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3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

reuters.com

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Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#321

Post by bilsbie »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #266
bilsbie wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would try not to worry too much though. It becomes a sickness at some point. Check out Scott Adam’s law of slow moving disasters if you want some optimism.

Doesn't look like much of a 'law' to me. His optimism ignores some fundamental facts, like living in a (nearly) closed system. So there must be a point at which oil production will decline because our usage far outstrips it's production. Humans are trying to adapt yet I don't think extraction from shale, fracking, and giant super buildings in the desert are going to solve the fundamental issues around sustainability.

He’s not saying to ignore problems. Rather that we tend to fix things just in time once the problem becomes very apparent. Y2K is the best example. Fixing the ozone hole would be another one.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#322

Post by kortex »

rocqua wrote: post #287
adrian_b wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a typical consumer home, there are very few, if any, uses where fluoropolymers are indispensable. On the other hand, for most kinds of chemical manufacturing and of chemical analyses fluoropolymers are truly indispensable. Before the invention of the fluoropolymers, some of the chemical reactions that are done now in vessels made of fluoropolymers could not be done at all, while the others were done in platinum ve…

> None of the industrial uses of fluoropolymers can cause significant pollution. However using them in things like kitchenware, or worse, in packaging, makes no sense. I presume it is possible for these industrial uses to cause significant pollution, but you mean that it is not difficult to prevent pollution from these processes because they happen in controlled locations? Contrasting that against PFAS in kitchenware…

> I presume it is possible for these industrial uses to cause significant pollution, but you mean that it is not difficult to prevent pollution from these processes because they happen in controlled locations?

Fluoropolymers don't really leach in significant quantities on commercial timescales. That would sort of defeat their purpose of being inert. So there is a huge difference between "these teflon o-rings in this chemical plant leach 0.1 ppb of small molecule PFAS per day" and "millions of teflon pans go into the landfill each year". And further still to "we produce railcars worth of volatile fluoropolymer monomers for producing teflon and viton".

> I believe a lot of PFAS contamination comes from the production process itself.

This exactly. Low-molecular-weight PFAS are much more mobile than high weight, thus more polluting. Once "bound" in a polymer, the leaching is minimal. The problem is the production process, where you have primarily the small molecules, which inevitably get into the environment.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#323

Post by shmageggy »

missedthecue wrote: post #61
Centigonal wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which is a good thing! we should stop taking $20 teflon pans, nonstick fast food containers, and $40 raincoats with negative externalities for granted. We did fine without PFAS, we'll be okay with expensive PFAS (where externalities are internalized and built into the cost) too.

What will happen is that the PFAS pan becomes $26 instead of $20. PFAS is not the most expensive part of the pan, only a minor component. A doubling or tripling of PFAS prices is unlikely to price anyone out of getting that pan or raincoat. It's just going to make middle and lower class people cumulatively billions of dollars poorer.

What will make people effectively poorer, not having non-stick coating on pans, or the large-scale poisoning of the natural world and our bodies?

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#324

Post by nightski »

TrickyRick wrote: post #285
woodruffw wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t necessarily disagree with you per se, but I do think these “EV-lite” type analyses are too broad: environmentally conscious people may be more likely to have children who are environmentally conscious, work on climate engineering, &c. That’s not to say that we should encourage them specifically to have children either; just that children represent potential in a way that the number of bunker-fuel cargo ships…

Even the most environmentally conscious person in an industrialized nation will emit massive amounts of CO2 in their lifetime, provided of course that nobody invents a "quick fix" for CO2 emissions in their lifetime. Of course in theory the child could be that person to invent that quick fix, but the expected value is still that the child will contribute to a lot of CO2 emissions.

It doesn't matter. Climate change is happening. It doesn't matter what we do as individuals, the system can't be changed from individual action and it can't be changed via collective action as that would require full cooperation.

There is no practical way we can achieve the goal of survival for all through reduction of CO2 emissions. It's a farce because we'll never get all parties to agree.

The only path forward is to hope we have some very clever science and engineering that can help us survive this disaster.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#325

Post by Robotbeat »

It’s probably good to get away from these things for single use consumer items, etc, but I fear we’re undermining our manufacturing base, chasing it away overseas. I also wonder if how bad this stuff is is exaggerated (in part because we don’t KNOW how bad it is). Oh well.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#326

Post by standardUser »

runnerup wrote: post #90
standardUser wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing government regulations with decent enforcement couldn't stop. We just need to elect governments that pass those regulations. The thing is, the majority of voters in most societies don't want those regulations.

Actually the tragedy of the commons cannot be stopped by one government. If USA chooses to tax all externalities perfectly, both our production capacity and consumption will be a tiny sliver of its current quantities. By GHG alone we'd lose 80% of our economy, but that doesn't take into account the potential cost of removing dioxin and PFAS from our groundwater, remediating lithium mines, cleaning our air of fly ash,…

"We just need to elect governments "

Yeah, I said governments, plural.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#327

Post by mauvehaus »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #158
jraby3 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s definitely a choice. I prefer to travel light even if it means I’ll be thirsty sometimes.

There are some truly tiny and thin metal flasks. Even a little water is surely better than none.

Yes, but if you're sipping out of one at, say, the dog park, don't be surprised if people give you funny looks.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#328

Post by the_third_wave »

snovv_crash wrote: post #184
the_third_wave wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waxed fabrics do "breathe" more or less as much as much as Gore-Tex does and - important - keep on doing so as long as you keep them waxed enough but not too much. Don't make the coat look like a waxed cheese, you're using too much wax. Use enough to get the fabric to reject dripping or flowing water, no more. Gore-Tex was made to imitate this characteristic without the need for wax but once the membrane is damaged i…

This isn't true. The Gore-Tex layer isn't damaged like this. You're referring to the DNW coating, and there's no reason this can't be a waxed layer like old-school rain jackets. In fact a lot of companies started offering wax based DNW coatings in the name of environmental responsibility. The actual "Gore-Tex" layer, now no longer under patent and produced by many under names such as Dermizax, H2No, Sympatex and many…

A search says more than a 1000 words - and so do the countless questions it produces on just the problem of delamination.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=gore-tex+delamination

It might work fine for a weekend hike but the stuff does not hold up to repeated strain. Eventually it'll start to delaminate at the shoulders due to wear from backpack straps, cuffs and other exposed spots. This 'eventually' will depend on what you're doing while wearing the things, as said that weekend hike won't put as much strain on it as does walking the Appalachian trail or crossing the Hardangervidda, let along climbing a few mountains. I like to use material which keeps and can be repaired if needed so for me this is a no-go. My backpacks are between 30 and 50 years old, my raingear between 20 and 30 years, my tents and sleeping bags between 20 and 25 years, my cooking gear is more than 40 years old. It may not be fashionable - who cares about fashion when you're alone in the woods - and it may not be the lightest or most high-tech but I know I can depend on it.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#329

Post by dylan604 »

Why are they waiting until 2025? "We know this stuff is bad, but just give us a couple more years to realize a full ROI before we stop" vs "Holy crap this stuff is bad, we're pulling the plug now"

I mean, it's not a ship at sea running at flank speed where the ship keeps moving once power has been cut. Just stop making them. Now.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#330

Post by themerone »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #105
Jolter wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name one essential application where PFAS is really necessary? Something where society would actually be substantially worse without it. I’m not talking about ski wax here.

Only reasonable example is AFFF fire fighting foam. But realistically the amount of liquid fuel fires that you have to fight in this world probably pale in comparison with the production volumes of unnecessary anti-stick cookware and gore-tex fabrics.

Firefighting foam is much more likely to contaminate groundwater, so relative production volume is not a good metric for environmental impact.

Gore-tex isn't going to hurt anyone unless there is dumping or leakage in manufacturing.

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