[HN Gopher] 3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy
___________________________________________________________________
3M May Escape Toxic Chemical, PFAS Manufacturing Legacy
Author : speckx
Score : 148 points
Date : 2025-10-07 13:22 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| nakamoto_damacy wrote:
| Justice-as-a-Service... The Enterprise subscription tier has a
| get-out-of-jail feature.
| yapyap wrote:
| I'm sure they'll get off legally (just donate to the sitting
| president) but for the people affected by their practices they
| will be hard pressed to turn their legacy around.
| myrmidon wrote:
| I think it is incorrect to blame this on a currently corrupt
| president.
|
| Counter-hypothesis: This is a systemic issue. Decisionmakers
| and shareholders that cause harm face very little consequences
| if their behavior does not violate the letter of the law.
|
| Compare the leaded gas debacle: US lead industry suppressed
| knowledge about harmful effects, and even directly targeted
| researchers with smear-campaigns and lawfare for _decades_ ,
| but faced no real legal consequences once everything came to
| light.
| im3w1l wrote:
| I think it's even more systemic. The public knows about the
| harm and they are ok with it. They think the benefits
| outweigh the risks.
| myrmidon wrote:
| This sounds bleak, but I'm pretty sure that _any_
| improvement (more justice /corporate responsibility) would
| at least not be free: It would also have chilling effects
| on research/innovation from perceived legal risk and higher
| costs (because the customer always pays in the end, which
| also applies to indirectly legally prescribed risk
| mitigation).
|
| It is plausible to me that the public is "close to correct"
| in its current stance, and I would at least not dismiss
| that notion out of hand!
| pengaru wrote:
| The public is driven by convenience, and it's extremely
| convenient to prefer believing purported long-term harms
| are fake news, when that belief enables enjoying
| practically every other short-term convenience available to
| them
| the-chitmonger wrote:
| https://archive.ph/6dfLp
| more_corn wrote:
| 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
| might still be in use in very controlled circumstances. They
| certainly wouldn't be used as waterproofing on our paper plates.
| coryrc wrote:
| > Let them burn
|
| Who is "them"? The scientists at the time? The managers at the
| time? The managers now? The stockholders who have already sold
| and made their profits?
| hobs wrote:
| If we can have a murder investigation and assign partial
| blame for people that are just there while the crime is being
| committed, why cant we do it for something that harms the
| entire human race?
|
| Just because we don't have a great framework for something
| today doesn't mean we should not have it, just that
| incentives have been against it up to this point.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| _> If we can have a murder investigation and assign partial
| blame for people that are just there while the crime is
| being committed, why cant we do it for something that harms
| the entire human race?_
|
| Check the bank balance of the people being convicted for
| being present when a crime is committed.
|
| Compare it to the bank balance of the people who harm the
| entire human race.
| hobs wrote:
| Yeah, see my second sentence - throwing up your hands and
| claiming inaction isn't the way to solve anything. Saying
| "but the billionaires don't want it!!" sure, let me pre-
| give up so its super easy for them to keep winning.
| titzer wrote:
| > Compare it to the bank balance of the people who harm
| the entire human race.
|
| Yet another reason why we don't need billionaires. No one
| should have enough money that they can just pay their way
| through crime after crime.
| coryrc wrote:
| We won't get there by just saying "they" should be
| punished; most people can agree on that. Be specific on who
| and how.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Isn't one of the answers found in the dubious concept of
| corporate personhood?
| lm28469 wrote:
| All of them, and their descendants if needs be, make it clear
| it should not happen. The bourgeoisie only understands
| rolling heads, no matter how harsh the punishment is it'll
| never make up nor equal what they're inflicting us
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| A recent article in The Atlantic said that one scientist
| would know it's harmful to humans and another would know it's
| in all human blood and 3M made sure they'd never meet.
|
| So the scientist who knew it was harmful didn't know it was
| everywhere and the scientist who knew it was everywhere
| didn't know it was harmful.
|
| Point is that it's possible to silo scientists in this way so
| they can't see the big picture.
| doug_durham wrote:
| Poisoned? You need to do more research. The regulations put in
| place since the early 2000's have already reduced exposure by
| 70 to 80%. The levels are subclinical. The chemicals persist in
| the environment indefinitely because they are chemically inert.
| The interactions with biological systems are more mechanical
| than chemical. It's not a great situation to be in, but it is
| unlikely to cause large amounts of long term harm.
| SirMaster wrote:
| So when the chemicals get into our biological bodies, they
| hurt us mechanically, not chemically?
| cluckindan wrote:
| Yes. They repel water, fats and oils. Having waterproof
| kidneys or a fatproof liver isn't great for normal
| functioning of said organs.
| jmyeet wrote:
| 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 government tried to give
| them a Jeffrey Epstein level pass by essentially allowing them to
| pay a few billion dollars over 20 years, which essentially
| amounted to interest off their ill-gotten gains. Last I heard an
| appeals court said no, you can't do that and release liability.
| This really was a slap on the wrist.
|
| Now compare this to what China does [1][2][3].
|
| Remember how all those people went to jail for mortgage fraud
| after 2008? Oh wait... And now? We just sell pardons [4]. This
| sort of thing used to cause a scandal (eg [5]).
|
| [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/24/china-
| executes...
|
| [2]: https://www.npr.org/2025/03/01/nx-s1-5308604/alibaba-
| founder...
|
| [3]: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45728459
|
| [4]: https://abcnews.go.com/US/trumps-flurry-pardons-include-
| camp...
|
| [5]: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-shadow-of-marc-rich
| Isamu wrote:
| I agree there can be better accountability but China is not a
| shining example of anti-corruption, there it is used to destroy
| your political enemies and to increase your political power.
| Here the issue is probably that the political parties shield
| their rich donors.
| gruez wrote:
| >Nobody has been criminally charged. The government tried to
| give them a Jeffrey Epstein level pass by essentially allowing
| them to pay a few billion dollars over 20 years
|
| Doesn't that settlement only cover civil claims? It doesn't
| grant them immunity over any criminal claims. It's more correct
| to say that they didn't bother prosecuting them criminally
| (possibly because it's hard to do so), and got a civil
| settlement instead because the evidentiary standards are lower.
|
| > which essentially amounted to interest off their ill-gotten
| gains.
|
| They offered to pay $6B of $11B gains. Maybe you think they
| should have been fined $100 trillion or whatever for all the
| harm they caused, but that money doesn't exist, and moreover
| it's unclear whether a long drawn out legal battle would result
| in more money than the settlement they offered.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-27/purdue...
| pton_xd wrote:
| > They offered to pay $6B of $11B gains. Maybe you think they
| should have been fined $100 trillion or whatever for all the
| harm they caused, but that money doesn't exist, and moreover
| it's unclear whether a long drawn out legal battle would
| result in more money than the settlement they offered.
|
| Paying $6B out of $11B earned from literally killing hundreds
| of thousands of people.
|
| Meanwhile Alex Jones receives a $1.5B judgement (against ~$10
| mil in assets) for just harassing people that were killed?
|
| Even involuntary manslaughter comes with years of jail time.
| Recklessly killing a single human being. Willfully destroying
| thousands? Nah, just give us some of the money you earned and
| we're square.
|
| How does this make sense? This is an extreme injustice no
| matter how you look at it. The Sacklers deserve far, far
| worse.
| gruez wrote:
| >Meanwhile Alex Jones receives a $1.5B judgement (against
| ~$10 mil in assets)
|
| You answered your own question. $10M doesn't buy a lot of
| lawyering. $11B Does. Moreover Alex Jones was dumb and did
| his misdeeds in a way that makes it a slam dunk to sue him
| in court. The linked article above mentions why suing the
| Sacklers is much tougher:
|
| >How are you going to get the Sacklers to give up all their
| money? You could sue them, sure, of course. The entity that
| is most obvious liable for the opioid crisis is Purdue, the
| company, which is very bankrupt, but you can probably find
| some causes of action to sue the Sacklers. For one thing,
| some Sacklers were executives or board members of Purdue,
| so you could sue them personally for their own actions
| running Purdue. (But not all of them were.) For another
| thing, there are arguments under the bankruptcy code that
| they should not have been able to extract $11 billion from
| the company while it was facing all this opioid liability,
| that the dividends they got were "fraudulent transfers" and
| can be clawed back by the company.
|
| >There are problems with all of this. There are a lot of
| Sacklers. They can hire good lawyers. Some of them live
| abroad. Much of their money is in trusts that a US court
| might not be able to get access to. If you sued all of
| them, it would be expensive and time-consuming and you
| might not get much money. You might! And you might at least
| make life very unpleasant for them, which has its own
| virtues.
|
| Finally, the supreme court votes show how divided the
| justices were. Contrary to the popular expectation that
| Republicans are pro-business, they were actually the ones
| voting against the settlement. The justices voting against
| the settlement were Trump, HW Bush, W Bush, Trump, and
| Biden appointees; justices voting for the settlement were
| Trump, W Bush, Obama, and Obama appointees.
| jmyeet wrote:
| > Doesn't that settlement only cover civil claims?
|
| Yes, but criminal actions over the Sacklers personally while
| (IMHO) completely justified are incredibly unlikely. Forme,
| every Sackler involved in Purdue should die penniless in a
| prison cell.
|
| The big gift of the settlement (which is why I called it an
| Epstein like deal) was that the bankruptcy court discharged
| any personal liability from the Sacklers despite it being
| Purdue in bankruptcy. This was so egregious that even this
| Supreme Court said "no" (and, weirdly, the 3 liberal Justices
| were completely fine with it, which is bonkers).
|
| Companies routinely try this thing where, when they're facing
| significant liability, try to restructure the company such
| that the assets are in one company and the liabilities are in
| the other and there are rents or payments or royalties paid
| from the liabilit company to the asset company. This has, as
| far as I know, never worked, meaning bankruptcy courts have
| rejected this as a liability shield. Yet they keep trying and
| they will probably succeed at some point. The sacklers did
| this with Purdue too.
|
| It's interesting that bankruptcy courts have rejected this
| restructuring to avoid liabilities (correctly) yet it's
| completely fine to avoid tax liabilities. Yes, I'm looking at
| your, tech companies with Irish subsidiaries who own the IP.
| filoeleven wrote:
| > try to restructure the company such that the assets are
| in one company and the liabilities are in the other and
| there are rents or payments or royalties paid from the
| liabilit company to the asset company.
|
| Is DuPont spinning off Chemours an example of this?
| cluckindan wrote:
| Heroin was originally advertised by Bayer as a safe and
| nonaddictive treatment for morphine dependency.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| limited liability corporations are the root of all evil.
| khaki54 wrote:
| without Limited Liability Companies, a civil matter as simple
| as a copyright lawsuit could permenently bankrupt a small
| business and take the owners house and all their assets.
|
| I don't agree with companies wantonly externalizing their costs
| onto the environment or the populace such as Dow or 3M
| poisoning the entire planet. Criminal liability never goes away
| for serious crimes, whether sole-proprietership, LLC, or Corp.
| We need to actually start jailing people though
| lm28469 wrote:
| > copyright
|
| Another thing we should flush down the drain to begin with
| jMyles wrote:
| No flushing is necessary; it is conceptually fading on the
| internet whether the state acknowledges it or not.
|
| It'll be great if some solemn elder-statesmen step up and
| read the writing on the wall instead of throwing more
| tantrums, but I think it's beyond obvious now that the
| internet will not abide copyright.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| > could permenently bankrupt a small business and take the
| owners house and all their assets.
|
| A small business, which practically is comprised of - in the
| US in most cases 1 employee, or maybe 1-3 employees, most
| likely related.
|
| That person, who you say did a copyright issues, but maybe I
| say, accidentally used a chopsaw on someones hand... they're
| liable.
|
| some fake paper does not reduce liability.
| ruined wrote:
| tort and copyright would be different if LLCs didn't exist
| Zigurd wrote:
| If you are a part owner of a restaurant that's an LLC, and
| the restaurant engages in wage theft, which is rampant in
| that business, in many states the corporate veil can be
| pierced to recover stolen wages. "Limited" doesn't mean
| "none."
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| no reason to have a veil at all. Delete!
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Why do you want to arrest grandma for owning Enron stock?
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| I certainly do. The stock market would have fewer bubbles if
| risks were born by the owners!
| ruined wrote:
| if LLCs didn't exist, clearly the stock market would operate
| differently
|
| would Enron have been Enron if it wasn't an LLC?
| immibis wrote:
| Enron (like all publicly traded US companies) was a C-Corp,
| but that's a technicality.
| jMyles wrote:
| Clearly the system by which "grandma" owns a small part of a
| criminal organization is flawed.
|
| Whether criminal liability needs to flow to individual owners
| I don't know, but I'm sure someone has done the thinking here
| about how to make this less insane.
| dimal wrote:
| Large shareholders are very different than grandma owning a
| few shares or even a few hundred shares. If criminal risk was
| priced into the stock, our society would look very different.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| So, what is anyone gonna do about? Do YOU want to sacrifice your
| life to play supermario bros against the Managers and CEOs
| responsible for that? Are they even alive anymore?
| starwatch wrote:
| 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
| ck2 wrote:
| skiers have been putting teflon wax on their skis for decades
| now
|
| it's in the snow, ground, and water-supply
|
| forever
| lm28469 wrote:
| You forgot rain. Maybe one day people will remember we're
| just sharing one small planet, the air, the water, the food
| supplies, ... all the shit you dump/burn ends up in your food
| or water eventually
| pengaru wrote:
| > all the shit you dump/burn ends up in your food or water
| eventually
|
| but most that shit doesn't survive the journey intact,
| being out in the elements and bombarded by the sun isn't
| kind to most things
|
| hence the focus on "forever chemicals"
| Zigurd wrote:
| Future archaeologists will wonder that we first fouled
| our nest from edge to edge with lead in gasoline, and
| then there's that radioactive layer, and following
| immediately after the forever chemicals layer.
| pengaru wrote:
| The anthropocene, aka the petroradiata layer
| lm28469 wrote:
| But still a lot of things do, pesticides following the
| rain cycles is a good example. We're killing the
| biodiversity and ourselves with it. We already almost
| entirely rely on synthetically amending fields with
| petrol byproducts to feed ourselves, tomorrow we might
| have to manually pollinate crops when insects won't be
| enough to do the job.
|
| PFAS are a problem, co2 is a problem, but we have dozens
| of other very big problems that are partially, if not
| entirely, obscured
|
| https://usrtk.org/healthwire/banned-pesticides-found-in-
| clou...
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| > We already almost entirely rely on synthetically
| amending fields with petrol byproducts to feed ourselves
|
| elaborate please
| tremon wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process
|
| > Nearly 50% of the nitrogen found in human tissues
| originated from the Haber-Bosch process. Thus, the Haber
| process [enabled] the global population to increase from
| 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7.7 billion by November 2018.
| NetMageSCW wrote:
| I assume that means we have to use fertilizer to ensure
| we can produce enough food crop.
| alright2565 wrote:
| What is the physical process that leads to PFAS ending up
| in the rain?
| titzer wrote:
| The planetary hydrological cycle.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62391069
| citizenpaul wrote:
| Oh snap that was some good "the expert" energy.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
|
| Why cant we have parallel lines that intersect. Geometry.
| alright2565 wrote:
| 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 determined to be significant, the
| results imply that local action can have an impact on
| PFAS contamination in precipitation. A three-way ANOVA
| model determined that functional group, chain length, and
| location were significant predictors of PFAS
| concentrations
|
| If you can get the full text I'd be very interested in
| reading about it.
| vel0city wrote:
| 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.
| titzer wrote:
| 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.
| usefulcat wrote:
| According to the linked Veritasium video, Teflon is not
| directly problematic, it's the chemicals _used to
| manufacture_ Teflon that are the problem.
| schiffern wrote:
| "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...
| cluckindan wrote:
| It's also applied to skis by heating it, which breaks
| down the polymers.
| j4coh wrote:
| Veritasium seems to be frequently wrong or at least
| incomplete. I empathise, it's hard to make definitive
| statements like that, but maybe at some point it's better
| not to if you're not sure and more about entertainment than
| anything else.
| kjreact wrote:
| That's a bold statement to make that "Veritasium seems to
| be frequently wrong". Can you list some of these many
| wrong statements that they make?
| horsawlarway wrote:
| It's not like this is going unnoticed either, though.
|
| The International Ski Federation (FIS) now bans fluorinated
| wax in all their competitions, and this wax is explicitly
| called out alongside cookware in much of the legislation
| that's going around in places like CA/CO for PFAS bans.
| SirMaster wrote:
| But you can filter out PFAS from water...
| cyanydeez wrote:
| 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".
| Citizen8396 wrote:
| The extremely toxic PFOA and PFOS are byproducts of
| manufacturing Teflon. After decades, we have managed to just
| barely regulate it. We don't know if these newer compounds will
| ultimately have similar effects. DuPont had reason to believe
| these original compounds were harmful, but they suppressed that
| fact in favor of profit. "Probably fine" is not acceptable,
| considering we can't meaningfully clean the stuff up.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_events_related_to_...
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| Really well written, so here's a gift link:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-3m-pfas-toxic-legacy...
| siliconc0w wrote:
| I don't think most people understand that the damage from PFAS is
| generational and cumulative. You can isolate zebrafish, expose
| the first generation, and you'll see abnormalities generations
| later even those those fish were never exposed. That is their
| legacy - it's civilization-level harm.
| ninininino wrote:
| I've been struggling to understand why people care more about
| Gaza, Ukraine, BLM, or trans bathrooms than issues like PFAS
| proliferation and ultimately came to the conclusion that people
| really just don't care about hypothetical future generations as
| much as the present. You can point and say "look, this action
| doesn't affect you much and just makes a 0.01% difference, but
| it will effect 100,000 future generations of life on this
| planet and can never be reversed" and people will still say
| "wow that's sad, but there are people starving in Country A"
| and be much more concerned.
|
| I guess it's us that are the weird ones.
| Liquix wrote:
| _A person's toothache means more to that person than a famine
| in China which kills a million people. A boil on one's neck
| interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa. Think of
| that the next time you start a conversation._
|
| - Dale Carnegie
| graemep wrote:
| People do care about climate change and lots of other long
| term things.
|
| People care about things that there are campaigns about, that
| get media coverage. They also avoid thinking about things
| that they think cannot be changed. These are correlated: if
| there is a campaign to change something people think it
| cannot be changed.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Well, people do care about PFAS, global warming,
| environmental degradation...it's just htey've decided the
| solution is _depopulation_. They're fighting over the very
| carrying capacity of an earth that no ones going to fix.
|
| So, like, you realy think israel, russia, america, china,
| india are all flirting heavily with fascism because of their
| religion, nationalism, isolationism? Or is it more likely
| they're trying to isolate themselves from humanity to reduce
| the overall social costs.
|
| Biollionaires out there building their bunkers, and here we
| are...
| stronglikedan wrote:
| It's possible to care about more than one thing at a time.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I could be wrong but I think the parent comment's point
| isn't that no one cares, but that the scale of the issue--
| today and spanning far into the future--isn't presently
| regarded by people in a proportional manner.
|
| So, people care, but not as much as it seems like they
| should.
|
| The parent also used the phrase "care _more_ "; they aren't
| saying people don't care at all, so they acknowledge that
| people can care about more than one thing at a time.
| jancsika wrote:
| Your argument doesn't make much sense.
|
| Short term changes in Gaza/Ukraine/PFAS proliferation will
| _all_ have very little effect on the _current_ daily lives of
| most Americans.
|
| But those same short terms changes in all of the above will
| have massive changes in the _future_ of most Americans.
|
| E.g., if public pressure had prevented the U.S. from invading
| Iraq on March 20th, 2003, not much would have changed for
| Americans on March 21st, 2003. But by the end of the war,
| that would be over $1 trillion that would have been spent
| differently by the U.S. government. You apparently like
| statistical estimates-- tell me how much of that $1 trillion
| you estimate would have gone to research grants for PFAS
| proliferation risks and/or alternative technologies over a
| 20-year period.
|
| And that's just the opportunity cost. With Gaza and Ukraine
| there is further escalation of weapons use and drone tech,
| damage to the Chernobyl sarcophagus, potential use of
| tactical nukes, endless appetite for incorporating AI into
| war and mass surveillance... the list goes on and on.
|
| It just cannot be overstated how wrong it is to blithely
| assume that focus on current events is somehow short term
| thinking while armchair quarterbacking PFAS proliferation
| 100,000 generations into the future is somehow more
| consequential and erudite.
|
| Edit: change "stated" to "overstated" (hehe)
| tpmoney wrote:
| If we're taking about hypothetical effects on hypothetical
| generations of life that can never be reversed, anything you
| can worry about probably meets that threshold and so picking
| any given thing is arbitrary. Gaza and the Ukraine conflicts
| are the results of choices made by the generation before,
| which are in turn the result of choices made by the
| generation before that, which in turn are... and so on.
| Consider Gaza on its own. You could probably trace a pretty
| clear line from this conflict back to decisions made in the
| earliest records we have of Judaism. How many generations and
| people has that impacted? How many of these chemicals you're
| specifically worried about are the consequences of actions
| taken in this and the prior conflicts? The total global
| impact of the decision of one Jewish sect to crucify the
| leader of another sect is probably conceivably larger than
| anything PFAS have done or even will do for quite a long
| while considering we're still dealing with the consequences
| of that decision even now.
| tristor wrote:
| 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.
| leobg wrote:
| What have you done in your own home? I'd be curious to know.
| tristor wrote:
| > 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.
| SpicyUme wrote:
| How do you deal with running electricity through the house?
| This is not meant to be a fully serious question, but I'm
| replacing old wires in my home currently and it doesn't
| escape my attention that PFAS added to the insulation makes
| the new wiring easier to use and possibly safer from a fire
| perspective. I'm not certain about this but pulling cloth
| wrapper wires out of the ceiling makes me think where such
| chemicals have been used. I know I buy precrimped jumper
| wires with a teflon coating for work. I'm certain some
| people strip them with a heated tool. And I certainly
| melted some insulation while soldering them as a teenager.
| tristor wrote:
| I've never owned a house old enough to be rewired, my
| previous house was built in 1992, the current house was
| built in 2017. That said, as far as I am aware, SIMpull
| does not contain PFAS, which is the slippery coating on
| Romex wiring. I don't know what the off-brand companies
| do, though.
|
| For data cabling, which I did install myself in both
| houses, I looked up material safety data sheets (MSDS)
| for any products I purchased before buying them. The
| wiring I used also does not contain any PFAS in its
| insulation.
| SpicyUme wrote:
| Interesting, I haven't looked at the datasheets but I
| assumed there were some PFAS used in the coatings. That
| is good to know. The problem I see is that the material
| properties of PFAS are so useful and desireable, so they
| are used in so many different contexts.
| randycupertino wrote:
| There's the PFAS blood cleaning startup but is unvalidated and
| also we'll all just get more replacement exposure from routine
| activities of living soooo imo almost feels futile regardless:
| https://www.wired.com/story/this-startup-promises-to-clean-y...
| mNovak wrote:
| http://archive.today/6dfLp
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Mercury, Lead, PFAS, thousands of additives in plastics. What
| else?
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