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3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy

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Re: 3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy

#71
post #55
post #46

The only way to escape PFAS is to go to a different planet. 3M and Dow have poisoned the entire world. It's shocking how much effort and money I have had to invest to try to mitigate this problem as much as possible in my own home, not because the alternatives are expensive, but because of how pervasive PFAS use is and how it contaminates everything. Every single decision-maker involved should have been jailed.

What have you done in your own home? I’d be curious to know.

> What have you done in your own home? I’d be curious to know.

I've gotten rid of anything in my kitchen that I can that contains PFAS or is produced with PFAS or PFOAs. I use cast iron or stainless steel cookware, glass and silicone only for things that cannot be made of stainless steel. I've more or less eliminated plastics as much as possible from the kitchen. Unfortunately, I can't necessarily do that with food packaging, but even there when I have an option I will change brands or stores to buy things without plastic packaging, or paper packaging coated in PFAS/Teflon. Similarly to avoid PFAS and other chemicals in the production of plastics, as well as microplastics, I almost exclusively buy clothing made entirely from natural fibers.

Beyond that, I have a whole home water filtration system, and after that whole home filtration system I additionally run an undersink 5-stage RO system, both of which are NSF/ANSI certified (53 for the filter system and 58 for the RO system) to remove PFAS and PFOAs. I also go out of my way to find and buy products that don't contain added PFAS, because unfortunately PFAS are in many basic everyday household products like dishwasher detergent, rinse aid, laundry detergent, fabric softener, and the like. If you dig into this you will be disturbed at how many things have PFAS intentionally added to them, and then you will be even more disturbed to find out how many things contain PFAS incidentally, mostly due to contaminated water supplies.

Even with all of this effort, and more I'm not detailing in this comment, I am exposed to PFAS in the food supply and water supply daily, and in a myriad of other ways. It's impossible to avoid, even with a major budget and being extremely conscious of this issue. There is no way to get away from it. The entire world is contaminated. I don't even know how much my mitigations have any helpful effect towards my health, because it's so difficult to mitigate.

Re: 3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy

#73
post #19

If you want more context on PFAS, I recommend this Veritasium video [0]. It expanded on my usual thought of "PFAS = bad," explaining why non-stick cookware is probably fine while other forms of PFAS are problematic. The video also covers the environmental damage caused by PFAS manufacturing. [0]: https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY

skiers have been putting teflon wax on their skis for decades now it's in the snow, ground, and water-supply forever

But you can filter out PFAS from water...

Re: 3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy

#74
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The planetary hydrological cycle. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62391069

That article's only citation is a review paper, and it doesn't answer my question or substantiate your claim. It only covers how much PFAS is found in rainwater, and not how it got there. The sources cited includes https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116685 , which is paywalled, but the snippet of the conclusion that is shown indicates that a possible major cause is industrial emissions: > As local sources were det…

Sure, its probably at its highest concentrations right where its being manufactured or used heavily, but in the end its migrating just about everywhere.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765

> n Figure 1B, the levels of PFOS in rainwater are shown to often exceed the US EPA drinking water health advisory for PFOS, except for two studies conducted in remote regions (in Tibet and Antarctica).

I don't think there are a lot of industrial emissions in Antarctica.

Re: 3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy

#75
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The planetary hydrological cycle. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62391069

That article's only citation is a review paper, and it doesn't answer my question or substantiate your claim. It only covers how much PFAS is found in rainwater, and not how it got there. The sources cited includes https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116685 , which is paywalled, but the snippet of the conclusion that is shown indicates that a possible major cause is industrial emissions: > As local sources were det…

There's a journal paper (i.e. already reviewed and accepted) linked at the bottom:

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765

That paper alone has 61 references. There are plenty of papers to go read.

Re: 3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy

#76

3M knowingly poisoned every single person in the world for decades. Let them burn, and salt the earth where they fall. These fuckers don’t deserve a second chance. How could they have done it better? Acknowledge the science when the problem was discovered in the 70s, publish the findings, let the scientific community study the problem and let people make informed decisions about the dangers. Had they done that PFAs m…

[flagged]

So when the chemicals get into our biological bodies, they hurt us mechanically, not chemically?

Re: 3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the linked Veritasium video, Teflon is not directly problematic, it’s the chemicals used to manufacture Teflon that are the problem.

"Teflon" ski wax (fluoro-wax) contains PFOA impurities, which is that same problematic chemical. It's expensive to remove so most manufacturers don't bother. https://skiracing.com/future-without-fluoros-a-complete-guid...

It’s also applied to skis by heating it, which breaks down the polymers.

Re: 3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy

#78
post #6

Let's compare to Purdue and the Sacklers, shall we? Purdue owns a huge piece of the responsibility for the opioid epidemic. They created OxyContin and lied about it's addictiveness. They are probably responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people at this point. The Sacklers were heavily involved in all aspects of this and became billionaires because of it. Nobody has been criminally charged. The govern…

Heroin was originally advertised by Bayer as a safe and nonaddictive treatment for morphine dependency.

Re: 3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So when the chemicals get into our biological bodies, they hurt us mechanically, not chemically?

Yes. They repel water, fats and oils. Having waterproof kidneys or a fatproof liver isn’t great for normal functioning of said organs.

Re: 3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy

#80
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

skiers have been putting teflon wax on their skis for decades now it's in the snow, ground, and water-supply forever

But you can filter out PFAS from water...

you can filter anything out of water...you're just arguing end users should bare the cost of billion dollar corporations doing whatever they want.

The filtration at the levels we're talking about would add thousands of dollars to every household everywhere, all at once.

Talk about something that just is a bit more than, "but you can filter it".

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