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PFAS “Forever Chemicals” and Nordic Ski Wax
- unicornporn 7y agoThis shit is everywhere and I've lately observed that the big outdoor brands aren't even close to doing what they can to stop using them. It's even in childrens clothes, all in the name of keeping us dry. I actually recently tried Greenland wax on a cotton canvas anorak, and so far it's working out great. Perhaps it's not as effective as Gore-Tex. I think we should try to remember that people somehow survived outside before these materials were introduced.
- forgotmypw 7y agoOne of the many reasons I've stopped buying new things, going for used instead. The off-gassing decreases with time.
- nate_meurer 7y agoPFCs don't offgas. There are practically non-volatile at normal temperatures. They steadily rub off on everything that touches them.
- Angostura 7y agoI suspect many of the buyers of Gortex clothing are quite environmentally aware. This could be bad for them if the news spreads. I was completely unaware of the link between Gortex and PFAS
- ImprovedSilence 7y agoMaybe I'm not looking as much, but I don't see things branded as GoreTex at all anymore. I attributed to something like the patent running out on it. Either way, I see almost no jackets or boots including the GoreTex logo. I assumed everyone moved on to cheaper DWR type stuff, which is probably just as much if not more harmful & full of PFAS.
- skookum 7y agoAll the A-list mountain brands' top-of-the-line shells are currently made with Gore-Tex. I just did a quick scan and Arc'teryx, Black Diamond, Haglöfs, Marmot, Norrøna, Outdoor Research, Patagonia, and Rab all do. I can't find a single brand that I'd consider buying a technical shell from that doesn't. The same holds for boots: Asolo, La Sportiva, Lowa, Scarpa, Vasque, and Zamberlan all use Gore-Tex.
- NickNameNick 7y agouh Northface's top-of the line jackets use 'Futurelight (tm)' for their waterproof membrane. Outdoor Research have 'AscentShell' Black Diamond have 'BD.dry' Marmot have 'Membrain'
- skookum 7y agoI'm not sure what the condescending "uh" is about. All of the brands I listed do have websites so you can trivially confirm their premium shells use Gore-Tex. Here are the ones you tried to fact-check: https://www.outdoorresearch.com/us/mens-hemispheres-jacket-268073 https://www.outdoorresearch.com/us/mens-hemispheres-jacket-2... https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en/mens-jackets-shells/sharp-end-shell-APBAX0_cfg.html https://www.blackdiamondequipment.com/en/mens-jackets-shells... https://www.marmot.com/mens-alpinist-jacket-30370.html https://www.marmot.com/mens-alpinist-jacket-30370.html TNF still uses Gore-Tex as well, but I didn't include them in my original list - they went mass market about 20 years ago and while less experienced people still buy it based on name recognition, you'll rarely see TNF worn by unsponsored people in the backcountry.
- gamblor956 7y agoI see plenty of people wearing North Face in the backcountry, all of whom paid for it. My North Face gear is just as nice as my Marmot gear, both of which are slightly higher in quality than the REI-brand gear. None of them are as good as my Arcteryx jacket, but for the price of that one jacket I could buy a jacket, midlayer, base layer, rain shell, and hiking pants from any or all of the first 3 brands.
- tesseract 7y agoThe Goretex membrane itself is PTFE, which as long as you don't overheat/burn it, is a long chain polymer that does not seem to be anywhere near as much of a concern as small-molecule PFAS are. The bigger issue is likely the water repellent treatment of the shell fabric, which at least in the existing technology is necessary for breathability -- the garment can't breathe if the outer fabric layer is waterlogged.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ErikAugust 7y agoThis stuff is in drinking water which seems bad, but what are the dangers of Teflon and Gore-Tex clothing?
- jfim 7y agoThe company manufacturing Teflon has been disposing of chemicals used during the manufacture of Teflon in such a way that those chemicals end up in the drinking water supply of communities surrounding factories.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoRelevant comment/thread from a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22117840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22117840 Huffington Post article: https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-beautiful-parkersburg https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-b... Dark Waters film on the topic: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/ DuPont was the entity responsible for the pollution and coverup.
- bsk26 7y agoI thought Dark Waters was good but the nytimes article it is based on is even better https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.amp.html&ved=2ahUKEwjh1dfvkKLnAhVXVs0KHR-_A8UQFjAAegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw3cb_s-HqLSWKMlaEoyNBDg&cf=1 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/... If you're concerned about goretex and dwrs, everything made by Nikwax uses different technology and is PFA free. Goretex might be safe for end user (or might not) but the manufacturing process is probably environmentally risky ... I wouldn't buy goretex for non-critical uses. So use it for mountaineering but not in the ski resort or on the way to work
- amarshall 7y agoAMP-free URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-b...
- Alex3917 7y agoIt’s in almost all chain lubes for bikes also. There is one brand I found called Green Oil that doesn’t use it, but it takes a week or so to ship from the UK and they only make a wet lube. Not thrilled with using a wet lube year round, but still much better than having Teflon dust in my apartment.
- unicornporn 7y ago> There is one brand I found called Green Oil that doesn’t use it, but it takes a week or so to ship from the UK and they only make a wet lube. It's on one of my bikes now. Not super winter friendly (wax style), but works. Their grease is just as good as the hazardous crap out there. There's another eco brand that sells lube too, can't find their name. Muc-Off wet and drylubes says "biodegradable".
- hinkley 7y agoA million years ago Phil Wood's Tenacious Oil was the go-to for the all-weather bikers I knew. They are still in business. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0378/1413/files/SDS-PHIL_TENACIOUS_OIL.pdf?335 https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0378/1413/files/SDS-PHIL_T... (Is everyone publishing these now? Is that a California law?)
- nate_meurer 7y agoNo, lubricants such as Krytox and the various spray and wet machine lubes used for bikes and such contain only polymerized fluoropolymers such as PTFE (trade name Teflon). PTFE has a long established safety record, and is completely different from the unpolymerized PFCs that are showing up in ground water and in people's blood. Green Oil is fear mongering. Their website calls PTFE "carcinogenic". This is a lie. The manufacture of PTFE is nasty business, no doubt, but the finished product is safe. Safe enough that it has been widely used in medical implants for the past 50 years.
- serf 7y ago>PTFE has a long established safety record, and is completely different from the unpolymerized PFCs that are showing up in ground water and in people's blood. Teflon is mentioned in the article as a PFAS based chemical that has had legal trouble due to health hazards in the past.. "A just-released film, Dark Waters, stars Mark Ruffalo as an intrepid lawyer battling DuPont in the early 2000s after the chemical giant began making a PFAS-based product, Teflon, at its factory in Parkersburg, West Virginia, where chronic illness and untimely deaths spiked among nearby residents. Several states, New York and Ohio among them, have filed lawsuits that seek compensation for health problems caused by drinking water polluted by PFAS. DuPont and 3M are frequently defendants in these suits."
- arcticgeek 7y agoSo is the regular Swix CH7 hydrocarbon wax a C6 or a C8? Should I still be handling these with gloves?
- notatoad 7y agothe "CH" line of waxes (CH4/6/7/8/10) are not fluorinated. The waxes that start with LF or HF (low-fluoro and high-fluoro, respectively) are the fluorinated products. you probably don't need to worry about handling LF or HF with gloves, it's not that toxic. but if you're waxing with them you should be wearing a respirator.
- lsllc 7y agoYeah ... about that. The CH wax dust isn't good respiratory-wise either. As an avid Alpine skier I used to hot wax, scrape then use the drill mounted rotary brushes pretty much every weekend until I discovered wax "dust" in my coffee! (early morning tuning!). I'd usually tune late at night I guess I never noticed the wax in my beer can/bottle! That was the last time I used them. Now I use the Pro-Glide from SkiMD, rather than hot-waxing, scraping and brushing, you crayon the wax on cold then use it as a friction device to "melt" the wax in with some very light brushing. Much much quicker, uses far less wax and produces very little dust, highly recommended: https://skimd.com/pro-glide https://skimd.com/pro-glide I never really used Fluro-based waxes because it doesn't last long and the guidance was that you needed to "get it out of your base" after racing as it supposedly did long term damage to the ski.
- CDRdude 7y agoI didn’t think CH waxes had fluorocarbons at all. Their LF (Low Fluoro) and HF (High Fluoro) lines certainly do.
- TimD1 7y agoCH doesn't have fluoro, but the correlation between C6/C8 and LF/HF is unclear to me. Does LF use C6 and HF uses C8, or can both wax types be made with C6/C8, but in different concentrations?
- 7y ago
- notatoad 7y agoSeems like kind of weird timing for this article - FIS has banned fluoros, and their grip over the nordic ski racing world is pretty much absolute. by next season, any waxes with fluoros will not be viable consumer products. They call out the american birkie for not having banned fluoros yet - that's because the FIS ban hasn't gone into effect yet. American Birkie is a FIS worldloppet race and subject to FIS rules.
- TimD1 7y agoAs someone who has waxed with HF wax several dozen times in the past (collegiate nordic ski racer) with no face mask and mediocre room ventilation, how worried should I be about long-term side effects?
- randycupertino 7y agoTry not to let it get to you- No use worrying over something that already happened which you can't change. Also, it's in our drinking water currently anyways, so if you want to stress out about PFAS might as well do it over something we can change going forward: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-water-foreverchemicals/u-s-drinking-water-widely-contaminated-with-forever-chemicals-report-idUSKBN1ZL0F8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-water-foreverchemical...
- hanniabu 7y agoFrom the article: > In 2018 a draft report from an office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the risk level for exposure to the chemicals should be up to 10 times lower than the 70 PPT threshold the EPA recommends. The White House and the EPA had tried to stop the report from being published.
- topspin 7y agoThe average US citizen has a large load of PFAS in their blood[1] from clothing, carpet, water and other sources. The levels have dropped a great deal in the last 20 years but it's unlikely you've increased your levels much beyond what you already had from other sources. [1] https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/pfas-blood-testing.html https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/pfas-blood-testing.html The blood serum levels reported by CDC are staggering. As an example, I have a well and it's in a contamination plume of PFOS and PFOA. The EPA certified laboratory measured level two years ago was 11 ppt (parts per trillion.) The CDC measured 2.1 ug/L of PFOA (only) in the blood of over 2000 people in 2014. That's 2,100,000 ppt; 5 orders of magnitude higher than my 'contaminated' water.
- steve_g 7y ago
- hinkley 7y agoThe fungi Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Aspergillus niger apparently can degrade PFAS chemicals. Though I'm not sure how you concentrate them enough to for bioremediation, especially in tap water, unless you can do it at the point sources. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2x47296b https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2x47296b Scotchguard got banned years ago, sounds like ski wax is next, but it sounds like it'll still be used in factories for the foreseeable future.
- ratsmack 7y agoFor everyone concerned about the damage this crap is doing to the environment and humans should watch "The Devil We Know"[1]. This film covers a time frame, starting in the 50's up to the current day. [1] https://youtu.be/gwZSXdjAqSk https://youtu.be/gwZSXdjAqSk
- kyleblarson 7y agoI am a childless person living in the biggest nordic skiing area in North America. I wax with LF/HF every morning. I don't think my impact on the environment is that big.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y agoMeanwhile in Aspen, CO https://www.aspentimes.com/news/aspen-skiing-co-among-those-saying-goodbye-to-ski-wax-hello-to-phantom/ https://www.aspentimes.com/news/aspen-skiing-co-among-those-... & https://www.dpsskis.com/phantom-glide https://www.dpsskis.com/phantom-glide Should pollute less because it lasts longer?