12 ms·
America’s first high-volume ‘PFAS Annihilator’ is up and running in W. Michigan
- biosboiii 4y agofor my fellow europeans: https://archive.is/R0xpY https://archive.is/R0xpY
- candiddevmike 4y agoDon't we need to stop using PFAS all together for this stuff to make a difference?
- callalex 4y agoWhen it comes to the environment, everything helps. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good.
- candiddevmike 4y agoBut this is wasting electricity and other resources for a somewhat pointless cause as PFAS production will outpace this. To me, that's a net negative to the environment without any real gain? Why can't we stop producing PFAS?
- thfuran 4y agoIf PFAS in the environment is bad, why is reducing the taste at which PFAS accumulates in the environment pointless?
- jchw 4y agoAs long as spending electricity and other resources on PFAS destruction doesn't inadvertently cause even more PFAS production than it prevents, then this concept seems to make sense at some level. That doesn't mean it's ideal, but we're going to need this anyways even if PFAS winds up being fully phased out.
- excalibur 4y ago> But this is wasting electricity and other resources for a somewhat pointless cause as PFAS production will outpace this. To me, that's a net negative to the environment without any real gain? Insufficient != pointless. What if we made a bunch more of these and offset the electrical consumption by banning utterly useless and wasteful cryptocurrencies? That sounds like an environmental win/win. > Why can't we stop producing PFAS? Good question, let's do that too.
- jvanderbot 4y agoThe world is full of nasty stuff I dont want to drink. Filters are good. Increasing production without filtration = increasing contamination in drinking water. Increasing production + filters? well, if the filters are 100% effective, then my water is clean.
- CapstanRoller 4y agoThere are other creatures that live in/on/near the water or require water for survival, and they don't have filters. Vegetables grown with contaminated water don't have filters either. There are numerous ways you can ingest that contaminated water besides drinking it directly. You are part of an ecosystem, and you need that ecosystem to function in order to stay alive. This applies to all humans, not just you. >well, if the filters are 100% effective, then my water is clean Translation: "fuck you, got mine"
- loeg 4y ago> Why can't we stop producing PFAS? PFAS are pretty useful chemicals.
- nerdbert 4y agoSo was Agent Orange.
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- maxerickson 4y agoBlood levels where higher in the US 20 years ago, the decline is due to a phase out of production. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/health-effects/us-population.html https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/health-effects/us-population.... I guess the compounds in landfill effluent can be coming from things manufactured overseas, but collecting and destroying them is a good way to avoid releasing them into the environment or having to deal with them later.
- elihu 4y agoProbably, but even if we do that it's still good to have technology to deal with the PFAS already out there. Apparently 3M has announced that they're going to stop making PFAS by the end of 2025. So, that's progress I guess even if it's happening a lot slower than it probably should.
- layman51 4y agoThat actually sounds pretty fast. Not to be a downer or anything, but I have a nagging feeling that maybe they will stop making PFAS but the replacement will be a very similar, substitute compound that may or may not have the same effects. We just don’t know because it hasn’t been studied. In other words, a very similar situation to the BPA-free reusable water bottles, which sound nice, but might still have a harmful substitute.
- rogerkirkness 4y agoThis already happened with C8 -> C6 which bioaccumulates in water rather than in the physical form. Fundamentally, making something immune to water requires also making it immune to the normal way that things break down in the environment. So the performance qualities are really the thing we may need to phase out, but there are applications (e.g. in surgery instruments) that are more or less essential.
- bsder 4y agoWell, we need to stop using PFAS in things like drinking straws and footgear. However, we still need PFAS for certain things like semiconductor manufacturing. The systems are closed, but neverthless you still need some.
- wkat4242 4y agoThe problem is, we started putting pfas in drink straws because the old normal plastic (PET?) Straws got banned in Europe. The new paper ones have to be coated in pfas to stop them from soaking. Of course banning straws would work too but they are extremely useful especially if you have sensitive teeth.
- rleigh 4y agoWhat was wrong with the old method of using waxed paper? Non-toxic and waterproof. They did of course eventually go soggy at the ends but it's somewhat incredible that we go for known toxic coatings instead of previously-used non-toxic alternatives.
- userbinator 4y agoIt's always seemed unfortunate that they're going after high-volume but mostly inert and harmless plastics like PE/PP/PET in bans, causing them to be replaced by alternative materials which need to be augmented with much worse substances.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y agoI think there is a lot to be said for humanity pushing ahead with innovation and then figuring out how to deal with the side effects afterward. Look at fire. This was probably one of humanity's first innovations. It is extremely destructive and I think we are just now getting handle on fire safety, but I think the benefits have outweighed the harms. Same with agriculture. Again, lot of bad side effects, but overall better for humanity as it has freed up a significant number of people to be able to do other stuff besides just think about where their next meal is coming from. Anesthesia, electricity, antibiotics, birth control, have all followed this pattern.
- suby 4y agoI'd rather not have my life shortened, or have to live with weird sicknesses, or have wildlife / ecosystems harmed due to us blacklisting when we could be whitelisting substances. I'm sure some of these chemicals let us do very cool things, but when the innovation in question is something like water-resistant clothing, can we please just fucking prove the chemicals are safe first. There's no way to opt out of any of this, and the potential for harm extends well beyond what we've seen so far.
- jtbayly 4y agoHow do you prove a chemical safe?
- hutzlibu 4y agoYou test it for various common and uncommon cases. Like how does it influence fruit fly fertility if the concentration is above x%. But nothing is 100% sure in the real world, if that was your point, but for practical matters we can get close enough, if we want to. But I know that quite some tests are not being done, because the results would not be welcome.
- mensetmanusman 4y agoThere is no ethical way to do control tests on humans. Proof is not in the realm of biology, risk management is.
- pengaru 4y agoAm I the only one uneasy about the output being sent to the municipal water supply? If this system has any flaws and/or mishaps allowing landfill leachate toxins to reach the output stage, this loop delivers them directly to the water supply. Wouldn't it be better to send the output back where it came from for the natural process to resume? At least that way if your system is messing up, you're probably not making things worse for people than if you did nothing at all.
- maxerickson 4y agoI'm sure it's going to waste water treatment facilities, so not directly to the water supply (but maybe released quite near water supply intakes). There will be monitoring and so on going on for that to happen. It wouldn't be all that surprising if their agreement with the water treatment facilities said they had to test very regularly. Like they could be required to hold the water and test the batch for PFAS before releasing any of it.
- pengaru 4y ago> Like they could be required to hold the water and test the batch for PFAS before releasing any of it. But PFAS aren't the only thing of concern in landfill leachate, and it wouldn't otherwise be normal for wastewater treatment facilities to be drawing water directly from a landfill, not AIUI. This treatment facility is focused on PFAS, but landfills are toxic places for far more reasons than PFAS.
- coryrc 4y agoThey must have been doing something with it before.
- exabrial 4y agoWhere do you think the water you're drinking now comes from?
- nonethewiser 4y ago
- q_andrew 4y agoI'd like to thank the shoe company Wolverine for dumping so much of an untested chemical into the watershed that my town had to push for someone to figure out if it was actually bad for humans. Grand Rapids seems to be a magnet for new tap water inventions, we were also one of the first to put fluoride in our drinking supply.
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- mlyle 4y agoNo one wants toxic chemicals dumped on anyone. But there's an obvious selfish interest if making industry clean is hard, to at least have it far away from me.
- jdiff 4y agoIf it can be someone else, it can just as easily be you. Best to fight for each other as if its ourselves, or else it might be next time.
- Retric 4y agoExcept not everyone is going to make the same tradeoffs here. People in a poor country may rationally prefer more pollution if it means faster economic growth. I don’t mean this as a moral argument that they don’t deserve clean air, just that tradeoffs exist. Health isn’t always the top priority; many top athletes for example are very open about the long term negative consequences of reaching the absolute limits of human performance. The larger issue is the people impacted don’t necessarily get to make this choice themselves.
- Animats 4y agoThis is for landfills, not wastewater. "The facility takes in landfill leachate — essentially rainwater that filters through landfills, collecting chemicals and other contaminants. The raw leachate is pushed through three treatments that separates the PFAS compounds from the leachate. That concentrated material is then run through the “PFAS Annihilator,” which uses super-critical water oxidation, or SCWO, to break the extremely durable PFAS chemical bonds." That's a far lower volume of water than comes through a sewerage disposal plant. Here's a location which might use that.[1] This is Bedwell Bayfront Park. It's in Menlo Park, CA, near Facebook HQ, and it used to be a dump. That's a small sewerage disposal plant to deal with the leachate from the dump. There was also a small power plant with Diesel engines running off the methane from the dump, but it's no longer needed now that the dump has decayed. The hills near Google HQ were a similar dump. Palo Alto also had one, at what's now Byxbee Park. [1] https://earth.google.com/web/@37.49539607,-122.17552873,7.18171573a,540.70581172d,61.20063303y,0h,0t,0r https://earth.google.com/web/@37.49539607,-122.17552873,7.18...
- enkid 4y agoIt's less water, but wouldn't likely have a higher concentration of PFAS chemicals?
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoI couldn't say because I'm not a scientist or anything, but I don't understand the whataboutism; both / all sources should be handled, not just whichever source might be the biggest one at this time.
- ed25519FUUU 4y agoIncredible how much is a Bay Area is a superfund.
- atgreen 4y agoYes, they went from poisoning the earth to poisoning our brains. There was a golden era in the middle that I will always remember fondly.
- exabrial 4y agoI'll be the odd person out and say I think the PFA danger is being mis-applied. Should we use PFAs in underwear, handsoap, women's fashionware, mens hair products, sweaters, holiday decorations, etc? Absolutely not. These items are seasonable and disposable. Is it ok to use PFAs in outdoor wear, long term infrastructure, and other things designed to have a lifespan of 10-20 years? Yeah probably; a huge net positive for the environment is reduce consumption. Building fewer things that last longer is a good thing. I have no idea how we would manage this, I don't have all the answers. Obviously PFAs have no place in Fast Fashion, which by itself without PFAs is extraordinarily hard on the environment (lookup textile waste). The real problem is PFA usage is being completed abused. I think PFAs are needed when durability actually matters, as it's a good tradeoff. This is my opinion, I'm sure people will disagree.
- gnulinux 4y agoIt seems to me like the biggest concern (at least this is the case for me (a layman) and my girlfriend (a PhD candidate studying Chemical Biology)) for us is that building infrastructure that uses PFA-based materials increases the chances of them ending up in water or food. For example, I used to drink tons of unflavored, purified carbonated water (aka "Seltzer Water"). I thought this is likely not very unhealthy since it's literally just pure water + carbon dioxide dissolved in it. It made me drink tons of more water (we're talking significantly more water than I would normally drink) so I thought it's a net benefit. But some evidence came out [1] that common seltzer brands have detectable amount of PFA in them. This may be because (1) PFAs are in water sources, (2) PFAs are in the plumbing systems of these companies' factories, (3) something else. Since we don't know how much PFA is too much, we've been a lot more meek about drinking seltzer water. To be honest, I still do drink it, but a lot less so. I mostly drink tap water, and in the area I live in (Boston, MA), there is no PFA detection, or it's very low. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pfas-chemicals-in-sparkling-water-polar-topo-chico-study/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pfas-chemicals-in-sparkling-wat...
- bacon_waffle 4y agoAside from the PFA situation, it's possible to turn your tap water in to selzer water (probably generating less waste and saving money) with a SodaStream or similar.
- berjin 4y agoPollution needs to be stopped at the source. I worry that this will be used by marking assholes, the same ones that invented the so called 'recycling' logo on plastic packaging, to keep on filling the planet with waste as usual. Hey look we don't need to ban anything, make lifestyle changes or assume chemicals are unsafe until proven otherwise because look there is this magic machine that can 'annihilate' our waste. I put my plastic packaging in a recycling bin that is picked up by the municipality. Everything seems to come in plastic packaging but I try to avoid it where possible. I grow my own vegetables. They like to tell me I'm doing the right thing but I know it all ends up in some poorer country. The consumer doesn't really have any sway at the bottom of the cliff. Ban at the source.
- catiopatio 4y ago> Ban at the source. I think we need a stricter regulatory mechanism for proving the safety of products that can pose a substantial risk to health or the environment, akin to that of the FDA. Right now, it seems like you can put something relatively unproven on the market, and by the time we realize it’s unsafe, everyone has become dependent on it. In response, companies cook up an analog that does the same thing, and the market switches to that. Eventually, we discover that the analog suffers from very similar issues, and the entire process starts over again.
- zizee 4y agoThe bans should (and could) extend to classes of compounds, instead of just some exact compound. They manage to do it with psychedelics, that they haven't with these problematic compounds is probably because industry has a larger sway on legislators than drug enthusiasts.
- berjin 4y agoYes. I recommend watching The Poison Squad documentary which digs into the reasons the FDA was formed in the first place. The meat packing industry used to sell a lot of spoiled food containing chemicals unsafe for human health. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuukM9OY-is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuukM9OY-is
- 4y ago
- Hnrobert42 4y agoSince there is yet to be a single positive top-level comment (at the time I’m posting), I’ll make one. This is effing amazing. I am so happy to hear this. It is the best news I’ve read in a month. Maybe in several.
- andrewflnr 4y ago> The end result is clean water and salts, usually sodium or potassium. So, sodium and potassium fluoride? It's weird that they're not saying outright where the fluorine is going. That's kind of important.
- smcleod 4y agoGood to see, however such technologies need to operate along side improved regulations. 1) Regulate, 2) Issue strong penalties, 3) Reposes ownership to a publicly owned and governed entity before resuming compliant operations. We need to embrace a culture of accepting that some businesses _should_ fail. If corporations cannot adapt to modern environmental standards - they should not be operating.
- gouggoug 4y ago"This content is not available in your country/region." Really? What content do you have, WoodTV.com, that needs to be region locked?
- iamgopal 4y agoCompare to ozone, how effective SCWO is ?
- aurizon 4y agoThese PFA's leach out for a long time, but the amount decreases asymptotically. These PFA's are not very soluble in water - there are solvents in which PFA's are much more soluble that at the same time are not water soluble and are also safe. By taking the leached water and mixing, say 100 gallons of water with one gallon of this safe solvent and agitating it well, you can get most of the PFA in the 100 gallons now concentrated in the one gallon of the safe solvent. The exact ratio of that concentration depends on the 'partition coefficient' (PC) if the PC is 100, after mixing and settling the two liquids separate, with that PC. So about ~~99% of the PFA is in that one gallon of solvent. A little solvent also dissolves in the water. This can be repeated and also run in 'counter current' flow to optimise the separation. AFter an experimental series, with various solvents and PFA's the best process is found. If the PFA is a solid and not volatile, the solvent can be boiled off in a vacuum = pure PFA = destroy with SCWO. Some PFA's might steam distil or boil = mixed solvent and PFA = destroy with SCWO. Water in a sealed space gets hotter and hotter as you heat it. If the space is strong, you can heat water to the critical point = the temperature/pressure where it is no longer water but is totally vapor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_point_(thermodynamics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_point_(thermodynamics... In this regime oxidizers, like ozone or O2 can be added and in those conditions almost all organics and oxidised to water, CO2. Fluorine bonds are broken and fluorine ions result and the same with most other inorganics, chlorides, bromides etc. This is at 705 degrees F and 3200 PSI = steam that can set stuff on fire = why HP boilers are so risky and so regulated. The company does not say much about their process, but the term SCWO says it all. The good thing is you can concentrate the PFAS down to a small volume by the concentration = a small processor can safely destroy the PFAS that issue in dilute amounts in a large volume. You can even make small low pressure concentrators at every land fill and ship the extracted concentrate to a small number of central places for oxidation - which I thing will end up being the functional process.
- nonethewiser 4y agoWest Michigan is a really awesome area. It’s unfortunate it only makes the news for PFAS but at least this time it’s good news! Funnily (or not so funnily) I searched “superfund site Rockford” expecting to find info on the Wolverine contamination. Little did I realize groundwater contamination is so rampant that it returned results for Rockford, IL as well. Also, fuck Wolverine. They need to do more. As I understand it they have weaseled out of some responsibility by claiming they cant afford it.
- SamuelAdams 4y agoShhhh don’t tell the people from California. I like my cheap housing prices coupled with a west coast salary.
- rootusrootus 4y agoToo late. And it's not just California. One possible element of my retirement plan is to dump my house in the PNW (merely $1M, not exactly California levels, but still) and buy something in the midwest about a third of the price on about 10 times the land.
- cowsandmilk 4y agoEPA is working to regulate levels of PFAS discharge from landfills. https://www.epa.gov/eg/landfills-effluent-guidelines#new-rulemaking https://www.epa.gov/eg/landfills-effluent-guidelines#new-rul...
- sheepybloke 4y agoThis is wonderful to see! I grew up around that area; in fact, there was one of the Wolverine Worldwide dumping sites found quite close to my house. This was a huge concern for my parents when the PFAS contamination was found, especially since my brothers and I were quite young and we drank well water. I hope they continue to remove these chemicals and restore the area!
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