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If you want more context on PFAS, I recommend this Veritasium video [0]. It expanded on my usual thought of "PFAS = bad," explaining why non-stick cookware is p

If you want more context on PFAS, I recommend this Veritasium video [0]. It expanded on my usual thought of "PFAS = bad," explaining why non-stick cookware is probably fine while other forms of PFAS are problematic. The video also covers the environmental damage caused by PFAS manufacturing. [0]: https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY

ck2 1y ago
skiers have been putting teflon wax on their skis for decades now it's in the snow, ground, and water-supply forever
- lm28469 1y ago
  You forgot rain. Maybe one day people will remember we're just sharing one small planet, the air, the water, the food supplies, ... all the shit you dump/burn ends up in your food or water eventually
  - pengaru 1y ago
    > all the shit you dump/burn ends up in your food or water eventually but most that shit doesn't survive the journey intact, being out in the elements and bombarded by the sun isn't kind to most things hence the focus on "forever chemicals"
    - Zigurd 1y ago
      Future archaeologists will wonder that we first fouled our nest from edge to edge with lead in gasoline, and then there's that radioactive layer, and following immediately after the forever chemicals layer.
      - pengaru 1y ago
        The anthropocene, aka the petroradiata layer
    - lm28469 1y ago
      But still a lot of things do, pesticides following the rain cycles is a good example. We're killing the biodiversity and ourselves with it. We already almost entirely rely on synthetically amending fields with petrol byproducts to feed ourselves, tomorrow we might have to manually pollinate crops when insects won't be enough to do the job. PFAS are a problem, co2 is a problem, but we have dozens of other very big problems that are partially, if not entirely, obscured https://usrtk.org/healthwire/banned-pesticides-found-in-clouds/ https://usrtk.org/healthwire/banned-pesticides-found-in-clou...
      - bossyTeacher 1y ago
        > We already almost entirely rely on synthetically amending fields with petrol byproducts to feed ourselves elaborate please
        tremon 1y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process > Nearly 50% of the nitrogen found in human tissues originated from the Haber–Bosch process. Thus, the Haber process [enabled] the global population to increase from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7.7 billion by November 2018.
        NetMageSCW 1y ago
        I assume that means we have to use fertilizer to ensure we can produce enough food crop.
  - alright2565 1y ago
    What is the physical process that leads to PFAS ending up in the rain?
    - titzer 1y ago
      The planetary hydrological cycle. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62391069 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62391069
      - citizenpaul 1y ago
        Oh snap that was some good "the expert" energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg Why cant we have parallel lines that intersect. Geometry.
      - alright2565 1y ago
        That article's only citation is a review paper, and it doesn't answer my question or substantiate your claim. It only covers how much PFAS is found in rainwater, and not how it got there. The sources cited includes https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116685 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116685, which is paywalled, but the snippet of the conclusion that is shown indicates that a possible major cause is industrial emissions: > As local sources were determined to be significant, the results imply that local action can have an impact on PFAS contamination in precipitation. A three-way ANOVA model determined that functional group, chain length, and location were significant predictors of PFAS concentrations If you can get the full text I'd be very interested in reading about it.
        titzer 1y ago
        There's a journal paper (i.e. already reviewed and accepted) linked at the bottom: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765 That paper alone has 61 references. There are plenty of papers to go read.
        vel0city 1y ago
- throwhuppla 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - nielsbot 1y ago
    curious what point you're highlighting here
    - naldb 1y ago
      That the way the parent comment is written evokes fear unnecessarily. There are no definite provable effects of exposure of PFAS - in fact our current knowledge of them is so bad that if you use google and find a list of effects on the body from exposure of PFAS the list is endless and full of things that are unrelated, which is obviously impossible and nonsense.
      - regularjack 1y ago
        They just seem like facts to me. If the reader reacts with fear, that's because they interpreted those facts as things that induce fear.
        naldb 1y ago
        Most people have an irrational fear of one or many things, that doesn’t mean those fears have to be entertained. The media loves to instil fear to get clicks.
- usefulcat 1y ago
  According to the linked Veritasium video, Teflon is not directly problematic, it’s the chemicals used to manufacture Teflon that are the problem.
  - schiffern 1y ago
    "Teflon" ski wax (fluoro-wax) contains PFOA impurities, which is that same problematic chemical. It's expensive to remove so most manufacturers don't bother. https://skiracing.com/future-without-fluoros-a-complete-guide/ https://skiracing.com/future-without-fluoros-a-complete-guid...
    - cluckindan 1y ago
      It’s also applied to skis by heating it, which breaks down the polymers.
  - j4coh 1y ago
    Veritasium seems to be frequently wrong or at least incomplete. I empathise, it’s hard to make definitive statements like that, but maybe at some point it’s better not to if you’re not sure and more about entertainment than anything else.
    - kjreact 1y ago
      That’s a bold statement to make that “Veritasium seems to be frequently wrong”. Can you list some of these many wrong statements that they make?
      - j4coh 1y ago
        Why leave off “or incomplete” when people can see it directly above what you misquoted? But sure, plenty of examples here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38779199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38779199. You can search on Google for Veritasium wrong (or misleading, incomplete, etc.) if you’d like more examples.
- horsawlarway 1y ago
  It's not like this is going unnoticed either, though. The International Ski Federation (FIS) now bans fluorinated wax in all their competitions, and this wax is explicitly called out alongside cookware in much of the legislation that's going around in places like CA/CO for PFAS bans.
- SirMaster 1y ago
  But you can filter out PFAS from water...
  - cyanydeez 1y ago
    you can filter anything out of water...you're just arguing end users should bare the cost of billion dollar corporations doing whatever they want. The filtration at the levels we're talking about would add thousands of dollars to every household everywhere, all at once. Talk about something that just is a bit more than, "but you can filter it".
    - Bjartr 1y ago
      Not saying it's a good approach to solving the problem, but surely you'd want to do the filtering at the water utility level. It would be a lot more cost effective that way.
      - tristor 1y ago
        It probably can't be effectively filtered at utility scale. There are only a small number of effective filtration methods and they basically coalesce to either distillation or reverse osmosis, neither of which is effective at utility scale. The other side of that is that both methods concentrate contaminates when removing them, and distillation puts some contaminates into the air, which means neither is a panacea even at residential scale. The largest reverse osmosis plant in the world produces 165MGD of water, which is less than is required for any of the top 10 largest US cities, while primarily being used purely for desalination (SWRO). At the levels of filtration and membrane size required for removal of PFAS, it would nearly be impossible to cost effectively filter 200MGD+ of water for a major city.
  - trainsarebetter 1y ago
    Okay so how are you going to filter all the water in every water shed, pond, lake, estuary, etc?
Citizen8396 1y ago
The extremely toxic PFOA and PFOS are byproducts of manufacturing Teflon. After decades, we have managed to just barely regulate it. We don't know if these newer compounds will ultimately have similar effects. DuPont had reason to believe these original compounds were harmful, but they suppressed that fact in favor of profit. "Probably fine" is not acceptable, considering we can't meaningfully clean the stuff up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_events_related_to_per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_events_related_to_...

ck2 1y ago

skiers have been putting teflon wax on their skis for decades now it's in the snow, ground, and water-supply forever

lm28469 1y ago
You forgot rain. Maybe one day people will remember we're just sharing one small planet, the air, the water, the food supplies, ... all the shit you dump/burn ends up in your food or water eventually
- pengaru 1y ago
  > all the shit you dump/burn ends up in your food or water eventually but most that shit doesn't survive the journey intact, being out in the elements and bombarded by the sun isn't kind to most things hence the focus on "forever chemicals"
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    Future archaeologists will wonder that we first fouled our nest from edge to edge with lead in gasoline, and then there's that radioactive layer, and following immediately after the forever chemicals layer.
    - pengaru 1y ago
      The anthropocene, aka the petroradiata layer
  - lm28469 1y ago
    But still a lot of things do, pesticides following the rain cycles is a good example. We're killing the biodiversity and ourselves with it. We already almost entirely rely on synthetically amending fields with petrol byproducts to feed ourselves, tomorrow we might have to manually pollinate crops when insects won't be enough to do the job. PFAS are a problem, co2 is a problem, but we have dozens of other very big problems that are partially, if not entirely, obscured https://usrtk.org/healthwire/banned-pesticides-found-in-clouds/ https://usrtk.org/healthwire/banned-pesticides-found-in-clou...
    - bossyTeacher 1y ago
      > We already almost entirely rely on synthetically amending fields with petrol byproducts to feed ourselves elaborate please
      - tremon 1y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process > Nearly 50% of the nitrogen found in human tissues originated from the Haber–Bosch process. Thus, the Haber process [enabled] the global population to increase from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7.7 billion by November 2018.
      - NetMageSCW 1y ago
        I assume that means we have to use fertilizer to ensure we can produce enough food crop.
- alright2565 1y ago
  What is the physical process that leads to PFAS ending up in the rain?
  - titzer 1y ago
    The planetary hydrological cycle. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62391069 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62391069
    - citizenpaul 1y ago
      Oh snap that was some good "the expert" energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg Why cant we have parallel lines that intersect. Geometry.
    - alright2565 1y ago
      That article's only citation is a review paper, and it doesn't answer my question or substantiate your claim. It only covers how much PFAS is found in rainwater, and not how it got there. The sources cited includes https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116685 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116685, which is paywalled, but the snippet of the conclusion that is shown indicates that a possible major cause is industrial emissions: > As local sources were determined to be significant, the results imply that local action can have an impact on PFAS contamination in precipitation. A three-way ANOVA model determined that functional group, chain length, and location were significant predictors of PFAS concentrations If you can get the full text I'd be very interested in reading about it.
      - titzer 1y ago
        There's a journal paper (i.e. already reviewed and accepted) linked at the bottom: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765 That paper alone has 61 references. There are plenty of papers to go read.
      - vel0city 1y ago
throwhuppla 1y ago
[flagged]
- nielsbot 1y ago
  curious what point you're highlighting here
  - naldb 1y ago
    That the way the parent comment is written evokes fear unnecessarily. There are no definite provable effects of exposure of PFAS - in fact our current knowledge of them is so bad that if you use google and find a list of effects on the body from exposure of PFAS the list is endless and full of things that are unrelated, which is obviously impossible and nonsense.
    - regularjack 1y ago
      They just seem like facts to me. If the reader reacts with fear, that's because they interpreted those facts as things that induce fear.
      - naldb 1y ago
        Most people have an irrational fear of one or many things, that doesn’t mean those fears have to be entertained. The media loves to instil fear to get clicks.
usefulcat 1y ago
According to the linked Veritasium video, Teflon is not directly problematic, it’s the chemicals used to manufacture Teflon that are the problem.
- schiffern 1y ago
  "Teflon" ski wax (fluoro-wax) contains PFOA impurities, which is that same problematic chemical. It's expensive to remove so most manufacturers don't bother. https://skiracing.com/future-without-fluoros-a-complete-guide/ https://skiracing.com/future-without-fluoros-a-complete-guid...
  - cluckindan 1y ago
    It’s also applied to skis by heating it, which breaks down the polymers.
- j4coh 1y ago
  Veritasium seems to be frequently wrong or at least incomplete. I empathise, it’s hard to make definitive statements like that, but maybe at some point it’s better not to if you’re not sure and more about entertainment than anything else.
  - kjreact 1y ago
    That’s a bold statement to make that “Veritasium seems to be frequently wrong”. Can you list some of these many wrong statements that they make?
    - j4coh 1y ago
      Why leave off “or incomplete” when people can see it directly above what you misquoted? But sure, plenty of examples here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38779199 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38779199. You can search on Google for Veritasium wrong (or misleading, incomplete, etc.) if you’d like more examples.
horsawlarway 1y ago
It's not like this is going unnoticed either, though. The International Ski Federation (FIS) now bans fluorinated wax in all their competitions, and this wax is explicitly called out alongside cookware in much of the legislation that's going around in places like CA/CO for PFAS bans.
SirMaster 1y ago
But you can filter out PFAS from water...
- cyanydeez 1y ago
  you can filter anything out of water...you're just arguing end users should bare the cost of billion dollar corporations doing whatever they want. The filtration at the levels we're talking about would add thousands of dollars to every household everywhere, all at once. Talk about something that just is a bit more than, "but you can filter it".
  - Bjartr 1y ago
    Not saying it's a good approach to solving the problem, but surely you'd want to do the filtering at the water utility level. It would be a lot more cost effective that way.
    - tristor 1y ago
      It probably can't be effectively filtered at utility scale. There are only a small number of effective filtration methods and they basically coalesce to either distillation or reverse osmosis, neither of which is effective at utility scale. The other side of that is that both methods concentrate contaminates when removing them, and distillation puts some contaminates into the air, which means neither is a panacea even at residential scale. The largest reverse osmosis plant in the world produces 165MGD of water, which is less than is required for any of the top 10 largest US cities, while primarily being used purely for desalination (SWRO). At the levels of filtration and membrane size required for removal of PFAS, it would nearly be impossible to cost effectively filter 200MGD+ of water for a major city.
- trainsarebetter 1y ago
  Okay so how are you going to filter all the water in every water shed, pond, lake, estuary, etc?

Citizen8396 1y ago

The extremely toxic PFOA and PFOS are byproducts of manufacturing Teflon. After decades, we have managed to just barely regulate it. We don't know if these newer compounds will ultimately have similar effects. DuPont had reason to believe these original compounds were harmful, but they suppressed that fact in favor of profit. "Probably fine" is not acceptable, considering we can't meaningfully clean the stuff up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_events_related_to_per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_substances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_events_related_to_...