When exposed, it's pretty easy to get rid of. You can cut through the tile, into the sub-floor, and take out huge chunks of tile at a time. You do release some fibers via cutting, but overall a very manageable amount. Now let's say you decide to tile over instead, what happens? Well for starters, you've now hidden the danger. You might know what's underneath your new tiles, but what happens when you sell the home? Also, it's no longer easy or simple to remove the VAT now. For example, this guy dosed himself and his whole family with a large asbestos dose unknowingly: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/dyvj3u/so_...
If you have a hazard in your home, just deal with it appropriately. "Cover it up until it's someone else's problem" is selfish and irresponsible.
It's not difficult to safely remediate most of it. A P100 respirator, Tyvek suit, water to spray down the areas to work on, and a garden hose to hose off yourself/suit. If inside, it gets more tricky, but not too different from mold remediation. The toughest or most expensive part is usually finding a site that will take the waste bags.
Also, the guy in your link complains about a lack of warning. If he read the warnings that cam with that grinding wheel, he would have been fine. Even if it doesn't say stuff about specifically about asbestos, the warning about silicosis has practically the same precautions.
That really depends on what kind of asbestos it is. In a hard, easily removable plate, sure you can do it yourself. Loosely-bound asbestos is a whole different game.
Not really, no. We have evidence that even very low levels of lead is dangerous. The cost/benefit analysis is different. We have no idea what the "safe" level of PFAS is. Maybe its zero, like lead, but maybe not.
Every sip of water you drink has arsenic and cyanide in it. These chemicals are harmful, but not at very low concentrations.
No, you can't say the same thing about lead. We understand the mechanisms in which lead poisons the body. We know that even low levels of lead exposure cause damage. And, we've measured this damage by comparing large samples sizes based on blood lead levels. Even a tiny amount of lead, like 3.5 mcg / dL measured in blood, is correlated with loss of IQ.
> 1. These compounds are extremely good at what they do. From lubrication to fire retardants there’s a reason these compounds are everywhere.
> 3. The ability to detect these compounds has gotten much better over the years. We’re now talking parts per trillion measurements. At those levels you can find just about anything. A lot of the current panic is a combo of this ability to measure things combined with “2” above around any detection being slated as terrible.
People don't understand how pervasive these chemicals are. When field testing for levels of PFAS, those doing the testing are given a list of things they need to avoid and not carry into the field because they will contaminate the results. This includes certain makeup, stain or water resistant clothing, certain types of paper, and lots of other things people would never consider.
Can’t make computer chips without PFAS, and many normal things would wear down so much faster we would spend a lot more energy/CO2 emissions replacing things faster.
PFAS have orders of magnitude differences in half lives, understanding which are bad and how to destroy them when needed is all that is required.
Your points 2 and 3 are connected, but not in the way they are portrayed: scientists had to devise more accurate measurements for PFAS because the epidemiological data was suggesting that PFAS were causing diseases in humans at way below the previous detectable limit.
Until recently (according to reporting) these compounds could not be filtered and are not ever expected to break down naturally in nature or the body. You can't get overexposed and be fine over time. It seems you're presuming all the exposure people are getting is "probably fine" ala astbestos in the walls.
Then, there is the behavior of the factories producing it, which you brush off. Drinking supplies in certain areas are permanently destroyed, and producers aren't in jail.
Yes, strict liability should apply when indestructible chemical compounds ruin regional drinking supplies and give people cancer.
Absolutely, you dont get to release unknown irremovable shit into encironment for 10 years while someone else spends money on reasearch to proove you are poiaoning them
Because humans tend to think in the short term and for-profit entities are happy to oblige.
It could be argued there are many things which we are morally obliged to stop using plastic for, as it only serves as a convenience. Disposable food trays and "silverware", straws, individually wrapped things, and so on. Society could adjust to bringing their own water bottles to be filled at restaurants/gas stations/work, but between laziness on the consumer and the profit motive of selling cheap plastic bottles for $3 by companies, we don't.
Then there are plenty of things for which plastic is useful, durable; and instances where even single-use plastic can be justified. But on the whole, society is trading the environment tomorrow for convenience and money today.
I live in a scandinavian country and PFOS was first found in extremely alarming amounts at various locations where cows have been raised, to such an extent that the local population is effectively poisoned and need life long screening if they have eaten any of the meat.
This has started year long tests and PFAS (+pfos, pfoa) has sadly been found in large amounts in most sectors. Even in just the tap water. The latest finding - today actually - is in organic eggs because of fish bonemeal in their diets, but this is just because these items were tested, apparently it's everywhere. Rain samples collected recently showed amounts exceeding the EU safe thresholds.
Point is, it's really, really bad and who knows what effects it will have. Counter point is that we've been swimming in a sea of inorganic chemicals for a long time and have just begun to test for them lately.
Effects on fertility, cancer, alzheimers, and the ecosystem in general is the joker.
> Counter point is that we've been swimming in a sea of inorganic chemicals for a long time and have just begun to test for them lately.
Per/polyflouride compounds are not naturally occurring, this is all stuff that humans brought onto the planet in the last few decades - neither nature nor humans have had the time to evolve adaptations for exposure to them.
We as a species are in for a real wild ride the next centuries.
It is absolutely disgusting that DuPont knew that these chemicals are harmful and accumulative in the body.
The spin they put on this is that "it is possible for these chemicals to be used safely", but the parameters for safe use are not realistic in the real world.
The fine print on your frying pan or waterproofing contains legal get outs that are unrealistic.
Nevermind the fact most paper straws, fast food wrappers (McDonalds) and others are lined with these chemicals.
They knew. They knew they don't break down, bio-accumulate and cause health issues, but still tell the world they can be safely used.
>The fine print on your frying pan or waterproofing contains legal get outs that are unrealistic.
What world are you living in that has "fine print" on pans? The pans I bought recently certainly doesn't have them, probably because the PFAS/PFOS risk is only there during manufacture, not usage.
Perhaps the only fine print I've seen on PTFE-coated pans is that they should not be heated above 500F/250C. My understanding is that, under these temperatures, decomposition of the PTFE is not possible.
Define "normal conditions". Searing a steak is arguably "normal", but it's also not something that I'm going to do with a non stick. If I'm stir frying some veggies, or cooking some eggs, I'm probably fine because the oil will start burning before the pan starts emitting fumes.
And that’s also not true. Cooking with Teflon or other types of non-stick cookware based on these types of chemicals will result in those chemicals contaminating your food. In particular, pre-heating non stick pans is particularly bad, as is the use of the wrong utensils which will cause physically perceptible particles of the material to end up in your food.
Any non stick pan comes with a warning you can’t use it in the same house/building as pet birds. Just like canaries in a coal mine, birds are highly susceptible to things which are also dangerous to humans. Just because it doesn’t kill you dead within minutes of turning on the burner does not make it safe.
>And that’s also not true. Cooking with Teflon or other types of non-stick cookware based on these types of chemicals will result in those chemicals contaminating your food. In particular, pre-heating non stick pans is particularly bad, as is the use of the wrong utensils which will cause physically perceptible particles of the material to end up in your food.
source? The guidance from the FDA contradicts your claim
>Some PFAS are approved for use in the manufacture of non-stick cookware coatings. These coatings are made of molecules that are polymerized (i.e., joined together to form large molecules) and applied to the cookware through a heating process that tightly binds the polymer coating to the cookware. Studies show that this coating contains a negligible amount of PFAS capable of migrating to food. Similarly, the PFAS used in manufacturing of gaskets that come into contact with food do not pose a safety risk because they are also made of molecules that are polymerized.
These studies are based on manufacturer guidelines for product use (heat range, material handling), most of which are shown so narrow in scope that in your average kitchen the test environment doesn't exist.
Like giving people a drink that can only be stored below 5C or it may become dangerous. Is your fridge exactly always below 5C? Mine isn't.
The FDA doc isn't explicit on this, but my impression is that the coating itself is polymerized and is therefore inert, unlike the PFAS/PFOA that's in the water supply or whatever.
You're not paying enough attention. The last pan I bought that had PFAS-based non-stick coating stated:
(a) do not heat above 220C
(b) do not use metal utensils
This isn't because they think these things won't happen (they know they will, and you do too). And it isn't because they want to ensure the longevity of your pan (the opposite is true). It's because they can say that the pan was used incorrectly, as highlighted by FDA testing parameters, and therefore liability for any ingesting of hazardous material is the user's problem.
If you scratch the pan, you are generating micro particles of PFAS that eventually turn into the stuff some people are worried about.
Now, on the scale of things, probably the obesity epidemic due to sedentary life styles, sugar, etc. is 10-100x more of a societal health issue, but it’s harder to blame someone else for that.
> If you scratch the pan, you are generating micro particles of PFAS that eventually turn into the stuff some people are worried about.
Are they the same thing though? The "PFAS contaminated water" are from chemical plants or firefighting foam. That's not exactly the same thing as the polymerized coatings that's on pans. They're all vaguely PFAS adjacent, but people seem to be lumping the fumes (from burning their pans), the coating itself, and the precursor chemicals as if it's one thing, which probably isn't correct. paraffin, gasoline, and plastic are all petroleum adjacent, but they're all vastly different chemicals with different safety profiles. They all might be bad for you, but for different reasons. Just because plastic might be leeching chemicals that give you breast cancer, doesn't mean that you're going to get breast cancer from touching candles.
“They're all vaguely PFAS adjacent, but people seem to be lumping the fumes (from burning their pans), the coating itself, and the precursor chemicals as if it's one thing, which probably isn't correct.”
This is true, PFOS is not the same as PFAS, but the media already is fear mongering enough that politicians and juries are thinking it’s all the same. This is probably analogous to what happened with nuclear science, where the risks were worth it but we opted for more dangerous technology because of fear.
> Nevermind the fact most paper straws, fast food wrappers (McDonalds) and others are lined with these chemicals.
I knew something was off about those paper straws...but they put PFAS in them?? It's like we're saying: copper is too damaging when mined, let's replace our water pipes with lead.
Mine comes next month - about $4,000 out of the class action - because through the 70s-90s, Wolverine dumped contaminated leather scraps and chemical drums in a swamp uphill of the well I've been drinking from for more than a decade. Now every well in town has 50-200 mg/L of PFAs.
It's only $4,000 because the court saw clear evidence that the value of my home was damaged, but couldn't assign damages based on an increased risk of cancer; I would have had to actually get cancer to sue successfully for damages there.
You're correct, yes, micrograms or ug/L. Nanograms per milliliter. Parts per trillion.
For context, the old USDA/EPA threshold for health hazards was 70 ppt, new June 2022 directives say "negative health effects may occur with concentrations of PFOA or PFOS in water that are near zero and below EPA’s ability to detect at this time."
DuPont had US$1.79 billion cash on hand as of September 2022.
If ten million people have been negatively affected by PFOS (surely an undercount) then that's a fat US$179 per person.
"Okay, so force them to pay a portion of future profits."
Ah, the Purdue Pharma solution. But is everything else that DuPont making known to be harmless? If we discover a PFOS-2 in ten years, should they be required to keep making it in order to pay off the victims of PFOS-1?
The problem with taking over a company to operate it in the national interest is that a country can be tempted to continue operating it in the national interest. In 1947, the UK nationalized all its coal mines. In 1966, a coal mining waste pile collapse and killed 116 children and 28 adults.
Nobody was ever prosecuted, and no person ever went to jail. What was the government going to do, punish itself?
> Here's how the maneuver worked. First, last October, J&J spun off a subsidiary in Texas called LTL.
> Then, using a wrinkle in Texas state law, J&J was able to transfer all of the potential liability linked to the tsunami of baby powder asbestos claims into the shell of the new company, while keeping valuable assets separate.
> LTL then quickly filed for bankruptcy in North Carolina. That move immediately halted the baby powder cases, which could remain on hold for months or years.
It's a loophole in the law, it seems. I mean if law was simple and I was in charge, I'd just be like "yeah this was done by J&J at the time, nice try" and sue them anyway. But apparently it's not that easy.
Not to sound too cynical, but humanity has rarely (or ever) been able to react in a coordinated timely fashion to any event threating it in any way.
That is until we reach the brink.
Think of the Montreal Protocol from the 80's, a treaty for phasing out and eventually banning CFC/HCFC's in an effort to protect and hopefully restore the ozone layer. The protocol was in response to a dramatic seasonal depletion of the ozone layer over Antarctica in the 80's.
To me, from everything I read and hear about PFAS pollution, it would seem we are at the brink again in terms of those chemicals.
I agree to extent; but one issue is that there should be a small amount available for research purposes and places where it is required.
For example, containment of certain chemicals is pretty much impossible without Teflon.
Chlorosulfonic acid is one of them.
Also, if you're working with this chemical, it may be useful to make mixtures of PFOS, PFBS, etc in order to process other products and not have highly reactive situations (effectively 'explosions').
Obviously these should get out of the facility they are contained in to pollute waste water or anything else, and should be used in a way that they are recovered and recycled for use over and over - much like what the authors are suggesting to do here.
Of course it obviously doesn't work perfectly that way, and things like this also introduce pollution as well while cleaning the water. So of course this should only be applied where there is a chance that they can remove more PFAS than they introduce to the system, which may not be as universally applicable as we may think.
I'm sure there are acceptable corner cases, but when everything from your new sofa to the trainers you bought are covered in the stuff in the form of fire retardants, we're just sloshing the stuff around.
Most of the uses are not due to necessity, but because these dangerous chemicals are cheaper to produce and have higher margins. Or use of them has second order margin increases by allowing us to do other things cheaper.
Humanity is terrible at long term harm consideration. Unless the danger is immediate we can't really feel the urgency.
Look how we all live, as if we won't die. It's sadly the human condition, and that bug in our cognition may be our downfall.
What happens when the urgency comes and the damage we did can't be undone, regardless of our ingenuity?
Because most people don't care. People have more immediate problems than something that might kill/injure them decades from now. Most people don't even know about the potential dangers and where the chemicals are used. When people do find out, they're shocked/skeptical.
As an example, my mother-in-law was using old non-stick pans. I had to tell about the FDA saying to throw out pans from before 2013. She was shocked. Then I had to explain the new pans still have similar concerns because they changed the formula which isn't that different and is just less tested. Her world view is that there's no way the government would allow anything harmful on the market. Yeah... ok...
> Her world view is that there's no way the government would allow anything harmful on the market. Yeah... ok...
Its reasonable to expect that people in government and the nedia are doing their job to inform the public.
I can't keep track of all the possible fuckups - like who here knows that Philadelphia police firebombed a house full of children in 1985 and noone was held accountable for their deaths?
If that happened today in your city, maybe you would be defunding the police.
"Its reasonable to expect that people in government and the nedia are doing their job to inform the public."
It might be rational to expect that. But as you point out with your example, it's not actually reasonable to expect that. With the track record of screw ups that there are, it's more reasonable to assume that you have to do you're own research.
But there are only so many things you can research yourself, there are limited hours in the day.
Like why should a naive person expect frying pans to be particularly suspicious and worth researching? How do you know to research issues with PTFA's, how would you know they even exist?
You have to trust that the rest of society is generally functional. This is what free market extremists do not understand, if all trust is gone, society collapses
"to be particularly suspicious and worth researching"
If it's some new miracle product, like burnt on cheese not sticking to the pan, then it would be good to look into.
"You have to trust that the rest of society is generally functional."
And you would generally be right. In which case you should expect/accept that you might encounter products that fall outside of that general protection that put you at risk of harm.
As a member of society, you also have to think for yourself and question things. If 100% of society is just following everyone else, then nobody will discover, discuss, and address harmful situations.
"This is what free market extremists do not understand, if all trust is gone, society collapses"
Who said all trust is gone? Why are you bringing up extremists? Let's try to stay on-topic.
This sounds pretty great! It sounds like they created a chemical solution, which coats the PFAS stuff and makes it magnetic, so it's easy to remove with a magnet. The solution can be re-used up to 10 times, according to the article.
I do wonder what happens to the solutions after that, I hope the solution itself isn't very dangerous
This is either ignorant or ill-intended and neither of those is ok.
There is plenty of epidemiological data showing the very opposite:
> Merrimack residents experienced a significantly higher risk of at least 4 types of cancer over 10 years between 2005 and 2014. Merrimack is a community with documented PFAS contamination of drinking water in public and private water sources. Results indicate that further research is warranted to elucidate if southern NH residents experience increased risk for various types of cancer due to exposure to PFAS contamination.
It is undoubted that PFxx exposure has after-effects, but the point of the comment I replied to was if the agent used to filter out PFxx compounds out of the water has after-effects.
And as that agent will be filtered out after absorbing the PFxx compounds, there should not be any after-effects of the water treatment.
There is a lot hidden in "will be filtered out" here though.
Filtration isn't binary, so this may only be useful in a few target areas where water sources are contaminated enough that introducing a new contaminate (these NPs) into the water will pull out more PFAS than are left behind after magnetic separation.
The NPs (or more likely the PFAS that degrade off of the Fe3O4) also may have a different health affect than PFAS in the water stream (due to sulfonation etc).
So it's certainly not that simple, but a great technology for companies trying to recover their chemical products and reactants for reuse and for areas where contamination is very bad.
Neat. I did my Master's on a very similar idea. It was for performing several multi-step reactions in one reactor using some extra complexities, but the magnetic retrieval of the catalyst was the same.
One issue with this that I see is that the covalent bonds created between the shell and core really need to be tested well in lots of pH and temperature environments, because if those NPs start degrading (which they always do at some level) then you're adding in contamination as well as removing it.
That was always the scary part for me and why I've struggled to bring ideas to market - products that require precision don't really work in practice. The way things are used in the real world is very sloppy and products need quite enormous safety factors associated with them.
I was thinking the same thing but all those machine always use some form of flexible hose which from what I have seen are also chock full of plasticizers as well. Feels like a choose your poison sort of situation.
It would be great to have a reverse osmosis machine where only the membrane itself was plastic and everything else was glass or steel. But I am not sure anything like that actually exists?
I sell residential RO systems. Industry wide the tubing is typically LDPE and the housings/fittings are mostly polypropylene. There is no real practical way to build a residential RO system without using these materials.
It's a trade off between different types of plastic / chemical exposure. Not really ideal but I suspect nearly all sources of treated water will have traveled through a similar amount of plastic to get to you.
Copper is avoided on RO systems because the post membrane water typically drops 1-3 points in PH and will slowly corrode and leech copper into the treated water. All post membrane fittings and tubing should be plastic/stainless, cheap brass fittings with high lead content are the biggest concern. This can be resolved with post membrane PH amendment but you then create a failure point that can cause heavy metal exposure or leaks if it isn't maintained.
You could build a system with steel housings and braided stainless hose but the size/weight and cost are not practical.
I’m not worried about that. I have a counter top RO machine made out of plastic but the water comes out at nearly 0ppm TDS, and it flows through the machine slowly, at low temp, and for a short time. Whatever is in there is orders of magnitude less than you would find anywhere else, it’s basically laboratory grade pure water.
Do you have a brand you like? I'm thinking of getting a countertop device soon and they sell a "re-alkalizes it" version but I don't know if that's "enough" and of the right type and I'd like to cover my bases in case it's not.
I'd think the single hose /apparatus would have much less exposure than most water supplies, especially over time. Maybe run the water for a bit before using?
I mean you could probably get copper piping to work on it with some plumbing skills and tools; copper is, as far as I'm aware, fairly inert in the human body. at the moment anyway.
What’s your solution to the low pH and total lack of minerals? I’ve tried mineral drops (out of Utah) but their composition is not comparable to „normal“ water and they seem to give me headaches sometimes.
This is worth doing regardless of the contamination issue IMO. If you drink a lot of water, it’s so nice to have a little spout that gives water that tastes like perfect bottled water any time you want it.
We need more jurisdictions monitoring and publishing local PFAS levels, or people are never going to realize just how much of a problem this is in their areas. Most reports so far have just been case studies, and few states have picked up the torch and actually started regularly monitoring.
One thing to note, you really need to change your filters regularly, otherwise they will potentially introduce more bacteria than you would normally get from treated water. I know this video is a Singapore based media, but I think the information is relevant anywhere you live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LObbHbx_2fY
TLDR: We'll clean up PFAS with.. more PFAS! Now, I understand why this works, but the filters themselves better be made without the hamrful fluorosurfactants, and they have to be disposed properly to avoid releasing toxic gases and/or more PFASes
1. These compounds are extremely good at what they do. From lubrication to fire retardants there’s a reason these compounds are everywhere.
2. The press and many activists tend to treat things in a binary manner but science doesn’t really work like that. It’s clear that very high levels of these compounds are bad. It’s less clear that lower levels are bad. Lots of things (like vitamins) are toxic at high levels and actually good at low levels. Not saying PFAS is good, but it’s not as simple as just saying any is terrible either.
3. The ability to detect these compounds has gotten much better over the years. We’re now talking parts per trillion measurements. At those levels you can find just about anything. A lot of the current panic is a combo of this ability to measure things combined with “2” above around any detection being slated as terrible.
4. Both the reporting and public’s reactions tend to be illogical. PFAS found at a nearby factory? Shut it down. Sue everyone. However a growing body of evidence is finding PFAS in things like synthetic turf playing fields and yet with rare exception most school districts seem perfectly happy having these instead of plain old grass. As such the amount of “outrage” is often rooted in the convenience of it supporting existing activist movements (close the factory!) than it is based in any science or defensible reality.
Not for a moment trying to suggest we shouldn’t pay attention to this, and we probably should look for alternative compounds. But the near hysteria from some corners creates more of a distraction than actually helping anything.