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U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#61

Post by lm28469 »

Liquix wrote: post #47
ryanmercer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Products like the LifeStraw/Sawyer/Katadyn won't filter most chemicals. To remove some chemicals you need to use distillation and distillation is only good if the boiling point of a given chemical is higher than that of water. LifeStraw even states >Chemicals, salt water, heavy metals and viruses will not be removed. http://help.lifestraw.com/en/articles/2507813-does-the-lifes... Sawyer states >Taste >The Sawyer filt…

How would a reverse osmosis filter hooked up in the basement / under the sink compare to distillation? The good ones spit out water that is close to 0 PPM (in most municipal water systems tap water is closer to 60-200). Is PPM a good way of measuring the types of chemicals you mentioned?

Doesn't RO needs 3+ liters to get you 1L of purified water ? It doesn't look like this would be viable long term + it doesn't solve the root cause, just the symptoms.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#63

Post by lm28469 »

mdemare wrote: post #46
yomly wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you get downvoted for this. The current assumption that GDP must always grow (and consumption must keep increasing) seem to be in direct contradiction to the idea that we must stop consuming so much if we want to save the environment. Perhaps "capitalism" is a lazy proxy for this but I think it's more lazy to downvote you than engage with the discussion

Increasing GDP does not imply increasing consumption, and increasing consumption does not imply increasing pollution.

In theory maybe, in practice the world is designed to maximise consumption with little regard for the long term impacts.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#64

Post by cptskippy »

retSava wrote: post #16
forgotmypw wrote: post #13

If there was a magical way of convincing every single person in the U.S. to stop buying X, what would we have to stop buying to stop this pollution?

Teflon for example, is pretty stable when manufactured and in-application. But the company manufacturing it, DuPont, has shown despicable disregard for environment and people health and as such, imo, should get a healthy dose of "I ain't touching your products". edit: one example, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-b...

> Teflon for example, is pretty stable when manufactured and in-application.

Chemical stability isn't necessarily a good thing. Another chemical, Perfluorooctanoic (C8), is used in the manufacture of Teflon and is extremely stable, so much so that it's found in the bloodstream of 98% of Americans. Unfortunately C8 bio-accumulates and is in fact very harmful.

Also, one of the applications of Teflon is cookware and when heated Teflon undergoes thermolysis and forms toxic compounds. So stability is great until it's not.

Speaking of how shitty DuPont is... 3M was DuPont's sole supplier of C8 and stopped manufacturing it amid rising concerns from the EPA, so DuPont started manufacturing it on their own.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#65

Post by licebmi__at__ »

jp555 wrote: post #41
MichaelApproved wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example of privatization of profits and socializing losses. I live on Long Island (New York) and we have water problems from old factories that polluted the ground water. My water bill will now include $80/year charge for new filtering plants that are supposed to clean up the contaminated water. At best, the companies should’ve never been allowed to pollute the water. At worst, the cleanup cost should’ve been…

"privatization of profits and socializing losses." This is ideologically biased. You mean "externalize RISK", which governments and NGOs do all the time too.

Going by wikipedia: "Cost externalizing is a socioeconomic term describing how a business maximizes its profits by off-loading indirect costs and forcing negative effects to a third party. An externalized cost is known to economists as a negative externality."

I think the here bias is trying to hide with the more general technical term, that in this specific discussion, the third party which assumes the loses is the whole society.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#66

Post by ebiester »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

...and it's both Democrats and Republicans to boot! This seems like it should be an issue that someone can run on.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#68

Post by jstewartmobile »

Frost1x wrote: post #57
matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic. The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests…

"If by "democracy" we mean the form which the Third Estate as such wishes to impart to public life as a whole, it must be concluded that democracy and plutocracy are the same thing under the two aspects of wish and actuality, theory and practice, knowing and doing. It is the tragic comedy of the world-improvers' and freedom-teachers' desperate fight against money that they are ipso facto assisting money to be effective. Respect for the big number—expressed in the principles of equality for all, natural rights, and universal suffrage—is just as much a class-ideal of the unclassed as freedom of public opinion (and more particularly freedom of the press) is so. These are ideals, but in actuality the freedom of public opinion involves the preparation of public opinion, which costs money; and the freedom of the press brings with it the question of possession of the press, which again is a matter of money; and with the franchise comes electioneering, in which he who pays the piper calls the tune. The representatives of the ideas look at one side only, while the representatives of money operate with the other. The concepts of Liberalism and Socialism are set in effective motion only by money."

"...the Jacobins had destroyed the old obligations of the blood and so had emancipated money; now it stepped forward as lord of the land. There is no proletarian, not even a Communist movement, that has not operated in the interests of money, in the directions indicated by money, and for the time being permitted by money—and that without the idealists among its leaders having the slightest suspicion of the fact. The great movement which makes use of the catchwords of Marx has not delivered the entrepreneur into the power of the worker, but both into that of the Bourse."

- O. Spengler, "The Decline of the West", Vol. 2 (1928)

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#69

Post by minikites »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

Lots of people think it's fine because it a way to "spite the libs", i.e. if it makes liberals angry, it must actually be a good thing:

https://cospringsrealestatenews.com/running-behind-the-ddt-t...

>I remember them with great fondness, and I’ve survived for over 60 years after breathing those fumes…

>We are all alive and kicking well. I have NEVER heard of anyone becoming sick, due to DDT. The reading I have done, showed the woman that declared it bad, never did any research regarding DDT. They took it off the market without proof. I am not a fond follower of the EPA. I think they are a complete mess. They would ban Milk if they had their way. I am all for bringing DDT back. It was a great product.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/05/business/energy-environme...

>“Why don’t you go live in Sweden and get the heck out of our country,” Mr. Blue wrote.” I will continue to roll coal anytime I feel like and fog your stupid eco-cars.”

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#70

Post by _qwfv »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

This is pretty much the end state for Neoliberalism (which has been the prevailing mode for both parties). There's such an emphasis on protecting business and capital, and almost none on protecting the people.
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