‘Forever chemical’ bans face hard truth: Many can’t be replaced
As lawmakers around the world weigh bans of 'forever chemicals,” many manufacturers are pushing back, saying there often is no substitute.
As lawmakers around the world weigh bans of 'forever chemicals,” many manufacturers are pushing back, saying there often is no substitute.
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And yet somehow we survived thousands of Years without them.
Also back then, we didn't have massive populations. Most of the world struggled to survive. Finding food was a all-day activity. Should we go back to that?
Without the haber process modern civilization could not be sustained. We cannot go back without massive population losses. Dunno about you but I'm not picking which of my friends and family aren't important.
Cancer causing materials are not a necessity to support global scale populations.
Also, I frankly wouldn't mind returning to a world where almost half my time was my own and not my employer's.
Also, I frankly wouldn’t mind returning to a world where almost half my time was my own and not my employer’s.
It still wouldn't actually be your own. You currently work to afford your lifestyle. You'd still work the same amount, probably more, but you certainly wouldn't have your current lifestyle.
You can have that today. You can still forage for food. It is even easier today.
So, but we don't need cancerous materials to do so. If you missed it, that was the point
So we lose non-stick pans, how does that make us return to a hunter gatherer society?
Maybe consider for once that these compounds are not only used for pans, but also for other applications, like electronics?
I wasnt aware the laws were targeting electronics. Are we talking all electronics or just some?
Non stick pans, fire retardant mattresses, nonslip shoes, many forms of plastic, stain resistant shirts, water proof jackets, fume suppressants, metal coating/plating, high quality surfactants (ie lots of soaps), many types of pipe and the joining compounds used in plumbing, and the list goes on.
What? This stuff is in soaps and plastics? Wow this stuff is everywhere.
Is this list all products effected or the products that have no known replacement?
It's not even a dent in the list of all effected products. For the no known replacement there should be a preface, we can generally make things without PFAS still, but PFAS is a major reason why the item is desirable.
For example, we can go back to lye and castile soap but we probably won't be able to have laundry or dish detergent. The alternatives exist, they just don't function well enough to be replacements. Without detergents you would need to pre-wash your dishes and laundry (or completely skip using) before using your washing machine and dish washer (hand wash everything). This says nothing about industrial usage of surfactants which is also really important.
We'd still have plastics, but we probably wouldn't have any plastics which are naturally "slippy," smooth, or soft. Hard brittle plastics only.
An example I used earlier, we could still have metal coating/plating, but it would probably look more like something from the early 1800s. PFAS is used in the process to suppress fumes and also to protect against corrosion, staining, and weathering.
I don't know enough to say how far back it would set us with computers. I have the sense they'd still exist, but we'd be set back several decades.
Well, then I don't think it makes sense for an immediate blanket ban on it.
I suspect the best path forward is to set maximum limits and slowly adjust those down over time. I really don't think we want to continue to be inundated with carcinogens.
I generally agree. The links to cancer are a bit tenuous to be honest. We know at high levels they definitely are bad, but at low levels we aren't really sure. Looking at the effects to people living downstream of the DuPont plants, and who were drinking high quantities of it in their source water, we known it's bad. The problem is that it bioaccumulates and we suspect that at low levels, over long enough, it'll be bad. The low levels we're talking about are in the single digit part per trillion. It's really hard to put into context how small 1 ppt is. If we took Lake Superior as an example, 1 ppt would be 32 gallons in the whole lake. Loch ness lake would be 1.95 gallons.
NYC generates approximately 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater per day, that means 1 ppt would be about 5 mL per day in the whole city.
We know that PFAS is bad at high levels, but because the low levels are so low we are having a hard time proving it's bad. Most studies will say that there are links or that it's a likely carcinogen.
We definitely need to cut this stuff out, but doing so is going to seriously cripple most peoples way of life or we'll find a replacement which might not be as safe as we think it is.
What a wonderfully unrelated to my post comment you've made. Since you are so kind as to make up what you want to argue against, perhaps you won't mind making up the response so those of us on topic can get on with discussing that topic.
I am so not understanding all the comments on this post that are literally defending their right to be given cancer by large corporations.
Wtf are the responses to this comment? "No, I like being poisoned for profit!" Jfc.
It's the same stupid bullshit as the 2a nuts. There is no logical reason, they just like a manmade product, which is a great extension of any interesting person :)
No it's not.
an Argument’s an intellectual process. Contradiction’s just the
automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.
No it isnt.
Yeah, not everyone is worth arguing with.
We also survived thousands of years without any of the creature comforts our society has taken for granted. Unfortunately, all the scientific advances we've achieved for the betterment of mankind involved these forever chemicals in one way or another.
I'm not saying they're not terrible, but at least some of the voices against these restrictions aren't in bad faith. It just speaks to the importance of finding alternatives, and we have to accept the fact that some things might not be replaceable with biodegradable solutions.
I thought we were banning forever chemicals in manufacturing, not science.
These chemicals made the creature comforts cheaper, not the creature comforts you wish to claim require them.
If you want to return to a feudal experience, I’m afraid it’s not like your local renaissance faire. What was it actually like?
Well, let’s start with Yersinia Pestis, the little scoundrel..
Antibiotics? Never heard of em.
None of which require any of the chemicals involved, so...
For large scale manufacturing in the electronics to make them? Sure they do.
You like glass? Modern glass? Required.
Oh man, I love you Chema-kills people. You make me feel so intelligent.