The Race To Destroy PFAS, the Forever Chemicals

An anonymous reader shares a report: PFAS stands for "per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances," a family of upwards of 15,000 or more human-made and incredibly durable chemical compounds that have been used in countless industrial and consumer applications for decades. Firefighting foams, waterproof hiking boots, raincoats, nonstick frying pans, dental floss, lipstick, and even the ink used to label packaging -- all can contain PFAS. The compounds are ubiquitous in drinking water and soil, even migrating to Arctic sea ice. PFAS are called forever chemicals because once present in the environment, they do not degrade or break down. They accumulate, are transferred throughout the watershed, and ultimately persist. The quest to reduce the amount of PFAS in the environment is what led me to an industrial park in a southern suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The jar of PFAS concentrate in my hand is part of a demonstration arranged by my hosts, Revive Environmental, during a tour of the company's PFAS destruction site, one of the first in the country to operate commercially and at scale. A few yards in front of me sits the company's PFAS "Annihilator" in a white shipping container.

The Annihilator represents just one of several technologies now vying to break down and destroy PFAS. These span the gamut from established processes like electrochemical oxidation and supercritical water oxidation to emerging techniques relying on ultraviolet light, plasma, ultrasound, or catalyst-driven thermal processes. Some are deployed in field tests. Other companies are actively running pilot programs, many with various divisions of the US Department of Defense and other government agencies. And many other technologies are still undergoing laboratory research. There's good reason for this. Not only are PFAS everywhere around us; they're also in us. Humans can't break down PFAS, and our bodies struggle to clear them from our systems. Studies suggest they're in my blood and yours -- the majority of Americans,' in fact -- and they have been linked to increased risks of kidney and testicular cancer, decreased infant birthweights, and high blood pressure. And that's only what we know about now: researchers continue to grapple with the full impacts of PFAS on human and environmental health.

It doesn't hit the trigger symptom yet for action.

[cayenne8]

Studies suggest they're in my blood and yours -- the majority of Americans,' in fact -- and they have been linked to increased risks of kidney and testicular cancer, decreased infant birthweights, and high blood pressure.

Well...close.

But it doesn't include the one disease that the govt will go apeshit over to make a war against PFAS'es.....Breast Cancer.

Much like "think of the children" is the keys to the Constitution...."Breast Cancer" is the key disease to actually get action on immediately.

This is kinda strange, since heart failure is the #1 killer of women...but whatever.

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[Joce640k]

Heart failure doesn't destroy her self-esteem.

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[drinkypoo]

It also doesn't destroy a part of a woman that conservatives care about

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[cayenne8]

Heart failure doesn't destroy her self-esteem.

Strange way of looking at it...I'd rather have a bit of low self esteem...than DEATH..

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[jacks smirking reven]

Cancer is going to be looked at differently than heart disease because while cancer can be the result of lifestyle choices there are so many more cases where a person can do everything right and still be struck with the disease.

Even if PFAS has been shown to contribute some causative effect on heart disease it would have to be shown to be a stronger effect that what we already know are the main drivers of it (weight, diet, lifestyle).

Breast cancer does have a lot of money behind it for that reason, it strik

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[PPH]

And heart disease can't "just happen"? Tell that to all the athletes who collapse from some undiagnosed arrhythmia.

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[jacks smirking reven]

heart disease

arrhythmia

Now this is a consequence of imperfect language but colloquially "heart disease" is a moniker for "coronary artery disease (CAD)" which is the most common and often arrhythmia is correlated/caused by CAD.

As for the athletes as far as I am aware there isn't a known causative action for why they suffer from arrhythmia but we do know it is highly correlated to people who engage in high endurance sports, running, cycling, swimming etc, so while it does "just happen" we do know there is a high risk factor based

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[jacks smirking reven]

Also be on your feet in the heat for hours at a time covered in insulating pads, a defense can be on the field for dozens of plays per possession taking hits and getting back up every single play.

Also ever notice many of the football player collapsing stories are often more at practice than the actual games, maybe because they are doing drills, laps and calisthenics for hours a time. Go ask a football player if they don't consider it an endurance sport

Re:It doesn't hit the trigger symptom yet for acti

[xeoron]

It depends on where you live. My town a few years back the Firefighters were tired of constantly getting cancer and figured out it was from PFAS in their outfits and chemicals used to fight cancer, along with all the people that lived near where they would do fire drills with those chemicals had a high rate of cancer. They started a coalition to make a change for all the town folk and themselves. The areas polluted in all those places are getting free water with plans to connect them to town water. The fire fighters are getting more covered care if they get sick and pushing companies in the industry to change how products are made to make them safer, along with getting other towns to join in. Plus, when the town proposed spending 18m on a pfas coated new sports field the voters were so against it for cost and poisoning the area the town dropped the project knowing it would not pass a funding vote. Sadly, PFAS is used all over the place which includes all modern rain resistant cloths, bags, and umbrellas. It is in cookware if you have Teflon items. It is even used on most dental floss and paper straws. The list is long with companies not caring and will still not care unless consumers push back or the government bans their use.

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[tlhIngan]

It depends on where you live. My town a few years back the Firefighters were tired of constantly getting cancer and figured out it was from PFAS in their outfits and chemicals used to fight cancer, along with all the people that lived near where they would do fire drills with those chemicals had a high rate of cancer. They started a coalition to make a change for all the town folk and themselves. The areas polluted in all those places are getting free water with plans to connect them to town water. The fire

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[njvack]

But it doesn't include the one disease that the govt will go apeshit over to make a war against PFAS'es.....Breast Cancer.

Much like "think of the children" is the keys to the Constitution...."Breast Cancer" is the key disease to actually get action on immediately.

This is kinda strange, since heart failure is the #1 killer of women...but whatever.

What are you talking about? Breast cancer causes about 20 deaths/100k people, heart disease causes about 300 deaths/100k people, so all things equal, you'd expect to see ~7% of the funding towards breast cancer that you do heart disease.

In 2022, the US spent about $730M on breast cancer research, and $2750M on cardiovascular research [nih.gov]. So yes, the breast cancer funding rate is comparatively higher than you'd expect based purely on deaths, but hardly "going apeshit" in my opinion. Maybe this is because or adv

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[BoogieChile]

"If men could get pregnant, abortions would be a sacrament"

It's more likely the testicular cancer that's caught their eye.

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[cayenne8]

It's more likely the testicular cancer that's caught their eye.

There's not nearly the funding or attention to men's cancer issues like this, than goes to women's breast cancer....

Shouldn't things be equal?

Dark Waters

[piojo]

Coincidentally, I just watched Dark Waters, a documentary about the environmental lawyer that fought to hold a chemical company accountable for its actions after it made a clusterfuck with PFAS. Surprisingly it was a compelling suspense--it's the same sort of character-driven plot as Oppenheimer.

After reading a bit more [wikipedia.org] on wikipedia and discovering that fluoropolymers on those grease-proof food wrappers are likely to end up inside your body and stay there, I'm considering a personal ban. But that brings up the question of how much I'm willing to sacrifice. Am I willing to walk out of a restaurant if they serve the food in grease-proof takeaway box instead of a plate?

Anyway, it's great that we are cleaning up the environment, but we've got to stop using them for unimportant purposes. It feels like we are still living in the age when mercury and arsenic were used as an anti-inflammatories and antipyretics, but instead of elemental poisons we've switched to polymeric ones.

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[piojo]

On the other hand, the technique in this post--supercritical water oxidation, which is what it sounds like but is described well in the article--sounds really cool, because we still do need to break down the PFAS that are leaching out of landfills. The article goes into a lot of other technologies too, but in less detail. Unfortunately it sounds like this is only good for water, since the oxygen will be consumed in reaction with any contaminant. Meaning these techniques can't remove PFAS from sludge (as in

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[smap77]

This technique is also only good for point-source pollution, rendering it only useful for localized contamination

PFAS today are no longer point-source pollutants.

While I might be great to have a machine "to break down and destroy PFAS", the machine still has to be fed the PFAS...

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[piojo]

To add one more thought (sorry for the self reply), this is a case where polluting the world and its inhabitants is too cheap! If those greaseproof boxes your square cut sweet potato fries come in cost twenty times as much to buy/import, they wouldn't be used! However if a water resistant coating on a jacket cost twenty times as much, it would probably still be reasonable to buy the jacket. Using this shit should cost a lot. It should be a sacrifice. And the worst part is that the taxes, if they do their jo

What's the product?

[pjt33]

The Annihilator represents just one of several technologies now vying to break down and destroy PFAS.

Into what? I broke the cardinal rule of /. and skim-read the article, but it doesn't seem to mention the output of these processes (other than "aqua-blue water", which sounds thoroughly unnatural). I'm pretty sure they're not fissioning the fluorine to make hydrogen and oxygen, but without some indication of what the products are how can you claim that the cure isn't worse than the disease?

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[Gilgaron]

The article and a light googling suggests that the Flourine-Carbon bond is the tricky one to break. Beyond that it is the same as any other hydrocarbon and would break down into the same products those do, this isn't alchemy. https://www.awwa.org/Resources... [awwa.org]

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[GloryWacky]

Milky or aqua-blue water is natural and quite common in the rivers and lakes of the Rocky Mountains (and other glacial feed waterways) due to finely ground rock particles and minerals in the water. The article does liken it to waters found in the Caribbean which I assume would be due to a similar process involving tidal forces instead of glaciers. It does seems like an odd thing to just throw into the article without further explanation though.

Bicycle Spoke Meme

[bill_mcgonigle]

The crazies just spent years insisting that every human breathe in PTFE [solvay.com] all day long for no benefit and then you see these things all over parking lots, river banks, and children's parks.

Just yesterday you had people on here not considering the costs and benefits. Engineering 101

By all means be extremely careful with PFOA exposure and discharge but the hypocritical moral posturing is just too much.

why not just ban them?

[avandesande]

Why not just ban them?

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[Gilgaron]

The problem is they are 'forever' so you need to ban them and still mitigate the ones that are out there already.

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[iggymanz]

They aren't really "forever", you'll note even in summary mention of UV breaking them down, and other natural things do too, just slowly.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[andrewz]

Oh no. A straw conspiracy. Please help.

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[drinkypoo]

And yet, they took our plastic straws and forced us to accept PFSA laden paper straws in their place

Did they prevent people who actually need to drink through a straw from medical reasons from carrying their own plastic, silicone, metal, glass, or other reusable drinking straw?

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[OrangeTide]

I prefer BYO straw. Quit including free disposable garbage with every drink order. It consistently ends up in the ocean and it serves little purpose other than convenience.

P.S. my sister can only drink with a straw because of disability. She has he own set of straws, and has been doing this for 30 years.

Nuke them.

[LordHighExecutioner]

Fallout isn't radioactive forever.

I bet...

[VeryFluffyBunny]

...they can't find a away to collect & destroy PFAS' faster than companies are producing & distributing them. This is just one of those "solutions", like recycling, that draws attention from what's really effective, i.e. stopping producing PFAS' in the first place.