8 ms·

3M Cuts Output of PFAS Used in Chip Production

148 points by rajnathani 5y ago

lootsauce 5y ago
I know of this issue from living in MN my whole life, I wonder how many other places have been impacted by 3M? https://www.pca.state.mn.us/waste/pfas-investigation-and-clean-up https://www.pca.state.mn.us/waste/pfas-investigation-and-cle...
crote 5y ago
For context: PFAS are known as "forever chemicals" because they do not break down in nature. They are also quite bad for most animals, including of course humans. The 3M plant has been illegally dumping significant amounts of PFAS in the environment, both in the air and by dumping it in a river. During a test, over 90% of the 800ish people living within a 2-mile radius of the plant had amounts of PFAS in their body exceeding safe limits, with 60% reaching levels which could have health effects. An area of about 3 square mile around the plant is contaminated significantly enough that 3M has been made liable for sanitation. The government has of course ordered 3M to cease dumping PFAS, which I guess is the reason they are now cutting output. The story is made even more complicated because it's happening a few miles upstream from the Belgium - The Netherlands border so it is cross-border pollution - and The Netherlands is currently working to turn some land near the border into a wetlands nature reserve.
- aardvarkr 5y ago
  That additional context was really helpful, thank!
- hyperman1 5y ago
  It's been in local news for a long time now - at least august last year - Most of the coverage is in Dutch, not English. Here is one of the few English local news items I know about: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2022/03/28/pfos-pfas-inquiry-committee-points-the-finger-at-3m/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2022/03/28/pfos-pfas-inquiry-co...
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Additional context that I find interesting: PFAS is the broadest subset of materials that contain a F-C bond and this includes teflon pan coatings, high-temperature o-rings (all vehicles/industrial equipment), fire-fighting materials for explosive environments (fertilizer, pyro, weapons, storage, etc.), and in this example, solvents that allow the semiconductor industry to function (because the periodic table has no replacement for the properties of a F-C bond). There is a smaller subset PFAS materials that bioaccumulate: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19759456/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19759456/ We know about the bioaccumulation effects because of new sensor technologies, and we are also only now learning how to break the F-C bond effectively for remediation (i.e. nothing is truly ‘forever’): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181002082417.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181002082417.h... (I.e. “PFAS are known as "forever chemicals" because they do not break down in nature.” might better be stated that they do not break down quickly in nature; forever chemicals is technically a misnomer). tl;dr humanity is in the slow learning process of how to best deal with new materials technology. I find this topic analogous to the topic of ‘nuclear’ which has oscillated between ‘this will solve everything’ to ‘it’s all bad’ in the last century (and is now slowly changing as society is educated and can understand a bit more nuance).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - blablabla123 5y ago
    No, PFAS is not like Nuclear. The biggest problem with Nuclear are explosions with extreme risks. PFAS had lead in the past to birth defects - even during "normal" plant operation That said, until shit had been hitting the fan a lot of facts about PFAS had been kept in secrecy with active manipulation going on. Even today there isn't much authorative and practical information available. Also the practical benefit of Teflon pans over say Emaille or iron pans is more than questionable. Are professional cooks really using Teflon pans?
  - bsder 5y ago
    > solvents that allow the semiconductor industry to function (because the periodic table has no replacement for the properties of a F-C bond). A lot (most?) of the usage of these in semiconductors is not as solvents--they are thermal transfer fluids being used like refrigerants. This usage of them is for keeping equipment at exactly some specific temperature. As such, the usage is mostly closed-cycle. One of the reasons for using these is that they replaced earlier chemicals that were chlorofluorocarbons--a Cl-C bond destroys ozone when it gets loose while an F-C bond simply doesn't come apart. While the end chemicals tend to be incredibly stable, the byproducts of manufacturing--not so much.
- bin_bash 5y ago
  There is a great Mark Ruffalo film based on the true story of DuPont dumping these chemicals in West Virginia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)
  - uhhyeahdude 5y ago
    There is a solid BBC documentary covering the same, currently available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6veeTrdEyek https://youtu.be/6veeTrdEyek
- superkuh 5y ago
  3M did the same thing with PFOS (a related forever chemical) on the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers by Minneapolis/St. Paul in Minnesota. Just as the mercury levels were finally low enough to eat the fish the 3M PFOS started piling up and we're back to no fish meals. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/11/08/minn-lakes-with-forever-chemicals-added-to-states-list-of-troubled-waters https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/11/08/minn-lakes-with-for...
- flyingfences 5y ago
  It's been one of the dominant news items in Flanders for the past year, to the extent that I'm surprised I haven't seen it mentioned in the English-speaking media until now. Entire towns have been placed under emergency health orders: don't eat the garden vegetables or chicken eggs, don't even drink the well water. For a long time after the contamination was discovered, 3M was denying responsibility, saying it wasn't coming from their factory, and thus they wouldn't pay for remediation, even when it was totally obvious.
  - cwilkes 5y ago
    How were they denying it? That somehow PFAs were magically springing out of the ground that just so happened to be next to a factory of their’s? There can’t be that many factories pumping out these chemicals in that area.
    - mschuster91 5y ago
      > How were they denying it? "It's not us", "we have no idea", "our tests show we're clean" works for a shockingly long time in modern Western societies - the government has to prove that it is indeed 3M or whoever else who causes the pollution, and government agencies usually tend to take time until an investigation is complete. And even then, offenders can file a lawsuit... and until that lawsuit is finished and unappealable, it can take many years if not decades. And during that time, everyone claiming that a specific company is an offender is under severe risk of a defamation lawsuit. We definitely need reforms both in staffing of regulatory agencies as well as in defamation lawsuits in cases of environment or labor offenses.
      - smnrchrds 5y ago
        The companies can also try to do creative things through bankruptcy courts to avoid any negative consequences, like Johnson & Johnson is doing right now: > J&J, which also makes products such as Tylenol and Band-Aid, assigned legal liability for the complaints to the spinoff company, which immediately filed for bankruptcy — a maneuver dubbed the "Texas two-step." https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083061992/johnson-johnson-wins-court-battle-bankruptcy-baby-powder https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083061992/johnson-johnson-wi...
- hammock 5y ago
  There is no safe limit of pfas, only regulated limits (and even those are rare)
- bee_rider 5y ago
  > The story is made even more complicated because it's happening a few miles upstream from the Belgium - The Netherlands border so it is cross-border pollution - and The Netherlands is currently working to turn some land near the border into a wetlands nature reserve. The EU should start a program to get their nations to put national parks on their borders. This would be generally nice, and also it would improve unity by preventing this sort of thing. Plus, if the EU ever broke up and European countries returned to their combative roots, it would set the stage for some nice woodland battles to break up the monotony (ok the last one might not be a serious reason).
- Reason077 5y ago
  I recommend the film "Dark Waters" starring Mark Ruffalo. A true-story dramatisation of a similar case in the US involving DuPont and PFOAs used in the manufacture of Teflon: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/
  - beambot 5y ago
    Or read the expose directly: 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...
- hadlock 5y ago
  Every house in my area has reverse osmosis water treatment, since you can't filter out PFAS. Renters are less lucky and have to install their own system, if they can even afford it. Everyone who uses the river as the primary water source is in the same boat, and the company upstream keeps dumping it in the river.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    You can filter it from food... But you can't filter PFAS from potatoes, orange juice, and other foodstuffs. For most people, that makes filtering only marginally effective. There will always be parts of your diet from a farm within a few miles of a building where they tested a PFAS fire extinguisher.
  - LinuxBender 5y ago
    Same here in my area. For what its worth one can buy a portable RO system. I found one on Amazon that is decent. I first run my well water through a Britta filter to take most of the sediment and calcium out or the SimPure RO plugs up within 15 gallons. The house has no filter yet The Britta filters last for about 20 gallons each on my water. This allows my RO filters to work for about 300 gallons. My long term plan is to rip the giant pressure tank out of the underground well room and put in stainless steel tanks and many fine filters, charcoal, UV, etc... and one drill pump and small pressure tank per house so that I have reserve water when the underground pump fails and a way to fill the reserve tanks from a truck.
- coryrc 5y ago
  Fast food wrappers are coated in PFAS. No need to go the indirect route when you can just wipe your food with them. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pfas+in+fast+food+wrappers&t=fpas&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pfas+in+fast+food+wrappers&t=fpas&...
  - potta_coffee 5y ago
    Absolutely outrageous! I wish I could say I don't believe it.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
For historical context: When IBM and others did this in the past, the decision basically outsourced the environmental pain to other countries, because those chemicals were going to be made by someone somewhere. A more advanced discussion on the topic might be along the lines of: “if we know that this material will be produced somewhere in the world, is it not best to put our brightest minds on how to most effectively deal with the waste stream? The added costs of mitigation should equal additional tariffs on the same product in countries that ignore environmental impact.” This is one of the observed failures of globalization: the government incentivized manufacturing to make other places suffer forgetting that we all share the same planets, and that the wealthy/educated countries should be leading the way on how to ‘best’ manufacture and deal with waste streams.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  Well, that's the reason why the West doesn't have much silicon or other environmentally damaging production any more - even leaving the obvious question of labor cost and employee rights aside, environmental compliance is expensive. The Silicon Valley as a whole is at the sad top of the Superfund sites count [1] for a reason. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/silicon-valley-full-superfund-sites/598531/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/silic...
  - welterde 5y ago
    That's not entirely accurate. Chemical industry is still huge in the West (BASF - currently the largest chemical company in the world - for example has the largest contained chemical production site in the world in Ludwigshafen; with smaller sites in Antwerpen and some in the US). The two largest high-purity silicon producers produce their product in the US (REC) and Germany (Wacker). There are still many trailing-node semiconductor fabs left (Global Foundries, ST, NXP, TI, etc.).
- colechristensen 5y ago
  A ... or perhaps the central idea of free trade is that we can all be better off and get the most out of our effort by producing the most of a thing in a region that has conditions best suited to produce that thing efficiently. Makes sense, some places have lots of mineral resources, some places are great for grazing cattle, some places specialize and have a lot of expertise in producing textiles or.. whatever else. These days though a big driver for the cost savings of globalized products are things like lax environmental regulations or ability to mistreat and exploit workforces.
nerdbaggy 5y ago
Dark Waters is a fantastic movie about what happened with DuPont Fabros and PFAS. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/
photochemsyn 5y ago
The problem here is that when a corporation like 3M sets up a chemical production system, they want to control costs, and dealing with the pollution stream is a cost they don't want to absorb. Now, ideally they'd run a 'green' process which in practice really means a zero-waste process. If you're producing one molecule of toxic waste for every molecule of desirable product, that's not a green process. Sometimes that's unavoidable with current technology, however. The thing is, there's always a solution available to the waste problem that doesn't involve dumping the gunk into the water, air and soil. Those solutions are typically expensive, i.e. you have to build a whole backend processing plant to deal with the waste. I'd guess high-intensity UV can be used to break strong C-F bonds, for example. The article states 3M (an ex-employer of mine incidentally, though in a completely unrelated area) will now do this: > "We have also put in place new controls in Zwijndrecht, including technology to control air emissions, and capture, dispose, and treat PFAS in water. These investments, along with appropriate collaboration with the relevant authorities, help us bring idled processes back online enabling European production of essential products for our customers around the world." What's ridiculous is that flourinated hydrocarbon waste has been a known serious pollution issue for decades, and yet chemical manufacturers have been allowed to keep dumping without being forced to build such back-end processing plants to deal with it.
- Melatonic 5y ago
  And sometimes even when they are banned from doing it they still do it and just hide it in barrels they dump in the port of Los Angeles that they hope just sink to the sea floor and never leak. Spoiler: They leaked
noja 5y ago
Why has the factory not been shutdown until the mess has been cleaned up?
- philipkglass 5y ago
  Production has been shut down. The article says "The materials supplier halted production of PFAS at a plant near the Belgian village of Zwijndrecht on Mar. 8."
- kabes 5y ago
  Politicians are not eager to close a plant that employs a lot of people.
  - dymk 5y ago
    But happy to turn a blind eye (for a long time, at least) even if it's poisoning people.
zackmorris 5y ago
This is really good, but may turn out to be a waste of time if nothing is done to reign in the fast food industry, which puts PFAS in food wrappers at a level approaching 1 part per thousand (876 ppm in the article): https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/25/health/pfas-chemicals-fast-food-groceries-wellness/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/25/health/pfas-chemicals-fast-fo...
rjzzleep 5y ago
somewhat (un)related, is there any particularly interesting alternative to cast iron and ceramic as alternative to non stick pans that isn't a new kind of chemical where we don't know if it is as toxic as Teflon?
- hedora 5y ago
  Why are you looking for an alternative? I don't have much experience with ceramic, but most people that dislike cast iron are using it wrong: 1) put all non cast iron frying pans, skillets, etc in storage, and make the cast iron the default (so the cast iron is used at least every few months and the patina is maintained over time). 2) put a small amount of oil in the pan each time you cook (unless the food is fatty, like ground beef) 3) to clean, scrape with a small rectangular plastic scraper (such as the brown one pampered chef makes for $3), and finish with a stainless steel pot scrubber. Do not use soap. Use hot water and dry immediately (perhaps by heating it briefly on the range and storing it there). Optionally recoat with oil once dry. This should be easier than maintaining Teflon, or you are doing something wrong. Look for more advice. If you've ruined the seasoning already (or got a "ruined" one for free, hint, hint,...), give it a thorough cleaning, coat in a very thin layer of cheap oil (canola/vegetable is fine, exotic oils often have exotic problems, like flaking) and bake for a few hours at 20-50 degrees below the smoke point of the oil you chose. When cooking, the first step should always be to start preheating the cast iron. If you still really dislike cast iron, consider stainless, optionally with a copper core. You might want a stainless sauce pan anyway, since simmering tomatos in cast iron strips the seasoning over time. Stainless is harder to clean, but is otherwise fine. Make sure the stainless is induction compatible, since a mid-priced stainless set will outlive you (be sure to get metal handles with solid rivets). Induction is the future, and you don't want to toss the set in a few decades.
  - wgd 5y ago
    > Do not use soap Using modern dish soap on cast iron is entirely fine, the detergents used are much softer than the sorts of lye-based soap that this advice stems from, and will not remove the baked-on (polymerized) seasoning. (It will slightly slow down the rate of seasoning accumulation by removing the thin layer of unpolymerized oil, but this can be fixed by just wiping on a thin coat of oil after washing and drying the pan. I usually don't even bother doing that much though.) In general I think that most guidance for using cast iron is overly cautious and makes it sound like more of a hassle than it needs to be. At the end of the day it's a large hunk of metal, and there's very little you can do in the kitchen that will permanently mess it up. edit: One piece of advice I do have: don't use a plastic spatula, they're a suboptimal choice people are forced into by easily-damaged cookware. Since that's not a concern with cast iron, you should get a thin metal spatula (example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015R7P6O https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015R7P6O). The tip will always be exceedingly thin and never deform/melt/get torn up like a plastic spatula, and as a bonus it doubles as a very effective scraper for easy cleanup.
antattack 5y ago
I wonder how 3D printers factor in. For example, Bowden tube, feeding the plastic filament, is made entirely of PTFE. There's often PTFE liner in the print head itself. Am I supposed to treat it like toxic waste?
- colechristensen 5y ago
  PTFE can give off harmful fumes if overheated so if you wanted to be careful you might consider printer setups that keep the tubes away from their overheating temperature (i.e. inside the printhead can be a concern, bowden tubes not so much) PTFE landfilled though is as far as I know pretty inert. The manufacturing process involves chemistry which is harmful if not properly done, but the finished product not so much unless burned.
philipkglass 5y ago
This article is vague about which per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were made at the Zwijndrecht factory. After some digging, I believe it's chemicals in 3M's Novec and Fluorinert product lines: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/data-center-us/applications/immersion-cooling/fluorinert-electronic-liquids/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/data-center-us/applications/imme... https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/c/b/novec/i/electronics/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/c/b/novec/i/electronics/ (Specifically, the "engineered fluids"). What was desirable about these chemicals in the first place? Looking at a specific Novec product page: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40044867/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40044867/ This liquid: - Is non-flammable - Is electrically non-conductive - Is compatible with plastics - Has zero ozone depletion potential - Has low acute toxicity - Has low global warming potential - Is a VOC-exempt solvent [1] Here's what 3M says about Fluorinert for semiconductor manufacturing: Semiconductor manufacturing requires precision. Very small temperature variations may have big impact on yield. Compared to aqueous coolants like deionized water, Fluorinert electronic liquids offer wider operating temperatures, require less maintenance and will not damage electronic equipment or wafers if a leak occurs. These products offered lower environmental and health hazards on the then-known dimensions of risk when they were introduced to the market. But the risk assessment has changed as the chronic endocrine disrupting effects of these chemicals (and/or their manufacturing byproducts) has become better understood and regulated. In the long term I don't know whether semiconductor manufacturing processes will substitute deionized water for Fluorinert (with the downsides mentioned above, but zero environmental/health risk) or if Fluorinert use will continue with heightened emphasis on preventing releases into the environment. Semiconductor manufacturing already uses some very toxic materials like hydrofluoric acid and phosphine, but with correspondingly stringent guards against worker exposure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VOC_exempt_solvent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VOC_exempt_solvent
ereli1 5y ago
In 2020 (yes, not sooner), the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) announced regulations for testing for PFAS in driking water, forcing towns to start testing for PFAS. It turns out, it was there for year, and people were drinking it unknowingly. https://www.sierraclub.org/massachusetts/pfas-mass-water-part-1 https://www.sierraclub.org/massachusetts/pfas-mass-water-par...
elric 5y ago
It's cute how they focus on the tiny town of Zwijndrecht, but conveniently forget to mention the large (by Belgian standards) city of Antwerp, which is within spitting distance from the plant, and which sits by the river in which 3M dumps its waste. Political shenanigans have prevented widespread testing of people and soil in Antwerp, but the results are pretty much guaranteed to be bad. This is akin to writing about pollution in Union City, while conveniently forgetting to mention that NYC is on the other side of the river.
eurasiantiger 5y ago
These chemicals are incredibly potent endocrine disruptors. So much so that new measurement methods were needed to quantify the tiny parts-per-trillion level of health hazard.

148 points by rajnathani 5y ago

I know of this issue from living in MN my whole life, I wonder how many other places have been impacted by 3M? https://www.pca.state.mn.us/waste/pfas-investigation-and-clean-up https://www.pca.state.mn.us/waste/pfas-investigation-and-cle...

crote 5y ago

For context: PFAS are known as "forever chemicals" because they do not break down in nature. They are also quite bad for most animals, including of course humans. The 3M plant has been illegally dumping significant amounts of PFAS in the environment, both in the air and by dumping it in a river. During a test, over 90% of the 800ish people living within a 2-mile radius of the plant had amounts of PFAS in their body exceeding safe limits, with 60% reaching levels which could have health effects. An area of about 3 square mile around the plant is contaminated significantly enough that 3M has been made liable for sanitation. The government has of course ordered 3M to cease dumping PFAS, which I guess is the reason they are now cutting output. The story is made even more complicated because it's happening a few miles upstream from the Belgium - The Netherlands border so it is cross-border pollution - and The Netherlands is currently working to turn some land near the border into a wetlands nature reserve.

aardvarkr 5y ago
That additional context was really helpful, thank!
hyperman1 5y ago
It's been in local news for a long time now - at least august last year - Most of the coverage is in Dutch, not English. Here is one of the few English local news items I know about: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2022/03/28/pfos-pfas-inquiry-committee-points-the-finger-at-3m/ https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2022/03/28/pfos-pfas-inquiry-co...
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Additional context that I find interesting: PFAS is the broadest subset of materials that contain a F-C bond and this includes teflon pan coatings, high-temperature o-rings (all vehicles/industrial equipment), fire-fighting materials for explosive environments (fertilizer, pyro, weapons, storage, etc.), and in this example, solvents that allow the semiconductor industry to function (because the periodic table has no replacement for the properties of a F-C bond). There is a smaller subset PFAS materials that bioaccumulate: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19759456/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19759456/ We know about the bioaccumulation effects because of new sensor technologies, and we are also only now learning how to break the F-C bond effectively for remediation (i.e. nothing is truly ‘forever’): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181002082417.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181002082417.h... (I.e. “PFAS are known as "forever chemicals" because they do not break down in nature.” might better be stated that they do not break down quickly in nature; forever chemicals is technically a misnomer). tl;dr humanity is in the slow learning process of how to best deal with new materials technology. I find this topic analogous to the topic of ‘nuclear’ which has oscillated between ‘this will solve everything’ to ‘it’s all bad’ in the last century (and is now slowly changing as society is educated and can understand a bit more nuance).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- blablabla123 5y ago
  No, PFAS is not like Nuclear. The biggest problem with Nuclear are explosions with extreme risks. PFAS had lead in the past to birth defects - even during "normal" plant operation That said, until shit had been hitting the fan a lot of facts about PFAS had been kept in secrecy with active manipulation going on. Even today there isn't much authorative and practical information available. Also the practical benefit of Teflon pans over say Emaille or iron pans is more than questionable. Are professional cooks really using Teflon pans?
- bsder 5y ago
  > solvents that allow the semiconductor industry to function (because the periodic table has no replacement for the properties of a F-C bond). A lot (most?) of the usage of these in semiconductors is not as solvents--they are thermal transfer fluids being used like refrigerants. This usage of them is for keeping equipment at exactly some specific temperature. As such, the usage is mostly closed-cycle. One of the reasons for using these is that they replaced earlier chemicals that were chlorofluorocarbons--a Cl-C bond destroys ozone when it gets loose while an F-C bond simply doesn't come apart. While the end chemicals tend to be incredibly stable, the byproducts of manufacturing--not so much.
bin_bash 5y ago
There is a great Mark Ruffalo film based on the true story of DuPont dumping these chemicals in West Virginia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Waters_(2019_film)
- uhhyeahdude 5y ago
  There is a solid BBC documentary covering the same, currently available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/6veeTrdEyek https://youtu.be/6veeTrdEyek
superkuh 5y ago
3M did the same thing with PFOS (a related forever chemical) on the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers by Minneapolis/St. Paul in Minnesota. Just as the mercury levels were finally low enough to eat the fish the 3M PFOS started piling up and we're back to no fish meals. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/11/08/minn-lakes-with-forever-chemicals-added-to-states-list-of-troubled-waters https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/11/08/minn-lakes-with-for...
flyingfences 5y ago
It's been one of the dominant news items in Flanders for the past year, to the extent that I'm surprised I haven't seen it mentioned in the English-speaking media until now. Entire towns have been placed under emergency health orders: don't eat the garden vegetables or chicken eggs, don't even drink the well water. For a long time after the contamination was discovered, 3M was denying responsibility, saying it wasn't coming from their factory, and thus they wouldn't pay for remediation, even when it was totally obvious.
- cwilkes 5y ago
  How were they denying it? That somehow PFAs were magically springing out of the ground that just so happened to be next to a factory of their’s? There can’t be that many factories pumping out these chemicals in that area.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > How were they denying it? "It's not us", "we have no idea", "our tests show we're clean" works for a shockingly long time in modern Western societies - the government has to prove that it is indeed 3M or whoever else who causes the pollution, and government agencies usually tend to take time until an investigation is complete. And even then, offenders can file a lawsuit... and until that lawsuit is finished and unappealable, it can take many years if not decades. And during that time, everyone claiming that a specific company is an offender is under severe risk of a defamation lawsuit. We definitely need reforms both in staffing of regulatory agencies as well as in defamation lawsuits in cases of environment or labor offenses.
    - smnrchrds 5y ago
      The companies can also try to do creative things through bankruptcy courts to avoid any negative consequences, like Johnson & Johnson is doing right now: > J&J, which also makes products such as Tylenol and Band-Aid, assigned legal liability for the complaints to the spinoff company, which immediately filed for bankruptcy — a maneuver dubbed the "Texas two-step." https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083061992/johnson-johnson-wins-court-battle-bankruptcy-baby-powder https://www.npr.org/2022/02/25/1083061992/johnson-johnson-wi...
hammock 5y ago
There is no safe limit of pfas, only regulated limits (and even those are rare)
bee_rider 5y ago
> The story is made even more complicated because it's happening a few miles upstream from the Belgium - The Netherlands border so it is cross-border pollution - and The Netherlands is currently working to turn some land near the border into a wetlands nature reserve. The EU should start a program to get their nations to put national parks on their borders. This would be generally nice, and also it would improve unity by preventing this sort of thing. Plus, if the EU ever broke up and European countries returned to their combative roots, it would set the stage for some nice woodland battles to break up the monotony (ok the last one might not be a serious reason).
Reason077 5y ago
I recommend the film "Dark Waters" starring Mark Ruffalo. A true-story dramatisation of a similar case in the US involving DuPont and PFOAs used in the manufacture of Teflon: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/
- beambot 5y ago
  Or read the expose directly: 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...
hadlock 5y ago
Every house in my area has reverse osmosis water treatment, since you can't filter out PFAS. Renters are less lucky and have to install their own system, if they can even afford it. Everyone who uses the river as the primary water source is in the same boat, and the company upstream keeps dumping it in the river.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  You can filter it from food... But you can't filter PFAS from potatoes, orange juice, and other foodstuffs. For most people, that makes filtering only marginally effective. There will always be parts of your diet from a farm within a few miles of a building where they tested a PFAS fire extinguisher.
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  Same here in my area. For what its worth one can buy a portable RO system. I found one on Amazon that is decent. I first run my well water through a Britta filter to take most of the sediment and calcium out or the SimPure RO plugs up within 15 gallons. The house has no filter yet The Britta filters last for about 20 gallons each on my water. This allows my RO filters to work for about 300 gallons. My long term plan is to rip the giant pressure tank out of the underground well room and put in stainless steel tanks and many fine filters, charcoal, UV, etc... and one drill pump and small pressure tank per house so that I have reserve water when the underground pump fails and a way to fill the reserve tanks from a truck.
coryrc 5y ago
Fast food wrappers are coated in PFAS. No need to go the indirect route when you can just wipe your food with them. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pfas+in+fast+food+wrappers&t=fpas&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?q=pfas+in+fast+food+wrappers&t=fpas&...
- potta_coffee 5y ago
  Absolutely outrageous! I wish I could say I don't believe it.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

For historical context: When IBM and others did this in the past, the decision basically outsourced the environmental pain to other countries, because those chemicals were going to be made by someone somewhere. A more advanced discussion on the topic might be along the lines of: “if we know that this material will be produced somewhere in the world, is it not best to put our brightest minds on how to most effectively deal with the waste stream? The added costs of mitigation should equal additional tariffs on the same product in countries that ignore environmental impact.” This is one of the observed failures of globalization: the government incentivized manufacturing to make other places suffer forgetting that we all share the same planets, and that the wealthy/educated countries should be leading the way on how to ‘best’ manufacture and deal with waste streams.

mschuster91 5y ago
Well, that's the reason why the West doesn't have much silicon or other environmentally damaging production any more - even leaving the obvious question of labor cost and employee rights aside, environmental compliance is expensive. The Silicon Valley as a whole is at the sad top of the Superfund sites count [1] for a reason. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/silicon-valley-full-superfund-sites/598531/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/silic...
- welterde 5y ago
  That's not entirely accurate. Chemical industry is still huge in the West (BASF - currently the largest chemical company in the world - for example has the largest contained chemical production site in the world in Ludwigshafen; with smaller sites in Antwerpen and some in the US). The two largest high-purity silicon producers produce their product in the US (REC) and Germany (Wacker). There are still many trailing-node semiconductor fabs left (Global Foundries, ST, NXP, TI, etc.).
colechristensen 5y ago
A ... or perhaps the central idea of free trade is that we can all be better off and get the most out of our effort by producing the most of a thing in a region that has conditions best suited to produce that thing efficiently. Makes sense, some places have lots of mineral resources, some places are great for grazing cattle, some places specialize and have a lot of expertise in producing textiles or.. whatever else. These days though a big driver for the cost savings of globalized products are things like lax environmental regulations or ability to mistreat and exploit workforces.

nerdbaggy 5y ago

Dark Waters is a fantastic movie about what happened with DuPont Fabros and PFAS. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/ https://m.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/

photochemsyn 5y ago

The problem here is that when a corporation like 3M sets up a chemical production system, they want to control costs, and dealing with the pollution stream is a cost they don't want to absorb. Now, ideally they'd run a 'green' process which in practice really means a zero-waste process. If you're producing one molecule of toxic waste for every molecule of desirable product, that's not a green process. Sometimes that's unavoidable with current technology, however. The thing is, there's always a solution available to the waste problem that doesn't involve dumping the gunk into the water, air and soil. Those solutions are typically expensive, i.e. you have to build a whole backend processing plant to deal with the waste. I'd guess high-intensity UV can be used to break strong C-F bonds, for example. The article states 3M (an ex-employer of mine incidentally, though in a completely unrelated area) will now do this: > "We have also put in place new controls in Zwijndrecht, including technology to control air emissions, and capture, dispose, and treat PFAS in water. These investments, along with appropriate collaboration with the relevant authorities, help us bring idled processes back online enabling European production of essential products for our customers around the world." What's ridiculous is that flourinated hydrocarbon waste has been a known serious pollution issue for decades, and yet chemical manufacturers have been allowed to keep dumping without being forced to build such back-end processing plants to deal with it.

Melatonic 5y ago
And sometimes even when they are banned from doing it they still do it and just hide it in barrels they dump in the port of Los Angeles that they hope just sink to the sea floor and never leak. Spoiler: They leaked

noja 5y ago

Why has the factory not been shutdown until the mess has been cleaned up?

philipkglass 5y ago
Production has been shut down. The article says "The materials supplier halted production of PFAS at a plant near the Belgian village of Zwijndrecht on Mar. 8."
kabes 5y ago
Politicians are not eager to close a plant that employs a lot of people.
- dymk 5y ago
  But happy to turn a blind eye (for a long time, at least) even if it's poisoning people.

zackmorris 5y ago

This is really good, but may turn out to be a waste of time if nothing is done to reign in the fast food industry, which puts PFAS in food wrappers at a level approaching 1 part per thousand (876 ppm in the article): https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/25/health/pfas-chemicals-fast-food-groceries-wellness/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/25/health/pfas-chemicals-fast-fo...

rjzzleep 5y ago

somewhat (un)related, is there any particularly interesting alternative to cast iron and ceramic as alternative to non stick pans that isn't a new kind of chemical where we don't know if it is as toxic as Teflon?

hedora 5y ago
Why are you looking for an alternative? I don't have much experience with ceramic, but most people that dislike cast iron are using it wrong: 1) put all non cast iron frying pans, skillets, etc in storage, and make the cast iron the default (so the cast iron is used at least every few months and the patina is maintained over time). 2) put a small amount of oil in the pan each time you cook (unless the food is fatty, like ground beef) 3) to clean, scrape with a small rectangular plastic scraper (such as the brown one pampered chef makes for $3), and finish with a stainless steel pot scrubber. Do not use soap. Use hot water and dry immediately (perhaps by heating it briefly on the range and storing it there). Optionally recoat with oil once dry. This should be easier than maintaining Teflon, or you are doing something wrong. Look for more advice. If you've ruined the seasoning already (or got a "ruined" one for free, hint, hint,...), give it a thorough cleaning, coat in a very thin layer of cheap oil (canola/vegetable is fine, exotic oils often have exotic problems, like flaking) and bake for a few hours at 20-50 degrees below the smoke point of the oil you chose. When cooking, the first step should always be to start preheating the cast iron. If you still really dislike cast iron, consider stainless, optionally with a copper core. You might want a stainless sauce pan anyway, since simmering tomatos in cast iron strips the seasoning over time. Stainless is harder to clean, but is otherwise fine. Make sure the stainless is induction compatible, since a mid-priced stainless set will outlive you (be sure to get metal handles with solid rivets). Induction is the future, and you don't want to toss the set in a few decades.
- wgd 5y ago
  > Do not use soap Using modern dish soap on cast iron is entirely fine, the detergents used are much softer than the sorts of lye-based soap that this advice stems from, and will not remove the baked-on (polymerized) seasoning. (It will slightly slow down the rate of seasoning accumulation by removing the thin layer of unpolymerized oil, but this can be fixed by just wiping on a thin coat of oil after washing and drying the pan. I usually don't even bother doing that much though.) In general I think that most guidance for using cast iron is overly cautious and makes it sound like more of a hassle than it needs to be. At the end of the day it's a large hunk of metal, and there's very little you can do in the kitchen that will permanently mess it up. edit: One piece of advice I do have: don't use a plastic spatula, they're a suboptimal choice people are forced into by easily-damaged cookware. Since that's not a concern with cast iron, you should get a thin metal spatula (example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015R7P6O https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0015R7P6O). The tip will always be exceedingly thin and never deform/melt/get torn up like a plastic spatula, and as a bonus it doubles as a very effective scraper for easy cleanup.

antattack 5y ago

I wonder how 3D printers factor in. For example, Bowden tube, feeding the plastic filament, is made entirely of PTFE. There's often PTFE liner in the print head itself. Am I supposed to treat it like toxic waste?

colechristensen 5y ago
PTFE can give off harmful fumes if overheated so if you wanted to be careful you might consider printer setups that keep the tubes away from their overheating temperature (i.e. inside the printhead can be a concern, bowden tubes not so much) PTFE landfilled though is as far as I know pretty inert. The manufacturing process involves chemistry which is harmful if not properly done, but the finished product not so much unless burned.

philipkglass 5y ago

This article is vague about which per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were made at the Zwijndrecht factory. After some digging, I believe it's chemicals in 3M's Novec and Fluorinert product lines: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/data-center-us/applications/immersion-cooling/fluorinert-electronic-liquids/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/data-center-us/applications/imme... https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/c/b/novec/i/electronics/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/c/b/novec/i/electronics/ (Specifically, the "engineered fluids"). What was desirable about these chemicals in the first place? Looking at a specific Novec product page: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40044867/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40044867/ This liquid: - Is non-flammable - Is electrically non-conductive - Is compatible with plastics - Has zero ozone depletion potential - Has low acute toxicity - Has low global warming potential - Is a VOC-exempt solvent [1] Here's what 3M says about Fluorinert for semiconductor manufacturing: Semiconductor manufacturing requires precision. Very small temperature variations may have big impact on yield. Compared to aqueous coolants like deionized water, Fluorinert electronic liquids offer wider operating temperatures, require less maintenance and will not damage electronic equipment or wafers if a leak occurs. These products offered lower environmental and health hazards on the then-known dimensions of risk when they were introduced to the market. But the risk assessment has changed as the chronic endocrine disrupting effects of these chemicals (and/or their manufacturing byproducts) has become better understood and regulated. In the long term I don't know whether semiconductor manufacturing processes will substitute deionized water for Fluorinert (with the downsides mentioned above, but zero environmental/health risk) or if Fluorinert use will continue with heightened emphasis on preventing releases into the environment. Semiconductor manufacturing already uses some very toxic materials like hydrofluoric acid and phosphine, but with correspondingly stringent guards against worker exposure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VOC_exempt_solvent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VOC_exempt_solvent

ereli1 5y ago

In 2020 (yes, not sooner), the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) announced regulations for testing for PFAS in driking water, forcing towns to start testing for PFAS. It turns out, it was there for year, and people were drinking it unknowingly. https://www.sierraclub.org/massachusetts/pfas-mass-water-part-1 https://www.sierraclub.org/massachusetts/pfas-mass-water-par...

elric 5y ago

It's cute how they focus on the tiny town of Zwijndrecht, but conveniently forget to mention the large (by Belgian standards) city of Antwerp, which is within spitting distance from the plant, and which sits by the river in which 3M dumps its waste. Political shenanigans have prevented widespread testing of people and soil in Antwerp, but the results are pretty much guaranteed to be bad. This is akin to writing about pollution in Union City, while conveniently forgetting to mention that NYC is on the other side of the river.

eurasiantiger 5y ago

These chemicals are incredibly potent endocrine disruptors. So much so that new measurement methods were needed to quantify the tiny parts-per-trillion level of health hazard.