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3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

reuters.com

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Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#51

Post by Dylan16807 »

legitster wrote: post #42

"Forever chemicals" is clearly a scary term devoid of context. Please help me ground it. Is this a health or environmental risk? Is it potential or realized? What's the nearest comparison?

Dec 20 (Reuters) - U.S. industrial conglomerate 3M Co (MMM.N) on Tuesday set a 2025 deadline to stop producing PFAS, the "forever chemicals" used in anything from cell phones to semiconductors that have been linked to cancers, heart problems and low birth weights.

Perfluoralkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) do not break down quickly and have in recent years been found in dangerous concentrations in drinking water, soils and foods.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#52

Post by Brian_K_White »

themerone wrote: post #5

I'm not sure this is a win for the environment or human health. 3M is gifting sales to it's competition to avoid future liabilities. Chinese companies are ready to pick up the slack. 3M is certainly developing safer alternatives, but until they are as good and as cheap, companies will buy their toxins elsewhere.

some will continue to buy the old stuff elsewhere.

some, however few and small, will choose to buy the new, more expensive, less convenient, less performant stuff for a variety of reasons, once it exists at all.

And as time goes on, pressures and variables change.

Nothing happens without starting somewhere, and the first step of ecery change that ever happened can always be characterized as impractical, ineffective, irrational. And yet, countless such changes have happened anyway despite those perfectly reasonable sounding arguments.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#53

Post by peebeebee »

legitster wrote: post #42

"Forever chemicals" is clearly a scary term devoid of context. Please help me ground it. Is this a health or environmental risk? Is it potential or realized? What's the nearest comparison?

Even very very small amounts of these pose a risk to our health. And because they never break down, they keep building up in the environment. They are everywhere, in your drinking water, in the soil where you plant your vegetables, …

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#54

Post by the_third_wave »

wkat4242 wrote: post #26
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.

Does paying for the pollution really help fix the problem? Will the government use that money to filter rivers for PFAS? I think a lot of this need also comes from other supposedly environmental choices. My work banned plastic cups and now has paper cups with PFAS which are more toxic. I think the plastic ones were the better choice if recycled properly. And raincoats were really really horrible before Gore-Tex.

> And raincoats were really really horrible before Gore-Tex.

Nope, they were fine. A bit heavier but far longer-lasting, including the waxed versions which can be re-waxed if needed to keep up waterproofing. I'm still using my army-issued raincoats from when I served in 1992, one of them has been with me on a number of expeditions (months of paddling the Yukon from Whitehorse to the Bering Strait, climbing several mountains, etc) where it doubled as a tent bottom, it is still perfectly serviceable. The lighter version I still use when cycling, it is still waterproof and the seams - which usually are the weak spot - still hold. I'm also using a 20yo wax coat which I re-waxed a few times (still using the original tin of wax), that one hardly contains any synthetics. Anything made of Gore-Tex would have delaminated after a few months of this type of use.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#56

Post by User23 »

rtpg wrote: post #17
themerone wrote: post #5

I'm not sure this is a win for the environment or human health. 3M is gifting sales to it's competition to avoid future liabilities. Chinese companies are ready to pick up the slack. 3M is certainly developing safer alternatives, but until they are as good and as cheap, companies will buy their toxins elsewhere.

How does this argument not apply to everything? The counterfactual (where 3M continues to produce these) is ... obviously bad? Producing materials that are bad for the environment and human health! Now less is produced, at least in the short term. An example where your argument doesn't play out like you say: many chemicals manufacturers decided to no longer sell chemicals that would be used for administering the deat…

> How does this argument not apply to everything?

Well one hypothetical way it wouldn't apply is if the US federal government backed 3M's move and banned Chinese and other foreign companies from unfairly competing with a company that is choosing to avoid intentionally poisoning their customers.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#58

Post by 4ad »

Centigonal wrote: post #15
missedthecue wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PFAS are used because there isn't a better alternative. A globally coordinated reduction in production only increases the price of products for consumers.

...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.

We should stop taking the pans, one-time use containers, etc, but a GoreTex jacket costs $400, not $40, and even the "cheap" GoreTex knockoffs cost $200...

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#59

Post by eyelidlessness »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #36

3M has been facing a raft of litigation that has prompted the move Generally speaking, toxic substances are only "cheap" due to externalizing many of the costs involved, like increased healthcare costs and lost productivity. If you do a thorough analysis of the costs of using such chemicals, they aren't cheap at all. Maybe someday humans will get that.

The humans making the cost/benefit analysis are largely the ones whose cost is actually external. I certainly wouldn’t do the same math, but I’m not casually enriching myself by making people sick. The people who buy their products are largely their victims, not their accomplices.

Nearly everyone does NOT own the means of production, and the few who do know exactly what’s wrong and keep on doing it to everyone but themselves until they’re forced to stop. Maybe someday we’ll realize that too.

Re: 3M to end 'forever chemicals' output

#60

Post by Brian_K_White »

flockonus wrote: post #16
minism wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right.. this is a perfect example of why government legislation/intervention in the market is needed to some degree.

Over our globalized economy I don't see how local government legislation can work (unfortunately). Long are gone the days governments around the world coordinated to banish CFCs, for instance.

The entire US benefits from rules only California makes for itself. The entire world benefits from rules only the EU makes for itself.

That very same globalization sometimes causes influence as a pure byproduct.

Regardless, it's not an all or nothing situation. If there are 6000 problems, it's perfectly fine to pick just one of them, and do something that only makes it 1% better. So what there are 5999 other problems? So what most of this one problem didn't even get better because there is some way around it? Tomorrow you just keep doing more of the same and make the current problem 2% better. Or make one of the other 5999 a little better.

All progress is plodding. There is no other type.

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