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These general strategies of UV-powered destruction of halogenated organic chemicals have been known and studied for decades. The real issue in terms of pollutio
by photochemsyn 4y ago
These general strategies of UV-powered destruction of halogenated organic chemicals have been known and studied for decades. The real issue in terms of pollution control is that you have to build expensive backends on chemical factories that make the fluorinated or chlorinated products to destroy the waste, and this can easily double the production cost, so chemical corporations have lobbied hard against things like the Clean Water Act.
See this from 1986, for example, which looks at chlorinated organics (granted, fluorinated organics are harder to break down to CO2 + non-reactive fluoride ions)
SUNDSTROM et al. (1986). Destruction of Halogenated Aliphatics by Ultraviolet Catalyzed Oxidation with Hydrogen Peroxide. Hazardous Waste and Hazardous Materials, 3(1)
https://sci-hub.se/10.1089/hwm.1986.3.101 https://sci-hub.se/10.1089/hwm.1986.3.101
Cleaning up after the fact is highly inefficient, it's far better to just ensure that facilities like Teflon factories aren't emitting any waste in the first place.
- jordanbeiber 4y agoThis is a part in realization of the true cost of producing things. In Sweden we call “sale” a “realization”, meaning consumers pay the true cost without markup. I always say we’re realizing the wrong way - cost should quadruple for every H&M item we buy, and the money should go to enforcement of clean production. Hard sell, but eventually a must; cut profit and increase price at the same time.
- hammock 4y agoIf we can’t get corporates to fund the UV treatment, can we get taxpayers to fund it on water treatment plants so we aren’t drinking and processing food with infested water?