5 ms·

I've no idea how humanity hasn't managed to coordinate a global and immediate ban on these chemicals. We really can't keep ourselves safe in the face of greed.

thorvaldsson 4y ago
Not to sound too cynical, but humanity has rarely (or ever) been able to react in a coordinated timely fashion to any event threating it in any way. That is until we reach the brink. Think of the Montreal Protocol from the 80's, a treaty for phasing out and eventually banning CFC/HCFC's in an effort to protect and hopefully restore the ozone layer. The protocol was in response to a dramatic seasonal depletion of the ozone layer over Antarctica in the 80's. To me, from everything I read and hear about PFAS pollution, it would seem we are at the brink again in terms of those chemicals.
- gruez 4y ago
  CFCs were a nice confluence of events because there was a ready alternative available for CFCs. The same doesn't exist for PFAS.
giantg2 4y ago
Because most people don't care. People have more immediate problems than something that might kill/injure them decades from now. Most people don't even know about the potential dangers and where the chemicals are used. When people do find out, they're shocked/skeptical. As an example, my mother-in-law was using old non-stick pans. I had to tell about the FDA saying to throw out pans from before 2013. She was shocked. Then I had to explain the new pans still have similar concerns because they changed the formula which isn't that different and is just less tested. Her world view is that there's no way the government would allow anything harmful on the market. Yeah... ok...
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  > Her world view is that there's no way the government would allow anything harmful on the market. Yeah... ok... Its reasonable to expect that people in government and the nedia are doing their job to inform the public. I can't keep track of all the possible fuckups - like who here knows that Philadelphia police firebombed a house full of children in 1985 and noone was held accountable for their deaths? If that happened today in your city, maybe you would be defunding the police.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    "Its reasonable to expect that people in government and the nedia are doing their job to inform the public." It might be rational to expect that. But as you point out with your example, it's not actually reasonable to expect that. With the track record of screw ups that there are, it's more reasonable to assume that you have to do you're own research.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      But there are only so many things you can research yourself, there are limited hours in the day. Like why should a naive person expect frying pans to be particularly suspicious and worth researching? How do you know to research issues with PTFA's, how would you know they even exist? You have to trust that the rest of society is generally functional. This is what free market extremists do not understand, if all trust is gone, society collapses
      - giantg2 4y ago
        "to be particularly suspicious and worth researching" If it's some new miracle product, like burnt on cheese not sticking to the pan, then it would be good to look into. "You have to trust that the rest of society is generally functional." And you would generally be right. In which case you should expect/accept that you might encounter products that fall outside of that general protection that put you at risk of harm. As a member of society, you also have to think for yourself and question things. If 100% of society is just following everyone else, then nobody will discover, discuss, and address harmful situations. "This is what free market extremists do not understand, if all trust is gone, society collapses" Who said all trust is gone? Why are you bringing up extremists? Let's try to stay on-topic.
- tfvlrue 4y ago
  > FDA saying to throw out pans from before 2013 Do you have a citation for that? The closest thing I can find from the FDA is https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/and... which says essentially the opposite: > Non-stick cookware: PFAS may be used as a coating to make cookware non-stick.
chaxor 4y ago
I agree to extent; but one issue is that there should be a small amount available for research purposes and places where it is required. For example, containment of certain chemicals is pretty much impossible without Teflon. Chlorosulfonic acid is one of them. Also, if you're working with this chemical, it may be useful to make mixtures of PFOS, PFBS, etc in order to process other products and not have highly reactive situations (effectively 'explosions'). Obviously these should get out of the facility they are contained in to pollute waste water or anything else, and should be used in a way that they are recovered and recycled for use over and over - much like what the authors are suggesting to do here. Of course it obviously doesn't work perfectly that way, and things like this also introduce pollution as well while cleaning the water. So of course this should only be applied where there is a chance that they can remove more PFAS than they introduce to the system, which may not be as universally applicable as we may think.
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  I'm sure there are acceptable corner cases, but when everything from your new sofa to the trainers you bought are covered in the stuff in the form of fire retardants, we're just sloshing the stuff around. Most of the uses are not due to necessity, but because these dangerous chemicals are cheaper to produce and have higher margins. Or use of them has second order margin increases by allowing us to do other things cheaper. Humanity is terrible at long term harm consideration. Unless the danger is immediate we can't really feel the urgency. Look how we all live, as if we won't die. It's sadly the human condition, and that bug in our cognition may be our downfall. What happens when the urgency comes and the damage we did can't be undone, regardless of our ingenuity?
mensetmanusman 4y ago
In the scale of technology development for humanity, PFAS is about the same age as nuclear power. Both are infants.

thorvaldsson 4y ago

Not to sound too cynical, but humanity has rarely (or ever) been able to react in a coordinated timely fashion to any event threating it in any way. That is until we reach the brink. Think of the Montreal Protocol from the 80's, a treaty for phasing out and eventually banning CFC/HCFC's in an effort to protect and hopefully restore the ozone layer. The protocol was in response to a dramatic seasonal depletion of the ozone layer over Antarctica in the 80's. To me, from everything I read and hear about PFAS pollution, it would seem we are at the brink again in terms of those chemicals.

gruez 4y ago
CFCs were a nice confluence of events because there was a ready alternative available for CFCs. The same doesn't exist for PFAS.

giantg2 4y ago

Because most people don't care. People have more immediate problems than something that might kill/injure them decades from now. Most people don't even know about the potential dangers and where the chemicals are used. When people do find out, they're shocked/skeptical. As an example, my mother-in-law was using old non-stick pans. I had to tell about the FDA saying to throw out pans from before 2013. She was shocked. Then I had to explain the new pans still have similar concerns because they changed the formula which isn't that different and is just less tested. Her world view is that there's no way the government would allow anything harmful on the market. Yeah... ok...

ClumsyPilot 4y ago
> Her world view is that there's no way the government would allow anything harmful on the market. Yeah... ok... Its reasonable to expect that people in government and the nedia are doing their job to inform the public. I can't keep track of all the possible fuckups - like who here knows that Philadelphia police firebombed a house full of children in 1985 and noone was held accountable for their deaths? If that happened today in your city, maybe you would be defunding the police.
- giantg2 4y ago
  "Its reasonable to expect that people in government and the nedia are doing their job to inform the public." It might be rational to expect that. But as you point out with your example, it's not actually reasonable to expect that. With the track record of screw ups that there are, it's more reasonable to assume that you have to do you're own research.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    But there are only so many things you can research yourself, there are limited hours in the day. Like why should a naive person expect frying pans to be particularly suspicious and worth researching? How do you know to research issues with PTFA's, how would you know they even exist? You have to trust that the rest of society is generally functional. This is what free market extremists do not understand, if all trust is gone, society collapses
    - giantg2 4y ago
      "to be particularly suspicious and worth researching" If it's some new miracle product, like burnt on cheese not sticking to the pan, then it would be good to look into. "You have to trust that the rest of society is generally functional." And you would generally be right. In which case you should expect/accept that you might encounter products that fall outside of that general protection that put you at risk of harm. As a member of society, you also have to think for yourself and question things. If 100% of society is just following everyone else, then nobody will discover, discuss, and address harmful situations. "This is what free market extremists do not understand, if all trust is gone, society collapses" Who said all trust is gone? Why are you bringing up extremists? Let's try to stay on-topic.
tfvlrue 4y ago
> FDA saying to throw out pans from before 2013 Do you have a citation for that? The closest thing I can find from the FDA is https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/and... which says essentially the opposite: > Non-stick cookware: PFAS may be used as a coating to make cookware non-stick.

chaxor 4y ago

I agree to extent; but one issue is that there should be a small amount available for research purposes and places where it is required. For example, containment of certain chemicals is pretty much impossible without Teflon. Chlorosulfonic acid is one of them. Also, if you're working with this chemical, it may be useful to make mixtures of PFOS, PFBS, etc in order to process other products and not have highly reactive situations (effectively 'explosions'). Obviously these should get out of the facility they are contained in to pollute waste water or anything else, and should be used in a way that they are recovered and recycled for use over and over - much like what the authors are suggesting to do here. Of course it obviously doesn't work perfectly that way, and things like this also introduce pollution as well while cleaning the water. So of course this should only be applied where there is a chance that they can remove more PFAS than they introduce to the system, which may not be as universally applicable as we may think.

sirsinsalot 4y ago
I'm sure there are acceptable corner cases, but when everything from your new sofa to the trainers you bought are covered in the stuff in the form of fire retardants, we're just sloshing the stuff around. Most of the uses are not due to necessity, but because these dangerous chemicals are cheaper to produce and have higher margins. Or use of them has second order margin increases by allowing us to do other things cheaper. Humanity is terrible at long term harm consideration. Unless the danger is immediate we can't really feel the urgency. Look how we all live, as if we won't die. It's sadly the human condition, and that bug in our cognition may be our downfall. What happens when the urgency comes and the damage we did can't be undone, regardless of our ingenuity?

mensetmanusman 4y ago

In the scale of technology development for humanity, PFAS is about the same age as nuclear power. Both are infants.