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The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

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Re: The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

#161

Post by StableAlkyne »

timr wrote: post #144
ruined wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no. PTFE is a member of the class PFAS. polytetrafluoroethylene is a polyfluoroalkyl substance.

PTFE is not a PFAS unless you define PFAS so broadly as to be meaningless. They're common only in that they both contain polyfluorinated carbon chains.

Polytetrafluoroethylene is a polymer where the individual monomers are fluorinated alkanes.

I fail to see how a polymer made entirely of fluorinated alkyl substances is not a polyfluorinated alkyl substance. I'm not really sure how one could argue they're not if we ignore politics and just look at chemical nomenclature

Re: The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

#162

Post by themerone »

timr wrote: post #142
birdiesanders wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gortex and similar waterproof/fireproof gear are loaded with pfas/pfoa cocktails.

No, they aren't. PFAS (and specifically PFOA) has a carboxyl group, making it much more polar than PTFE (it is an acid). PFOA is soluble in water. PFTE is not. Even if there were lingering PFOA in Teflon, it would be quickly washed away. Some people try to confuse the issue by grouping together anything with a poly-CF2 chain as "PFAS", but this is wrong.

PFAS are in the DWR coating on the outside of Gore-Tex fabric. The PTFE membrane is on the inside. The DWR finish definitely ends up going down the drain or wears off in use.

There are new PFAS free DWR finishes, but don't know if Gore-Tex is using them yet.

Gore does not consider PTFE to be environmentally friendly and is working on flourocarbon free fabrics.

Re: The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

#163

Post by audunw »

richardw wrote: post #41
newZWhoDis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one thing I’m hopeful about for EVs. Plastic is cheap because of massive demand scaling the oil industry, collapse the demand for oil and plastic becomes more expensive.

The auto industry is a competing use of oil, isn’t it? So halving demand is more likely to reduce prices. Car industry obviously helped to build the infrastructure but I think now that it’s there, fair chance there’s going to be a lot of oil supply looking for a use. Infrastructure won’t disappear overnight.

Do you know how fractional distillation works? Fuel doesn’t compete for oil. Fuel, bitumen and other heavy fractions is the main reason we distill oil. Those are the hydrocarbons that are actually hard to make. The light fractions used in plastics fall out of that process. It’s not a competition, it’s a synergy.

If they’re going to turn ALL the oil into plastics, at the very least they have to have more processing steps. It’s not hard but it will require bigger refineries, in other words, more expensive plastics.

Also, they will be competing with bio-plastics and other alternatives, that will probably get more favourable regulations in many countries.

Plastics won’t go away. Even if we don’t pump for oil it’s not very hard to make the same plastics from biological hydrocarbons.

Re: The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

#164

Post by jaredhallen »

sneak wrote: post #131
throwaway920102 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an ideal world, manufacturers would begin to phase out the use of PFAS as waterproofing, which many already are. An alternative would be Nikwax, waxed canvas, or polyurethenate-coatings or TPU coatings. These alternatives are already used in many goods! For containers (not wearables), you can get aluminum, stainless steel, TI, or glass waterproof cans and jars and bottles that have threaded, screw on caps with sil…

In an ideal world they'd immediately cease use of them, not "begin to phase out".

Immediately ceasing use without suitable replacements would cause a non-trivial amount of economic and social disruption. I'm not sure I'd consider that ideal.

Re: The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

#165

Post by shiandow »

hcurtiss wrote: post #146
birdiesanders wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gortex and similar waterproof/fireproof gear are loaded with pfas/pfoa cocktails.

There is no science connecting Goretex -- even direct skin application of Goretex over long periods of time -- with any harm whatsoever. The shrill nature of the commentary around PFAS (which by some definitions doesn't even include PTFE) is wild to me.

When it comes to CF bonds I'm more concerned with bioaccumulation than direct skin contact. Besides, polonium-210 is also harmless upon direct skin contact, it's not as if skin-contact is the most dangerous form of exposure.

Re: The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

#166

Post by colordrops »

hcurtiss wrote: post #146
birdiesanders wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gortex and similar waterproof/fireproof gear are loaded with pfas/pfoa cocktails.

There is no science connecting Goretex -- even direct skin application of Goretex over long periods of time -- with any harm whatsoever. The shrill nature of the commentary around PFAS (which by some definitions doesn't even include PTFE) is wild to me.

You are talking about GoreTex in the first sentence, then PFAS in general in the next, conflating the two. The EPA has absolutely found harm in humans from PFAS using science [1]. I don't know anything about GoreTex, but I do know they changed their formula to get rid of PFAS, at least for marketing reasons if not out of fear of liability as well, considering they are being sued.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/pfas/pfas-explained#:~:text=Scientific%2....

Re: The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

#167

Post by marshray »

thereisnospork wrote: post #154
marshray wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus this is a stupid argument. "Don’t dump chemicals in water or on land" is a perfectly logical and defensible statement.

No its not. Its an absurd statement that doesn't adequately define chemicals, water, or land nor does it address the very necessary industrial processes wherein 'chemicals' are and need to be dumped on water or land. A trivial for instance: Okay, no more fertilizer on the crops then. Enjoy the famine.

Obviously it's broad and there will be many exceptions. The exceptions are often the interesting part of the discussion.

Words have different meanings in different contexts. Pretending that "chemicals" can only ever be used to refer to all material substances equally is just intentionally trying to sabotage productive discussion.

Re: The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

#168

Post by colordrops »

barbazoo wrote: post #107
andersrs wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a joke. Companies like 3M and Dupont just switch up a few atoms. Teflon becomes 'GenX'. One has to conclude that the EPA are complicit in this.

What should the EPA have done instead?

Disallow any new chemicals that have not been tested. You shouldn't be able to just create some new chemical and use the public as guinea pigs. And none of this nonsense about stifling technological development. If there is life saving or otherwise groundbreaking use of some new chemical, they can work to get an exception or accelerate the approval process.

Re: The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

#169

Post by dataflow »

timr wrote: post #144
ruined wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no. PTFE is a member of the class PFAS. polytetrafluoroethylene is a polyfluoroalkyl substance.

PTFE is not a PFAS unless you define PFAS so broadly as to be meaningless. They're common only in that they both contain polyfluorinated carbon chains.

https://chemsec.org/the-teflon-chemical-ptfe-is-often-touted...

"PTFE, or polytetrafluoroethylene, belongs to a subgroup of PFAS called fluorinated polymers"

Re: The EPA is proposing that 'forever chemicals' be considered hazardous substances

#170

Post by Nevermark »

efitz wrote: post #125
Nevermark wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sorry, my exhalations are not "pollution" Try breathing in a bag. Air is 21% oxygen. On average, a resting adult breathes in about 250ml of oxygen per minute. Air is about about 0.04%. The average adult expels approximately 200ml to 250ml of carbon dioxide per minute. Roughly the same as the o then they intake. So the relative percentage of C02 increases extremely rapidly in any small volume of air, compared to rel…

> Try breathing in a bag. Dumb argument. Is water a pollutant because of the drowning risk?

Maybe you missed:

> Your exhalations are only pollution when they destabilize healthy levels. So that’s a bit of a straw man concern.

So CO2 is not a pollutant because it is a product of breathing.

Regarding,

> Dumb argument. Is water a pollutant because of the drowning risk?

It might be counter intuitive - because water is not a risk in most contexts. But on another planet where water is an unusual corrosive, then of course it could be a pollutant.

And even on Earth, if some production system kept pumping our environment full of water as a side effect of some process, to the point of endangering or killing ecosystems, in that context it would be a pollutant.

A pollutant is when the accumulation of some left over of a process significantly alters and harms its environment.

Pollutant is a statement about some material’s impact in its context. It isn’t something inate, without context.

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