Could the world go PFAS-free? Proposal to ban ‘forever chemicals’ fuels debate

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02444-5

by mfiguiere • 3 years ago

320 274 3 years ago

Just stop putting them in food packaging and consumer items, please. I don't care if it costs a penny more, or if my paper plates get a little more soggy.

brnt• 3 years ago

I really hate it when a drink is served with a paper straw. They release 95% of the pfas in the drink. There's no better way of introducing the stuff to my body. Why is nobody thinking of this? Perfectly good bamboo straws exist!

putnambr2• 3 years ago

Or stainless steel, or BPA-free plastic, or plant-fiber cellulose plastic, or silicone, or...

wahnfrieden6• 3 years ago

It's cheaper. More profit. That's it

gruez8• 3 years ago

They release 95% of the pfas in the drink

source?

tw04• 3 years ago

Let me preface this with: I'm not advocating for continuing to use pfas. That being said, why are we still calling them forever chemicals? Didn't we come up with a way to break down the majority of existing pfas already?

https://www.verywellhealth.com/cleaning-pfas-from-water-6500...

chmod6002• 3 years ago

"Forever" is understood to be an exaggeration. And even if we are finding new artificial ways to break it down, the fact remains that there's a lot of it out in nature now and natural processes take a long time to break them down.

mjhay• 3 years ago

PFAS exists everywhere in the biosphere. It's impossible to clean all that up.

themaninthedark• 3 years ago

Mercury exists everywhere in the biosphere, it is impossible to clean up. Lead exists everywhere in the biosphere, it is impossible to clean up. Freon exists everywhere in the biosphere, it is impossible to clean up. Plastic exists everywhere in the biosphere, it is impossible to clean up. CO2 exists everywhere in the biosphere, it is impossible to clean up.

If we declare the situation hopeless then nothing will change.

abeppu• 3 years ago

That article specifically discusses water filtration plants that are handling concentrated PFAS after filtering them away from drinking water. That the small fraction of them flowing through water treatment facilities can be broken down with special handling (which that article also says will not be ready for the market for some time) does not negate the fact that in the environment / our bodies, they are extremely slow to break down. I think it's obvious even to laypeople that the label is not literally true (nothing lasts forever), but it's still an apt descriptor. Even if municipal water can filter them out and break them down, these chemicals will be literally in our bodies and environments for the rest of our lives.

zucked6• 3 years ago

As others have alluded to, this works fine for municipal drinking water, but we're finding PFAS in our food supply now (they're in lakes, streams, rivers, vegetables, meat, etc). We cannot feasibly clean all the surface water and soil, so the best idea is to stop introducing them in the first place.

loeg4• 3 years ago

why are we still calling them forever chemicals?

Because it's a useful political slogan for the anti-PFAS advocates.

KennyBlanken2• 3 years ago

Because it bio-accumulates and doesn't break down, and there's no way to remove it from entire aquifers or a huge chunk of land and the stuff is still leeching into aquifers?

How are small towns supposed to pay for these treatment processes? How are individual home owners, since in many areas everyone is on a well?

What are all the marine critters (and everything that eats them, and everything that eats those critters, etc.) supposed to do?

All so McDonalds can make a Big Mack container that doesn't get soggy?

zucked6• 3 years ago

I hope this becomes a reality - we really made an mistake introducing these, I think.

The hard part, I suspect, will be regulating all the different forms of "forever chemicals" and not having it be a perpetual game of whack-a-mole where chemists figure out ways to slightly tweak the structure of the chemicals so that they effectively replicate the function of PFAS without triggering the definition of PFAs. We're already pretty hooked on the usefulness of PFAs for all sorts of stuff (clothes, containers, etc) so going cold turkey is going to require some sacrifice.

rgrieselhuber• 3 years ago

How is this even debatable? Nobody wants these chemicals anywhere near them.

delecti4• 3 years ago

Nobody wants these chemicals anywhere near them.

Don't we? I've got a bunch of non-stick pans that I love cooking on (I checked the brand I use most, and their pans are coated in PTFE, a PFAS). I've also got a roll of PTFE tape for plumbing around the house (basically ubiquitous for that purpose), and some PTFE tubing for hobby use (PTFE tubing is in the majority of 3D printers).

tracker13• 3 years ago

I think the bigger risks are in anything resembling disposable. Also, maybe getting people to understand how to care for their cookware better so it lasts 10+ years instead of 3-5 or so. I actually prefer stainless steel myself, my SO prefers non-stick. Before I was with my SO, I had a single 8" non-stick I would use just for eggs.

I'm as or more concerned about the plastics in food packaging myself. Hard to avoid with so much processed food in most grocery stores though. Wouldn't mind taking a few steps back. Considering we grow well more than enough food to actually feed the world at this point.

OtherShrezzing3• 3 years ago

Your tape and tubing scenarios make sense. I'm not sure anyone can seriously require a non-stick pan though. Cooks managed without them for thousands of years by just paying more attention to their eggs, and comparably unsticky materials existed before the invention of non-stick coatings. The long-term negative impacts of teflon just doesn't seem to be worth the incredibly slight convenience they offer.

wkat4242• 3 years ago

And gore-tex clothing is a godsend in countries where it rains almost every day like Ireland :)

Zigurd8• 3 years ago

There is a literal canary in the coal mine: People with birds don't use PTFE because if they burn a pan it will kill their birds.

jdietrich• 3 years ago

Not to mention waterproof clothing, non-fogging safety goggles, temperature-resistant wire insulation, dielectrics, separators in Li-ion batteries and countless biomedical applications.

Fluoropolymers and fluorosurfactants have unique properties that make them very difficult to substitute. I'm not sufficiently informed to comment on the possible health impacts of fluorinated hydrocarbons, but I can say that a world without them will be poorer in countless small ways. That might well be a price worth paying, but we shouldn't pretend that it's an easy decision.

coryrc3• 3 years ago

PTFE is not a PFAS. PFAS are used to manufacture it.

mrob2• 3 years ago

There's no good substitute for PTFE cookware. The modern "non stick" alternatives are stickier even when new and degrade quickly. There's no good substitute for PTFE in rain clothes either. PTFE itself is harmless, but the precursor chemicals are dangerous. I'd happily pay a lot more to cover the costs of their safe containment and disposal. Despite people calling them "forever chemicals", PFAS can be destroyed by processes such as supercritical water oxidation.

zucked6• 3 years ago

We've had perfectly serviceable non-stick cookware for ages - carbon steel cookware treated properly easily replicates teflon with a little oil or butter.

Before someone claims to the contrary - I basically only use TWO pans now for all my cooking - both 14" carbon steel pans I initially conditioned that have only gotten more non-stick as I've used them. I regularly cook over-easy eggs, scrambled eggs, and other foods that are apparently only possible in teflon non-stick pans if you believe the literature.

RajT884• 3 years ago

There's no good substitute for PTFE cookware.

There is. Seasoned cast iron.

The problem with cast iron is that it requires work to season it properly and maintain it. People are lazy.

There's no good substitute for PTFE in rain clothes either.

They used to use oil and wax. They were called oilskin coats. I'm not sure if it's because they are niche, but now such coats are pretty expensive. Problem: Cost.

So you're right in some sense - the alternatives don't provide us with the same level of cost and convenience.

KennyBlanken2• 3 years ago

Tell that to the entire restaurant industry. The vast majority of cooking done on a stove in a commercial kitchen is done on various sizes of high carbon steel pans, and they are just as non-stick as PTFE.

rngname223• 3 years ago

Enamel cookware is nonstick.

loeg4• 3 years ago

I do! These chemicals are extremely useful and my life is regularly improved by their presence.

sirsinsalot4• 3 years ago

Well, nevermind the potential fallout then, if you, the individual is happy.

Consumerism really did kill "us" for "me" didn't it.

chmod6002• 3 years ago

There's a lot of space between a ban and "just don't use it everywhere".

debacle• 3 years ago

And what about the next forever chemicals?

chickenuggies69• 3 years ago

Yes "what about"

fHr• 3 years ago

They always ban some specific PFAS structures and then 1 of 3 consulting firms that is in the game is just again going to suggest they should modify the structure and add an H or O somwhere to make it slightly different from the banned specified structure and it's legal again for another 10 years. Happening all the time.

NoMoreNicksLeft• 3 years ago

Not sure I agree with the prohibition of these substances... but legislation doesn't have to be written quite so naively as that. You can ban unnamed, similar chemicals at the same time.

They already do this for Schedule I drugs (not that I agree with that either). They finally got fed up with adding new designer drugs to the schedule, and there's an entry that says something like "any similar chemical substance that causes the same pharmaceutical effects as a Schedule I drug or is used for such effects or has a similar chemical structure".

I definitely don't agree with that clause when it comes to drug enforcement, but if a good case could be made that PFAS should be banned, then adding that clause to preemptively block PFAS-alikes that are just a couple atoms away from the original formula doesn't seem excessive to me. And, if somehow it should be excessive (the change fixes all the problems we might have with PFAS substances), then let them argue that to Congress.

Exemptions for producing small amounts for research, obviously.

If Congress didn't do this, if they're not doing that... then they're just bad at the one thing they're supposed to be doing: writing effective legislation.

drewcoo• 3 years ago

legislation doesn't have to be written quite so naively as that

It will be written by think tanks behind lobbyists for industry interests that donate to campaigns.

the one thing [Congress is] supposed to be doing

. . . is getting reelected. We do not elect them because of competency in law-writing or even in voting for their constituencies' interests. We elect them because they spend lots of money to tell us how monstrous "the other choice" is.

kube-system• 3 years ago

and there's an entry that says something like "any similar chemical substance that causes the same pharmaceutical effects

The problem is that these PFAS chemicals do things that are useful, and banning any future useful inventions isn't nearly as desirable.

casefields• 3 years ago

I’m with Gorsuch in thinking the Federal Analogue Act(banning designer drugs) is unconstitutional nor is it good policy, but if the majority want it why not pass similar legislation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act

Or instead of outright banning pass onerous taxes so that it’s only used in applications that absolutely must have it and not every throw away piece of clothing and wrapper.

Giving the DEA or another executive agency more authority here seems like a terrible idea but sometimes I’m not in the majority and I understand that.

katbyte• 3 years ago

It’s wild so much money and effort go to policing drugs people want to voluntarily consume while next to nothing by comparison is done to police pollution that entire towns are involuntarily affected by, for far longer, and often to far worse effect.

Knee_Pain2• 3 years ago

Can someone explain where the (suspiciously) scary nomenclature of "forever chemicals" comes from?

Google neutered their normal search engine, so in order to search by date I went to Google Scholar and I have found no use of such term well into the 2000s.

It looks like a journalistic invention, does anyone have am origin story pointing to a scholarly source?

Etheryte2• 3 years ago

You'll easily find the answer if you search for forever chemicals wikipedia, what's the source of the confusion?

ravenstine• 3 years ago

No it isn't. There's no "forever chemical" page on Wikipedia, so I'm not sure where you're getting this idea from.

Disregarding any nomenclature, in just focusing on the terminology in isolation, water could be considered a forever chemical. This is an example of why use of the term "forever chemical" comes off as a scare tactic or disingenuous.

Of course, for dying media institutions, PFAS can't just be a pollutant. It has to be literally forever!

EDIT: Way to go missing the entire point, all of you.

Zigurd8• 3 years ago

Hey! He's "just asking questions."

sibane2• 3 years ago

I found a couple of news articles crediting the word to this opinion piece (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/these-toxic-chemical...) in the Washington Post by Joseph G. Allen, an assistant professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the director of Harvard's Healthy Buildings Program.

Knee_Pain2• 3 years ago

I wonder if they were pressured by the journalist to come up with the buzz word or it was something they used colloquially between peers

qchris• 3 years ago

I was visiting my family a few weeks ago in my childhood town, and the topic of our small local river came up. It's about three minutes away, and both the streams that feed it and the larger river it feeds into were fairly big parts of my childhood, including fishing, crayfishing, exploring, and generally playing on the banks. It turns out that there's a fishing advisory in effect this year, advising folks not to eat any fish caught in that river.

The reason is PFAS pollution, where the levels in the water table now indicate the potential for bioaccumulation above the recommended level for human toxicity. The people living in that area are now denied access to clean water and not having to worry about eating toxic fish, and I'm sure the otters and herons in the area haven't gotten the notice. Millions of state tax dollars have now been allocated to try to just estimate the contamination level in drinking water wells throughout the state as well.

Frankly, the producers and users of these chemicals have proven to be, at the minimum, so grossly negligent and potentially actually malicious, that they can not be considered to be acting in good faith, and "reasonable compromises" should be looked at with extreme suspicion. I feel the responsible organizations fined for both remediation and damages, the individuals responsible made criminally liable for the harm they've caused, and once that example has been made, we can talk about compromises once the "free market" has factored in the actual cost of using these chemicals when they can't just dump risk onto the public.

[1] https://ctmirror.org/2021/08/29/how-widespread-are-pfas-chem...

RajT884• 3 years ago

PFAS is one of the most common causes of fish advisories by me as well.

The story changes a little when you get to Lake Michigan, which is more heavy metals, fecal coliform, etc. The heavy metals coming from the steel refineries who periodically have oopsies and dump a few tons of waste into the lake.

zucked6• 3 years ago

Last I looked, the entire Green Bay side of Lake Michigan (from Green Bay up to Escanaba/Garden area) was under a PFAS advisory, as was the south western 1/3 of Superior (from Duluth to the Keeweenaw).

The stuff is everywhere. At least the raw sewage overflows from Milwaukee/Chicago mostly dilute and turn less toxic in the matter of months versus generations as is the case with PFAS.

blackbeans• 3 years ago

Here in The Netherlands, a large DuPont/Chemours factory has been dumping waste products for over 30 years.

The maximum safe concentration of PFAS/PFOA has been reduced in the past years, due to better understanding of health concerns.

As a result and due to more public attention, water surfaces are now seen as harmful up to 10 miles away from the factory. The factory is located right between a medium sized city and a national park. Within a radius of a mile around the factory, people are advised not to grow vegetables.

I think many countries have similar stories and clean up costs are going to be huge.

HankB99• 3 years ago

The heavy metals coming from the steel refineries ...

Steel mills or petroleum refineries. We have both.

I thought that mercury in the environment came mostly from coal fired power plants. The mills have their share of pollution issues but I think that's more air pollution. Well... There was the issue with killing a bunch of fish a couple years ago. IIRC that was cyanide.

tracker13• 3 years ago

I think if we actually did more of the latter portion of your statements things could actually change for the better. Hold companies fiscally responsible for cleanup and actually criminally charge the decision makers for cases of negligence. Similar for the railway disasters like East Palestine.

The protections provided to corporations are intended to shield hands-off investors, not executives and board members that drive profit above safety and common sense. I'm not in favor of a lot of heavy handed regulation, but I'm all for corporate liability.

zucked6• 3 years ago

History has shown that it is difficult to hold parties liable because they find creative ways to eschew the obligations via spin-offs, bankruptcy, or both.

softfalcon• 3 years ago

I’m all for corporate liability.

Unfortunately, even what happened in East Palestine was just a slap on the wrist compared to the damage it caused to the affected communities.

Corporate liability needs to be ratcheted up several orders of magnitude before we’ll see any actual change. As it stands, most governments have no teeth against corporate greed and exploitation.

tomxor2• 3 years ago

Hold companies fiscally responsible for cleanup

3M is filing for bankruptcy due to PFAS litigation, and even then they can't cover the costs [0] This doesn't work, the damage is already done, and the profits have been pocketed. What's worse with PFAS for environmental pollution is that no mechanism for clean up currently exists.

criminally charge the decision makers for cases of negligence.

Might work as a weak extrinsic motivator, but there's plenty of "hot potato" going in this kind of work. It's also hard to prove negligence when the "decision makers" are ignoring the environmental costs through either wilful ignorance, burring their own research, or through optimistic interpretations which give them plausible deniability - combine that with shared responsibility and it gets hard to point the finger at individuals unless you were in the room. It's hard to pin down a "decision" of inaction.

We either need some kind of intrinsic motivators, i.e make it in the interest of corporations to protect the environment. Or really heavy legislation that requires extensive proof of ecological safety for every new chemical dumped into the environment rather than the current "we'll figure it out later" model.

[0] https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/3m-head...

Aunche• 3 years ago

Substantial fines to domestic businesses create resentment from voters who lose their jobs due to such fines. That's why governments does this to foreign companies (e.g. US fining VW and EU fining big tech). I wonder if there is a way to structure these penalties such that doesn't cripple the domestic economy such a forcing companies to issue new shares that immediately get acquired by the government.

dopidopHN3• 3 years ago

Your point about the real cost of those chemical is so crucial.

Maybe I would have more respect to whatever free market proposal if the real cost were factored in.

And yes, it’s including not polluting or cleaning up fully after yourself if you do.

If you pollute in a non cleanable way, you either pay a lot, or it’s illegal.

Kinda tired of freeloaders.

rngname223• 3 years ago

It's not considered alarming to publicly state you believe those guilty of murder should face capital punishment - that is - to be executed by the state. Certainly not a view held by all but it's within the Overton window to state you hold the view.

I believe it should be normalized that we speak about the most egregious, permanent, impossible to reckon with environmental pollution in the same way - that is - it ought to be a crime to pollute in the most serious ways and that crime out to be punished with state executions.

giraffe_lady• 3 years ago

Thinking of it this way just as an exercise also leads you directly into how constructed the entire idea of crime even is.

All these articles in mainstream papers the last few years fomenting a panic about rising crime, calling it crime waves, etc. They are not talking about this. Because they don't mean this. We don't, for the most part, consider these to be crimes. Sometimes we may use that word, but you don't see the same flood of op-eds and public official press conferences calling for retributive justice.

Similar shit elsewhere. Shoplifting is a crime but hundreds of millions in wage fraud is just bad accounting, etc etc.

zug_zug• 3 years ago

I agree. If somebody from Iraq did this to a US river, it would a catastrophic act of bioterrorism, an act of war warranting death by drone without trial.

Maybe calling it corporate bioterrorism (though a bit hyperbolic) could shift the overton window into somewhere closer to reality.

cortesoft• 3 years ago

I am also curious if it wasn't also toxic back when you were a kid, and people just didn't realize it and were eating contaminated fish.

s1artibartfast6• 3 years ago

The major end user and polluter is usually the public government. People can absolutely sue the government, but they just end up paying for it themselves.

ethanbond• 3 years ago

The major end user and polluter is usually the public government.

Why is that?

jokoon• 3 years ago

Maybe it could move to "banned by default" for anything that is sold to the public, and authorized for very very narrow and particular applications that have little risk to contact the environment, although it's hard to study which application, maybe as long as the quantities produced are small enough that they're not a danger.

For example, if it's for space satellite parts, or for nuclear energy application, etc, when alternatives don't exist as long as the quantity are small and as long as they're being disposed of safely.

So in short: if it's a sector that is high value enough, where quantities are small and where safe disposal is mandatory.

mrguyorama13• 3 years ago

Quite simply, any conclusion of this saga that doesn't end with 3M and fellow companies utterly erased and their assets sold off to more responsible stewards to pay for remediation and cleanup efforts, including piercing the corporate veil for a lot of the owners, is a miscarriage of justice. You cannot be allowed, as a private entity, to knowingly pollute.... everything, and still be allowed to conduct business. You have made it abundantly clear that you will harm others for profit, and we should be aggressively destroying any company that does so.

You have no natural right to a profit at other's expense, and we should stop pretending that these companies are following the rule of the law with these settlements. No part of any law says you have to let malicious companies continue to operate because they are big and have a lot of money. Bankruptcy is an important and necessary part of a healthy market.

amelius4• 3 years ago

You have no natural right to a profit at other's expense

Another thing is that the stock market doesn't work here. It promotes shortsighted trading without an eye for long term side effects. In principle shareholders should be accountable too. If you owned stocks of a company that caused damage during the period when that damage occurred, you should be accountable and at least you should not be able to profit from it. The stock market should be retrofitted with an accountability system. This is the only way shareholders will start caring about our future.

paiute• 3 years ago

Counter argument: selling off products to smaller businesses creates more limited liability. I.e less to lose more to gain by being bad stewards. A bigger company in fear of hurting their brand has incentive to be good.

TedDoesntTalk4• 3 years ago

You have made it abundantly clear that you will harm others for profit ... Bankruptcy is an important and necessary part of a healthy market

You mean like Big Tobacco? They survived their lies and cover-ups, and are still around and doing well.

Biologist123• 3 years ago

I’ve started to wonder whether pollution is the right word and whether we should say it how it is: plain old-fashioned, ugly “theft”. If someone takes something from you without your permission - including the ability to fish for your supper or drink from your spring, then that fulfills to me the definition of theft. And the penalties should be commensurate.

superchroma3• 3 years ago

Thank you, yes. These monstrous organizations should ripped apart, absolutely gutted, and their leaders imprisoned.

m4632• 3 years ago

This is corrupt all the way down.

Consumers cannot determine if they have "forever chemicals" in their products and vote with their wallet.

I've tried for ages to find cookware that is healthy, and time and time again the cookware I've bought has these chemicals hidden behind corporate lies.

Even consumer's reports has finally realized:

Because CR’s tests and research show that even products made without PFOA may contain the compound because of how they’re manufactured, we have decided to no longer display "PFOA-free" in our ratings of nonstick cookware. Such claims may not be reliable for PTFE-coated products.

happily there is hope:

A California law that will go into effect in 2023 will ban companies from claiming in online sale listings that a cookware product is free of any one PFAS—like PFOA—if it contains any other PFAS, like PTFE. Those claims will have to be removed from packaging by 2024, when a similar law will go into effect in Colorado.

I wonder if "online sale listings" will just use geoip and ignore the rest of the country.

TedDoesntTalk4• 3 years ago

Why not buy uncoated steel or aluminum cookware? It's all I use. Often need steel wool to clean, but that's much better than buying non-stick cookware.

hcurtiss• 3 years ago

But are these advisories really meaningful? People volitionally ingest persistent organic flourines every day (e.g., Flonase, Prozac, Lipitor). These chemicals are really useful, and only very mildly harmful. EPA's straight-line calculations for excess deaths are comically overstated -- tens of thousands of deaths, and we struggle to actually point at more than a few high profile incidents. Is it possible that, yes, these chemicals are mildly harmful, but also very useful, and that we have to take a more sophisticated approach to the trade-offs?

Here's an amusing article highlighting the struggle to single out the "bad" PFAS from the truly life-saving PFAS. https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2022/is-there-a-right-d...

mint2• 3 years ago

In today’s NYT article on e-bikes (i.e. electric mopeds) for teens, the maker says how motorcycle education classes saved his life, but doesn’t want similar classes for the electric mopeds he sells to kids because it would hurt business.

It’s the same all over, companies care about their own short term profits and gladly maim people and things for a buck in their pocket.

all2• 3 years ago

Dark Waters is a relevant movie about a town in Pennsylvania that suffered from poisoning by the Dupont corporation.

legitster7• 3 years ago

I'm generally pretty pro-chemical in moderation. I haven't fried a decent egg on cast iron yet, and I enjoy breathable waterproof fabrics.

I understand the concern, but I guess I don't understand the risk yet. My understanding from chemistry class was that PF- compounds are so useful because of how inert they are. Their indestructibility is what makes them mostly harmless - if you eat a pile of (room-temperature) Teflon, it just goes right through your body.

mrob2• 3 years ago

You need other, more dangerous, short-chain PFAS to make those inert PFAS polymers. Costs would greatly increase if manufacturers weren't allowed to release any to the environment. I think enforcing this and increasing prices is a better idea than a ban.

legitster7• 3 years ago

I suspect then the reason seafood is becoming the chief source of PFAS is that most of this is made in China and lax environmental rules means most of it is getting dumped down the Yangtze.

Getting a $20 Teflon pan instead of a $15 one but they actually dispose of the chemicals properly seems like a no-brainer here.

cmclaughlin• 3 years ago

Fried eggs on Teflon pans are rather soggy in my opinion…

My preferred pan for fried eggs is stainless steel. With plenty of butter the eggs crisp up and release from the pan with no stick at all. The only real trick is to not flip too soon.

legitster7• 3 years ago

The only real trick is to not flip too soon.

Do you manage to get a runny yoke?

I legit went through 2 dozen eggs trying to get a perfect fried egg on stainless steel. I tried everything - hot pan, cold pan, oil, butter, swirling the pan, a touch of vinegar. I could not find any combination that worked - I suspect that you either have to have very particular equipment.

mrguyorama13• 3 years ago

The scrambled eggs my girlfriend cooks on the $10 stainless steel, well greased pan blow any eggs I have ever made on any "nonstick" or "seasoned" surface so out of the water that I no longer consider nonstick pans to be anything more than a mild convenience. I have one nice one that I use for general cookery and only rinse out, and it has stayed super non-stick.

codyb2• 3 years ago

I fry a fair amount of eggs over easy on my cast iron and get good results so it's definitely doable. I think preseasoned cast irons are fairly cheap these days although I picked mine up on Craigslist with a set.

For the most part, cleaning the cast iron is two seconds of chain mail scraping under the faucet because not much really sticks to it and there's just the small leftovers that weren't worth scooping, then I put it on the stove for a minute or two while I wipe up other things and just let the water evaporate off so it doesn't rust.

burnished4• 3 years ago

I got nicely seasoned cast iron at Target for cheap, was very surprising.

I like sticking mine in the oven and letting it preheat to dry them, plus it's genuinely pretty convenient to store them there when unused anyway.

elil173• 3 years ago

Long chain like PTFE is fine. The issue is short chain fluorosurfactants (think PFOA and GenX) which contaminate the environment around the factories that make PTFE, harm the workers in those factories, and probably end up in trace amounts in the final products as well. These are very chemically stable in that they don't react well with most things, making them long lasting in the environment, but they do interact (but not react) with animal endocrine systems, which makes them so dangerous.

Zigurd8• 3 years ago

I have used ceramic nonstick pans for eggs and pancakes and the like for years. Also, trying to cook completely without butter or oil, unless you have highly specific dietary restrictions, is unnecessary.

ifaxmycodetok8s• 3 years ago

staub enameled cast iron are great for eggs and other things that usually stick to non-enameled cast irons or stainless

Eumenes• 3 years ago

I make eggs every morning on a stainless steel pan - I find it just as easy to clean as Teflon. Most restaurants use stainless steel.

mrguyorama13• 3 years ago

Stainless still is only hard to clean if you suck at doing dishes. After you cook something, let them soak (really just let them sit with water and dish soap in them) for like an hour and you can almost just rinse them out. Even dishwashers with modern soaps have little problem with them once you soak them.

projektfu• 3 years ago

I use stainless steel and it works fine.

I hate frying eggs on cast iron. I need to wait so long for it to come up to a reasonable temperature, it always seems to overcook the whites and leaves the yolks cold. Every time I mention having trouble with cast iron, people jump out to tell me I'm holding it wrong and it's so easy, but it's really a finicky way to cook.

However, a seasoned stainless steel skillet is a lot like an aluminum teflon skillet except that it doesn't care if you heat it too hot, in my opinion.

nlavezzo• 3 years ago

The 15" version of this pan is magic. It is super easy to season (apply some oil / butter, get it really hot a few times, wipe it off with a rag, repeat) and is very non stick with just a light coating of oil. Of course never clean it with soap. Water only if necessary. Afterwards I always just pour some oil on and wipe it clean with a paper towel.

https://www.lodgecastiron.com/product/carbon-steel-pan?sku=C...

sirsinsalot4• 3 years ago

I feel like ceramic enamel cookware is underrated.

Non stick, easy to clean, durable, good temperature properties.

justsomehnguy2• 3 years ago

Cast iron on the gas stove is fine (by me). Cast iron on the electric with a cast iron tops is PITA for making something fast-and-once like fried/scrambled eggs. With something which takes a long time to make (like a stack of pancakes) you manage, mostly because they are made at the max t° anyway, but quick things suffer.

adrr3• 3 years ago

If you care about your health, you wouldn’t use a cast iron. Normally seasoned with unsaturated vegetable fats which produce polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at high heat which is required for the seasoning process. These compounds are carcinogenic.

goalieca2• 3 years ago

Pre-heating is essential for cast iron. I primarily cook with it for everything these days on an induction cooktop. Induction is pretty fast at heating the pan and has excellent temperature control.

wahnfrieden6• 3 years ago

I mean there’s a reason commercial kitchens use stainless steel (or aluminum)

andersrs• 3 years ago

Stainless steel pan + butter + a stainless spatula + chainmail or steel wool. I cook can egg on stainless everyday and it's easy to clean. Teflon pans are not inert. The fumes from a hot teflon pan can kill birds.

Don't call for the meme that saturated fats are bad. Butter is safer than unsaturated fats which change when heated.

hnav2• 3 years ago

not to distract from your central point, but while the saturated fat in (unclarified) butter doesn't smoke like veg oil, the proteins in it do seem to burn up

tredre32• 3 years ago

The fumes from a hot teflon pan can kill birds.

Thank you, I was unaware of that. Important to note that it happens only when the pan is grossly overheated (280C/580F) [1]. For reference frying an egg is done at 300F.

Still a concern, it's not that hard to imagine being distracted and leaving an empty pan on a coil set to high, it will likely reach 600F after a few minutes.

1. https://vcacanada.com/know-your-pet/teflon-polytetrafluoroet...

bilsbie• 3 years ago

My uncle said the Replacements for pfas are actually worse. What’s the final word on that?

burnished4• 3 years ago

There aren't any replacements for them, and its unclear what you mean by worse, less efficacious or more environmentally damaging? If the former then yeah, theres a reason those products took off

polski-g2• 3 years ago

We used to wrap products in paper or cloth. We could go back to that.

hedora4• 3 years ago

The regulators have taken a whack-a-mole approach to banning this class of chemicals in the past. The result is that the popular ones that are well-understood get banned, and then replaced with ones that haven't been studied. There's no reason to think the replacements are better or worse, though they are often worse.

The organization in the article is proposing banning production of the entire family of chemicals (~ 12,000 of them) instead of doing it one at a time.

mistrial9• 3 years ago

twenty five years ago there were similar "news items" .. called Green Chemistry and Body Burden at that time..

Zigurd8• 3 years ago

After our civilization collapses and is forgotten, scientists thousands of years from now will wonder at what kinds of planetary scale maniacs we were: A layer of lead covering the planet, so we could have cars. A globe-spanning layer of americium-241 from when we tested nuclear bombs in the open air. Etc.

rcMgD2BwE72F2• 3 years ago

This has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene#Stratigraphy

nemo44x• 3 years ago

But won't they also look at skeletons and see that life expectancies also increased during this entire time?

manzanarama• 3 years ago

Are these forever chemicals an actual big deal? Do we have any numbers on how many people or animals they injure or kill every year? How about projections into the future? What kind of benefit do they allow manufacturers?

elil173• 3 years ago

Based on https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9215707/ and https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/and-polyfluoroalkyl-substances-pfas

Are these forever chemicals an actual big deal? Do we have any numbers on how many people or animals they injure or kill every year?

One study estimates about 30,000 to 120,000 people killed in America per year, with many more in the rest of the word. The EPA thinks reducing PFAS exposure now could save thousands of human lives per year and prevent tens of thousands of cases of human illnesses.

How about projections into the future?

We really don't know. However, the numbers seem to have gone down significantly in recent years, perhaps due to a change in which PFAS people are exposed to.

What kind of benefit do they allow manufacturers?

Calling PFAS miracle chemicals would be an understatement. Short chain PFAS (the dangerous kind) enable us to make PTFE, which makes surfaces almost friction-less, is compatible with almost every chemical, is largely bio-compatible, and lets water vapor through while keeping out liquid water (useful for things like waterproof jackets which don't trap sweat). They have a wide variety of other applications as well.

polski-g2• 3 years ago

They act as sex hormone disruptors. Probably the number one cause of plummeting fertility across the entire world. Korea is projected to have a 95% reduction in population within three generations.

elil173• 3 years ago

There are a lot of uses for PFAS, but banning flourosurfactants from consumer products should be a no-brainier. They aren't needed for safety reasons and they are obviously causing health problems.

ordinaryradical4• 3 years ago

My father and his colleague developed a scalable process to manufacture Teflon without the use of PFAS back in the previous century; they had both been recruited heavily by DuPont which made it relatively easy to sell the patents, at which point they immediately disappeared and were never acted upon.

One of the interesting side effects of free markets is that when there are no consequences for mass poisoning / polluting, you will ignore opportunities to manufacture without doing so because there is often zero or negative economic consequences to change your process.

In DuPont’s case, it was more valuable in the near term for the shareholders to ignore this manufacturing innovation and not disrupt supply than to reconfigure with a new process. No doubt there were massive risks involved in trying a new process that made it a “safer” and wiser decision economically to continue to use PFAS.

I think about this every time someone tells us on HN how a freer market will solve our problems.

tredre32• 3 years ago

My father and his colleague developed a scalable process to manufacture Teflon without the use of PFAS back in the previous century

How is that possible? PTFE (teflon) is itself a PFAS, no? Did they "only" get rid of other PFAS used during the manufacturing of teflon?

ordinaryradical4• 3 years ago

I just asked him.

“Teflon is a high molecular weight polymer made using perfluoronated surfactants. Technically, PTFE is a fluorine-containing material but it is not the PFAS pollutants of recent concern. In the conventional synthesis, the real source of PFAS pollution is primarily those surfactants used in its manufacture. Our process made the use of those surfactants unnecessary.”

Why do you DuPont never acted on your patents?

“It was a cost of business decision because they had already invested so much capital in making Teflon with those surfactants.”

mandmandam• 3 years ago

This remind me of the recent story here, about how tobacco companies knew that radioactive polonium in their tobacco leaves was causing an insane rate of lung cancer, killing 130 out of ever 1,000 smokers over 25 years. [0]

They even had a process to remove the radioactivity, but, it made the nicotine a little less addictive so they didn't do it. Instead, they kept marketing to children with cartoon characters for another 20+ years until forced to stop.

These same companies are still marketing cigarettes to kids where they can get away with it.

At some point we need to start talking about self defense from this shitty system. And I feel like that point was the 60's.

0 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36925019

hedora4• 3 years ago

It's been long enough for the patents to expire, so why not help a competitor commercialize the technology? Do you have a reference to the patent number?

ordinaryradical4• 3 years ago

This is no doubt correct. I’m almost certain they’ve expired, though I’m not going to include links here and associate my real name with my HN acct.

But the reason they haven’t been acted upon (that I know of) is that economic difficulty of making a competing Teflon has to do chiefly with issues of manufacturing scale and large up front capital expenditure. This is true across the entire chemicals industry for any new product. Rule of thumb costs were, the last I heard, roughly 100 Million in development to get a single product into baseline commercial viability.

Why compete against an established and “tainted” product like Teflon? Can you guarantee the PFAS free process is cheaper at any of the initial commercial scales you’re likely to achieve? Is there a market for an off-brand substitute?

These kinds of risks delimit innovation in physical manufacturing far more than the possession of IP.

aantix• 3 years ago

Interesting that there's a correlation between PFAS levels and weight gain.

amelius4• 3 years ago

We need warning labels. If people knew there are pfas in their pizza boxes and popcorn bags, they wouldn't accept it.

rcMgD2BwE72F2• 3 years ago

Then, put warning labels and ban it.

If you want people not to accept it so we don't pollute our environment, just prevent the pollution directly. Also, I may not buy things with PFAS but there are millions of situation where PFAS could jeopardize my health (e.g food containers at restaurants, schools, hospitals… neighboring factory producing PFAS, etc).

volkl48• 3 years ago

Maybe (or maybe not - how much attention does the average person pay to California Prop 65 warnings?), but warning labels on consumer products won't do much of anything to curb their use in industry and non-consumer facing products.

aequitas• 3 years ago

We have warning labels and even graphic pictures of diseases on smoking packages but still people choose to smoke.

dang• 3 years ago

Related. I've tried to stick to the major discussions; have I missed any?

3M reaches $10.3B settlement over PFAS contamination of water systems - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36660751 - July 2023 (333 comments)

USGS estimates at least 45% of U.S. tap water contain forever chemicals - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36617822 - July 2023 (169 comments)

Nearly half of the tap water in the US is contaminated with ‘forever chemicals,’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36616841 - July 2023 (174 comments)

Water heavily polluted with PFAS in 15 km radius around Dordrecht chemical plant - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36520610 - June 2023 (44 comments)

Show HN: PFAS.report – Measure the forever chemicals in your blood via Quest - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36509752 - June 2023 (150 comments)

Eating microwave popcorn increases the level of PFAS in body (2022) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36440911 - June 2023 (414 comments)

3M heads to trial in ‘existential’ $143B forever-chemicals litigation - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36259163 - June 2023 (250 comments)

Three companies agree to pay $1B to settle 'forever chemical' claims - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36196884 - June 2023 (75 comments)

Many soft contact lenses in US made up of PFAS, research suggests - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35955706 - May 2023 (109 comments)

America’s first high-volume ‘PFAS Annihilator’ is up and running in W. Michigan - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35821128 - May 2023 (168 comments)

Engineers develop water filtration that removes “forever chemicals” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35764476 - April 2023 (226 comments)

Compostable fast-food packaging can emit volatile PFAS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35411919 - April 2023 (155 comments)

PFAS ban affects most refrigerant blends - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34997937 - March 2023 (100 comments)

PFAS can suppress white blood cells’ ability to destroy invaders - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34909058 - Feb 2023 (207 comments)

Magnetic method to clean PFAS contaminated water - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34487079 - Jan 2023 (181 comments)

PFAS found at high levels in freshwater fish - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34411713 - Jan 2023 (41 comments)

3M to end 'forever chemicals' output - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34076685 - Dec 2022 (413 comments)

Pollution cleanup method destroys toxic “forever chemicals” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34047047 - Dec 2022 (80 comments)

Possible breakthrough to destroy PFAS using sodium hydroxide - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32517444 - Aug 2022 (33 comments)

Simple mix of soap and solvent could help destroy ‘forever chemicals’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32515511 - Aug 2022 (233 comments)

It’s raining PFAS: rainwater is unsafe to drink even in Antarctica and Tibet - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32451024 - Aug 2022 (433 comments)

Study finds link between 'forever chemicals' in cookware and liver cancer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32438368 - Aug 2022 (394 comments)

Rainwater everywhere on Earth unsafe to drink due to ‘forever chemicals’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32365736 - Aug 2022 (72 comments)

US water contains more ‘forever chemicals’ than EPA tests show - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32004036 - July 2022 (21 comments)

3M’s PFAS Crisis Has Come to Europe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31809445 - June 2022 (94 comments)

Regular blood donations can reduce “forever chemicals” in the bloodstream: study - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31123477 - April 2022 (204 comments)

PFAS Contamination in the U.S - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28744886 - Oct 2021 (44 comments)

Toxic ‘forever chemicals’ contaminate indoor air at worrying levels - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28367524 - Aug 2021 (144 comments)

Study finds alarming levels of ‘forever chemicals’ in US mothers’ breast milk - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27139371 - May 2021 (107 comments)

Forever chemicals are widespread in U.S. drinking water - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25887385 - Jan 2021 (258 comments)

Chemicals called PFAS and PFOS are in the blood of virtually every person - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25557113 - Dec 2020 (226 comments)

PFAS “forever” chemicals found in hundreds more everyday products - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25288978 - Dec 2020 (25 comments)

U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22116696 - Jan 2020 (391 comments)

Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Drinking Water Leave Military Families Reeling - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19233284 - Feb 2019 (110 comments)

Scientists cut the tolerable intake of PFAs by 99.9% - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19070754 - Feb 2019 (112 comments)

3M Knew About the Dangers of PFOA and PFOS Decades Ago, Internal Documents Show - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17680589 - Aug 2018 (151 comments)

Troubling chemicals found in wide range of fast-food wrappers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13541466 - Feb 2017 (69 comments)

BiteCode_dev• 3 years ago

What debates is there to be?

It's making us all sick. Slowly but surely.

justinator• 3 years ago

PFAS are used in lubricants for nuclear weapons [0]

we'll never get rid of nuclear weapons

ergo, we'll never get rid of PFAS

[0] https://patelder.weebly.com/pfas--nuclear-weapons.html

mihaic• 3 years ago

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) defined as: Any substance that contains at least one fully fluorinated methyl (CF3-) or methylene (-CF2-) carbon atom (without any H/Cl/Br/I attached to it).

It sounds at least like they're not going the terrible US route of allowing substances until proven toxic.

Perhaps we've hit enough technological development that any new chemical actually needs to have approval before it can be mass produced (of course giving labs freedom to experiment in developing new materials).

mensetmanusman• 3 years ago

Lipitor, Prozac, Flonase are all PFAS as well as about a third of pharmaceuticals being developed. The best solution is regulated waste management, but nimbyism sends the issue to China.

coryrc3• 3 years ago

I thought your post was wrong, but this article says you're mostly right: https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2022/is-there-a-right-d...

hilbert423• 3 years ago

I recall some years ago a discussion we had with an environmentalist at a time when the rules governing the use of PVC insulation in household power wiring were being changed in that PVC was being replaced with another plastic that was usable but not nearly as good as the PVC.

During the discussion the environmentalist said to the effect "we're working towards eliminating (banning) chlorine from the planet". We were so shocked at what she said that we decided never to mention the element by name again and only referred to it as element 17.

This experience was a salient lesson what can happen when ignorance and popular notions mix. No doubt PFAS-type chemicals have been grossly abused as were CFCs and they need tight regulation but as we saw with the Montreal Protocol simply banning most CFCs outright rather than introducing strict regulation caused many problems. This led to certain chemicals becoming unavailable that had no effective but 'safer' equivalents and this has been problematic. Even now, I know of people who still have drums of CFCs which they almost guard with their lives—they won't even part with an ounce of the stuff for love nor money because when gone it's the end of the line.

It doesn't end there, in recent years we've seen certain CFCs being released to the atmosphere from illegal manufacturing in countries where monitoring isn't strictly controlled. Like illegal drugs, if there's sufficient demand people will supply them. Banning over 12,000 chemicals outright without a full and detailed investigation is certainly to cause similar problems.

We should learn from the CFC experience and take a carefully measured approach. Careful and strict regulation is likely a much better way of dealing with the problem..

I wonder how long it will be before we'll have to start whispering 'element 9' in hushed tones for fear of those who would wish it banned from the planet.

bwb• 3 years ago

Thank god for the EU leading the way. Make the rules and the market will find alternatives.

Reptur• 3 years ago

Title should be "Could the world go back to PFAS-free? Proposal to ban ‘forever chemicals’ fuels debate".

exabrial• 3 years ago

PFAs just needs to be regulated, not banned. We absolutely should/must be able to buy an outdoor jacket that lasts decades, provided you traded that last one in to be recycled (sort like mandatory battery core recycling). Long lasting goods are far better for the environment then short-lived "recyclable" ones.

Do you fast fashion Nikes or bicycle chain lube need PFAs? No.

The hysteria surrounding PFAs is going to be a net harm, and some politicians need a wedge issue to vault themselves forward in the media spotlight to buy votes.

Reading the HN comments today is sad. I thought this was a science based community.

hnav2• 3 years ago

Right, it all begins with studying where they're coming from since they're in everything from fire suppression foam to floss. I'd imagine companies like DuPoint are dumping insane amounts of them as byproducts of industrial processes, and would love for us to go all plastic straw on goretex shoes to let them squeeze a couple more billion of profits out of their established processes.

RE: HN, it has grown and been redditified a bit, rash downvoting, sarcastic non-sequiturs all abound.

JPws_Prntr_Fngr• 3 years ago

We absolutely should/must be able to buy an outdoor jacket that lasts decades

There is no possible way a durable water repellent (DWR) coating will last decades on a jacket, with or without PFAS. Modern outdoor apparel simply isn't designed for long term durability - it's designed for flashy marketability, because the externalities don't have to be priced in. There are a few exceptions (e.g. "true" softshells like Buffalo jackets) that have never, and will never, see mainstream adoption.

greenie_beans• 3 years ago

yeah my first thought was, "have you ever resealed tent seams?

happytiger• 3 years ago

It's not technological progress if it kills or sickens large numbers of people and we should recognize and roll back mistakes and misadventures as fast as introduce them.

The world will go on. We will find alternatives that don’t cause pain and suffering.

cultofmetatron• 3 years ago

it doesn't have to be all or nothing. how about we eliminate it from single use items? would probably get us 80% of the way there without any major dent in the average person's quality of life.

the-alchemist2• 3 years ago

Here's some good news: there's a non-plastic, non-forever-chemical, really-compostable plastic straw on the market! https://www.phadeproducts.com/#

https://www.amazon.com/stores/phade/page/7B9D4729-8EDF-4FAE-...

6,000 regular sized straws for $55, so about a penny each.

https://www.amazon.com/phade-Eco-Friendly-Sustainable-Biodeg...

lokar2• 3 years ago

The whole concept of limited liability need to be rethought. The goals were good and it has produced great wins for humanity. But the way it allows one sided bets (the most I can loose is my investment) is outdated. When it was introduced there was not really a way for a limited liability entity to fail in a way that imposed massive costs on others who were not voluntarily involved (employees, suppliers, investors, lenders, customers, etc).

Perhaps limited liability should not apply to negligent harm caused by the entity to non-involved people. investors, officers and directors should be fully personally liable for the harms.

seltzered_• 3 years ago

See also recent discussion on 3M PFAS settlement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36660751

bogdan0s• 3 years ago

Debate? Do we even need to discuss it?

Could the world go PFAS-free? Proposal to ban ‘forever chemicals’ fuels debate

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