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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, containme
by 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 agoI'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?