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Plastics industry heats world four times as much as air travel, report finds

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Thursday, April 18, 2024

Pollution from the plastics industry is a major force behind the heating of the planet, according to a new report from the federal government. The industry releases about four times as many planet-warming chemicals as the airline industry, according to the paper from scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Its emissions are equivalent to those of about 600 coal plants — about three times the number that exist across the U.S. And if plastic production remains constant, by 2050 it could burn through nearly a fifth of the Earth's remaining carbon budget — the amount of carbon dioxide climate scientists believe can be burned without tipping the climate into unsafe territory. The report from the national lab comes out as civil society and public health groups, plastics industry representatives and members of national governments prepare to travel to Ottawa, Canada, for the fourth meeting of the International Negotiating Committee (INC-4), which seeks to create a legally binding treaty to reduce plastics pollution. Those negotiations are likely to be split by stark divisions. Representatives of environmental groups and countries across the Global South have called for limits on production of plastics, while the plastics industry insists that plastic pollution can be eliminated by stricter rules around recycling. In last fall’s negotiations in Kenya, public health and environmental campaigners focused on the dangers posed by plastics — including micro- and nano-plastics — in the human body and environment. But these negotiations left out a key part of the plastics problem, the Lawrence Berkeley researchers note: the role of plastic in climate change. Though many plastics companies have goals to zero out their carbon emissions by mid-century, current plastics are almost exclusively made from fossil fuels, with heat and energy generated by burning fossil fuels. One likely area of contention at next week’s conference will be whether to focus climate efforts on making certain steps in the plastics production process more environmentally friendly or on reducing that production overall. The researchers found that more than 75 percent of the greenhouse gasses generated by plastics are released in the steps before plastics compounds are assembled — as petroleum products are extracted, refined and converted into monomers, the building blocks of common polymers like polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride. More than half of all plastics emissions — 57 percent — also come from just four plastic polymers: high-density polyethylene (HDOE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). The plastics industry argues that this supply chain can — and must — be rapidly cleaned up. “We expect production will continue to increase over time as demand increases over time,” Steward Gibbon of the American Chemistry Council told The Hill. “But what that production looks like and the applications that that classic material is used in is going to change dramatically.” Environmental campaigners argue, however, that the harmful impacts of plastic can most easily be reduced by reducing plastic production. “While global leaders are trying to negotiate a solution to the plastic crisis, the petrochemical industry is investing billions of dollars in making the problem rapidly worse,” said Neil Tangri of the University of California at Berkeley, an advance reviewer of the report. “We need a global agreement to stop this cancerous growth, bring down plastic production, and usher in a world with less plastic and less pollution.”

Pollution from the plastics industry is a major force behind the heating of the planet, according to a new report from the federal government.

The industry releases about four times as many planet-warming chemicals as the airline industry, according to the paper from scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

Its emissions are equivalent to those of about 600 coal plants — about three times the number that exist across the U.S.

And if plastic production remains constant, by 2050 it could burn through nearly a fifth of the Earth's remaining carbon budget — the amount of carbon dioxide climate scientists believe can be burned without tipping the climate into unsafe territory.

The report from the national lab comes out as civil society and public health groups, plastics industry representatives and members of national governments prepare to travel to Ottawa, Canada, for the fourth meeting of the International Negotiating Committee (INC-4), which seeks to create a legally binding treaty to reduce plastics pollution.

Those negotiations are likely to be split by stark divisions. Representatives of environmental groups and countries across the Global South have called for limits on production of plastics, while the plastics industry insists that plastic pollution can be eliminated by stricter rules around recycling.

In last fall’s negotiations in Kenya, public health and environmental campaigners focused on the dangers posed by plastics — including micro- and nano-plastics — in the human body and environment.

But these negotiations left out a key part of the plastics problem, the Lawrence Berkeley researchers note: the role of plastic in climate change.

Though many plastics companies have goals to zero out their carbon emissions by mid-century, current plastics are almost exclusively made from fossil fuels, with heat and energy generated by burning fossil fuels.

One likely area of contention at next week’s conference will be whether to focus climate efforts on making certain steps in the plastics production process more environmentally friendly or on reducing that production overall.

The researchers found that more than 75 percent of the greenhouse gasses generated by plastics are released in the steps before plastics compounds are assembled — as petroleum products are extracted, refined and converted into monomers, the building blocks of common polymers like polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride.

More than half of all plastics emissions — 57 percent — also come from just four plastic polymers: high-density polyethylene (HDOE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

The plastics industry argues that this supply chain can — and must — be rapidly cleaned up. “We expect production will continue to increase over time as demand increases over time,” Steward Gibbon of the American Chemistry Council told The Hill.

“But what that production looks like and the applications that that classic material is used in is going to change dramatically.”

Environmental campaigners argue, however, that the harmful impacts of plastic can most easily be reduced by reducing plastic production.

“While global leaders are trying to negotiate a solution to the plastic crisis, the petrochemical industry is investing billions of dollars in making the problem rapidly worse,” said Neil Tangri of the University of California at Berkeley, an advance reviewer of the report.

“We need a global agreement to stop this cancerous growth, bring down plastic production, and usher in a world with less plastic and less pollution.”

Read the full story here.

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We think we control our health – but corporations selling forever chemicals, fossil fuels and ultra-processed foods have a much greater role

Corporations have an incentive to make profits – even if their products hurt or even kill people. Here’s how to stop history repeating.

shutterstock Ahmet Misirligul/ShutterstockYou go to the gym, eat healthy and walk as much as possible. You wash your hands and get vaccinated. You control your health. This is a common story we tell ourselves. Unfortunately, it’s not quite true. Factors outside our control have huge influence – especially products which can sicken or kill us, made by companies and sold routinely. For instance, you and your family have been exposed for decades to dangerous forever chemicals, some of which are linked to kidney and testicular cancers. You’re almost certainly carrying these chemicals, known as PFAS or forever chemicals, in your body right now. And that’s just the start. We now know exposure to just four classes of product – tobacco, alcohol, ultra-processed foods and fossil fuels – are linked to one out of every three deaths worldwide. That is, they’re implicated in 19 of the world’s 56 million deaths each year (as of 2019). Pollution – largely from fossil fuels – is now the single largest environmental cause of premature death. Communities of colour and low-income communities experience disproportionate impacts; For example, over 90% of pollution related deaths occur in low middle income countries. This means the leading risk factor for disease and death worldwide is corporations who make, market and sell these unhealthy products. Worse, even when these corporations become aware of the harms their products cause, they have often systematically hidden these harms to boost profits at the expense of our health. Major tobacco, oil, food, pharmaceutical and chemical corporations have all applied similar techniques, privatising the profits and spreading the harms. Tobacco companies long questioned the link between smoking and cancer. Nopphon_1987/Shutterstock Profit and loss statements When companies act to conceal the harm their products do, they prevent us from protecting ourselves and our children. We now have many well-documented cases of corporate wrongdoing, such as asbestos, fossil fuels, pesticides, herbicides) sugar, silica, and of course tobacco. In these instances, corporations intentionally manufactured doubt or hid the harms of their products to delay or prevent regulation and maintain profits. Decades of empirical evidence shows these effective tactics have actually been shared and strategically passed from one industry or company to the next. For instance, when large tobacco companies Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds bought food companies Kraft, General Foods and Nabisco in the 1980s, tobacco executives brought across marketing strategies, flavouring and colourings to expand product lines and engineered fatty, sweet and salty hyperpalatable foods such as cookies, cereals and frozen foods linked to obesity and diet-related diseases. These foods activate our reward circuits and encourage us to consume more. Or consider how ‘forever chemicals’ became so widespread. A team of scientists (including this article’s co-author) investigated previously secret internal industry documents from 3M and DuPont, the largest makers of forever chemicals PFOA and PFOS. The documents showed both 3M and DuPont used tactics from the tobacco industry’s playbook, such as suppressing unfavourable research and distorting public debate. Like Big Tobacco, 3M and DuPont had a financial interest in suppressing scientific evidence of the harms of their products, while publicly declaring in-demand products such as Teflon were safe. For decades, forever chemicals PFOA and PFOS have been used to make Teflon pans, Scotchgard, firefighting foam and other non-stick materials. By the early 2000s, one of these, PFOS, ended up in our blood at 20 times the level its manufacturer, 3M, considered safe. As early as 1961, the chief toxicologist at DuPont’s Teflon subsidiary reported the company’s wonder-material had “the ability to increase the size of the liver of rats at low doses”, and recommended the chemicals be handled “with extreme care”. According to a 1970 internal memo, the DuPont-funded Haskell Laboratory found the chemical class C8 (now known as PFOA/PFOS) was “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested”. Teflon was hailed as a wonder material, making non-stick pans possible. But the original chemicals used to make Teflon were dangerous. Minko Dima/Shutterstock Both 3M and DuPont did extensive internal research on the risks their products posed to humans, but they shared little of it. The risks of PFOA including pregnancy-induced hypertension, kidney and testicular cancers, and ulcerative colitis was not publicly established until 2011. Now, 60 years after DuPont first learned of the harms these products could cause, many countries are facing the human and environmental consequences and a very expensive cleanup. Even though the production of PFOA and PFOS is being phased out, forever chemicals are easily stored in the body and take decades to break down. Worse, PFOA and PFOS are just two of over 15,000 different PFAS chemicals, most of which are still in use. How can we prevent corporate injury to our health? My co-author and I work in the field known as commercial determinants of health, which is to say, the damage corporations can do to us. Corporate wrongdoing can directly injure or even kill us. One of the key ways companies have been able to avoid regulation and lawsuits is by hiding the evidence. Internal studies showing harm can be easily hidden. External studies can be influenced, either by corporate funding, business-friendly scientists, legal action or lobbying policymakers to avoid regulation. Here are three ways to prevent this happening again: 1) Require corporations to adhere to the same standards of data sharing and open science as independent scientists do. If a corporation wants to bring a new product to market, they should have to register and publicly release every study they plan to conduct on its harms so the public can see the results of the study. 2) Sever the financial links between industry and researchers or policymakers. Many large corporations will spend money on public studies to try to get favourable outcomes for their own interests. To cut these financial ties means boosting public health research, either through government funding or alternatives such as a tax on corporate marketing. It would also mean capping corporate political donations and bringing lobbying under control by restricting corporate access and spending to policymakers and increasing transparency. And it would mean stopping the revolving door where government employees or policymakers work for the industry they used to regulate once they leave office. 3) Mandate public transparency of corporate funding to researchers and policymakers. In 2010, the United States introduced laws to enforce transparency on how much medical and pharmaceutical companies were spending to influence the products doctors chose to use. Research using the data unearthed by these laws has shown the problem is pervasive. We need this model for other industries so we can clearly see where corporate money is going. Registries should be detailed, permanent and easy to search. These steps would not be easy. But the status quo means corporations can keep selling dangerous or lethal products for much longer than they should. In doing so, they have become one of the largest influences on our health and will continue to harm generations to come – in ways hard to counter with yoga and willpower. And your health is more important than corporate profits. Read more: Chemicals, forever: how do you fix a problem like PFAS? Nicholas Chartres receives funding from The JPB Foundation, The World Health Organization and Health CanadaLisa Bero received or receives funding from Cochrane, NHMRC, Health Canada, the State of Colorado.

Chemicals

Food

Health

The impacts of toxic 'forever chemicals' aren't the same for women, men

This story is part of a series, “Fighting ‘Forever Chemicals’: Women face pervasive PFAS risks.” While “forever chemicals” have been linked to numerous adverse health impacts from cancers to kidney disease, they also may have disparate impacts on male and female bodies. “Very often you see something in one sex and not the other sex,” said Linda Birnbaum, former head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program. “Forever chemicals,” or PFAS, can be found in many common household products and certain kinds of firefighting foams. Their use in manufacturing has led their proliferation in the air, water and soil, and they are estimated to be in the blood of about 97 percent of Americans. The federal government recently set the first nationwide limits on a few types of these substances in drinking water. Some of the different ways the pervasive chemicals affect men and women are clearly tied to reproductive organs. PFAS exposure is associated with an increased risk of testicular cancer, for example: A panel of scientists established in 2012 that there is a “probable link” between exposure to a type of PFAS called PFOA and testicular cancer. A January 2022 Toxicology review explored several issues related to the female reproductive system — such as birth defects, fertility and menstrual cycle changes — that could be connected to PFAS exposure. “The effects are many,” the authors found, though they said it’s not yet clear exactly how the substances target female endocrine and reproductive systems due to “a major research gap.” A study published in September sought to narrow that gap by zooming in on sex-specific relationships between three classes of probable endocrine disruptors — including PFAS — and previous diagnoses of hormone-related cancers. The scientists observed particularly striking indications of these differences with regard to melanoma: Higher blood levels of PFAS were linked to prior diagnoses in women, but not in men. “Sex-specific associations between PFAS chemicals and previous melanoma diagnosis, suggest that sex-mediated mechanisms may be at play,” wrote the authors, from the University of Southern California and the University of Michigan. While the precise mechanism behind the melanoma connection is still uncertain, the scientists surmised that because these tumor cells have estrogen receptors, environmental contaminants that mimic estrogenic activity — such as PFAS, potentially — could be fueling the cancer’s growth in women. Similar to melanoma, other health impacts that aren’t so obviously tied to sex-specific characteristics may still affect men and women differently following exposure to environmental contaminants, such as PFAS. High blood pressure, for instance, appears to be more pronounced in women than in men, recent studies have revealed. Sometimes, this manifests in pregnancy-induced hypertension, which can lead to a potentially fatal condition called preeclampsia — a potential effect of PFAS exposure that Erin P. Hines, a researcher in the Environmental Protection Agency’s reproductive toxicology division, said she’s eager to see more research into. “Having preeclampsia or having pregnancy-induced hypertension during pregnancy can change a woman's health outcome for the rest of her life, putting her more at risk for adverse cardiovascular outcomes like stroke,” Hines said, noting that this risk is independent of PFAS exposure. “But if you have a pregnancy where you have preeclampsia or one of these hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, over your lifetime, there are increased risks of morbidity and mortality associated [with] cardiovascular events,” she added. Beyond the pregnancy-induced type, additional research has also identified hypertension in the PFAS-exposed female population broadly. A 2022 study from the American Heart Association found that middle-aged women with higher blood levels of certain types of PFAS had a greater risk of hypertension. Analyzing the annual follow-up visits of 1,058 midlife women who were initially free of hypertension from 1999 to 2017, the scientists found that 470 individuals developed this condition. The authors determined that women ages 45-56 who had high concentrations of PFOS in their blood had a 42 percent higher chance of developing high blood pressure, while those with high concentrations of PFOA had a 47 percent higher chance. Women who had high concentrations of all seven types of PFAS examined by the study had a 71 percent increased risk of getting high blood pressure. Study author Ning Ding said PFAS exposure appears to put women at especially high risk in a broader way, as well. “Women seem to be particularly vulnerable when exposed to these chemicals,” Ding, a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Michigan’s epidemiology department, said in a statement. “Exposure may be an underappreciated risk factor for women’s cardiovascular disease risk.” Studies are also emerging that suggest links between PFAS and other health outcomes in girls or women, such as ADHD in girls or weight gain in women. Scientists have also linked PFAS exposure to an increased susceptibility of developing diabetes among middle-aged women. Some types of PFAS could disrupt the regulatory behavior of certain protein molecules and, in turn, raise the risk of diabetes within this cohort, according to the April 2022 study. Although the researchers stressed that evidence of sex-dependent links between PFAS and diabetes in humans is lacking, they pointed to another recent study showing that the metabolic responses of female mice to PFOA exposure were greater than those of male mice. Meanwhile, another impact from PFAS has been shown to primarily affect boys. A 2022 study found that teen boys who are exposed to a mixture of the substances and another type of hormone-disrupting chemicals known as phthalates may have lower bone density — which makes bones weaker and more prone to fractures. Some vulnerabilities associated with PFAS may take root in utero. Prenatal exposure to the substances has been linked to preterm births, changes in birth weight or congenital issues that manifest later in childhood — including ADHD or IQ effects, according to Birnbaum. “We are seeing with PFAS — like a lot of chemicals which actually disturb hormone systems — that you do get a boy or girl difference,” she said, noting that some effects are appearing in only one sex. “If you look at, say, baby boys and baby girls together, you might not see an effect. But if you separate out the sexes, all of a sudden you can see an effect in one of them,” Birnbaum added. But she also acknowledged that not all researchers are open to that type of separation: “What's interesting to me is that there are some people who don't want to believe that. They think, well, if you don't see it in both, you know, males and females, it can't be happening.” The discovery of sex-dependent health impacts often hinges upon what, exactly, scientists are looking for in their research, according to Birnbaum. “It's kind of the old story: If you don't look, you don't see. But when you start to look, you start to find.”

Chemicals

Health

Science

Op-ed: After decades of disinformation, the US finally begins regulating PFAS chemicals

Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would regulate two forms of PFAS contamination under Superfund laws reserved for “the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites.”EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the action will ensure that “polluters pay for the costs to clean up pollution threatening the health of communities.”That was an encore to the Food and Drug Administration announcing in February that companies will phase out food packaging with PFAS wrappings and the mid-April announcement by Regan that the EPA was establishing the first-ever federal limits on PFAS in drinking water. At that time, he declared, “We are one huge step closer to finally shutting off the tap on forever chemicals once and for all.”One can forever hope the tap will be eventually shut, since it took seemingly forever for the nation to begin to crack down on this class of per-and polyfluoroalkyl synthetic chemicals. The chemical bonds of PFAS, among the strongest ever created, resulted in an incredible ability to resist heat, moisture, grease and stains. PFAS chemicals seemed like miracle substances in the 20th-century quest for convenience. They became ubiquitous in household furnishings, cookware, cosmetics, and fast-food packaging, and a key component of many firefighting foams. “We are one huge step closer to finally shutting off the tap on forever chemicals once and for all.” - EPA Administrator Michael Regan The bonds are so indestructible they would impress Superman. They don’t break down in the environment for thousands of years, hence the “forever” nickname. Unfortunately for humans, the same properties represent Kryptonite. Today, the group of chemicals known as PFAS is the source of one of the greatest contaminations of drinking water in the nation’s history. Flowing from industrial sites, landfills, military bases, airports, and wastewater treatment discharges, PFAS chemicals, according to the United States Geological Survey, are detectable in nearly half our tap water. Other studies suggest that a majority of the U.S. population drinks water containing PFAS chemicals—as many as 200 million people, according to a 2020 peer-reviewed study conducted by the Environmental Working Group. PFAS chemicals are everywhereNo one escapes PFAS chemicals. They make it into the kitchen or onto the dining room table in the form of non-stick cookware, microwave popcorn bags, fast-food burger wrappers, candy wrappers, beverage cups, take-out containers, pastry bags, French-fry and pizza boxes. They reside throughout homes in carpeting, upholstery, paints, and solvents.They are draped on our bodies in “moisture-wicking” gym tights, hiking gear, yoga pants, sports bras, and rain and winter jackets. They are on our feet in waterproof shoes and boots. Children have PFAS in baby bedding and school uniforms. Athletes of all ages play on PFAS on artificial turf. PFAS chemicals are on our skin and gums through eye, lip, face cosmetics, and dental floss. Firefighters have it in their protective clothing.As a result, nearly everyone in the United States has detectable levels of PFAS in their bodies. There is no known safe level of human exposure to these chemicals. They are linked to multiple cancers, decreased fertility in women, developmental delays in children, high cholesterol, and damage to the cardiovascular and immune systems. A 2022 study by researchers from Harvard Medical School and Sichuan University in China estimated that exposure to one form of PFAS (PFOS, for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid), may have played a role in the deaths of more than 6 million people in the United States between 1999 and 2018.As sweeping as PFAS contamination is, exposures in the United States are also marked by clear patterns of environmental injustice and a betrayal to military families. An analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists found that people of color and low-income people were more likely to live near non-military sources of PFAS contamination than wealthier, white people.Another study by UCS found that 118 of 131 military bases had PFAS contamination concentrations at least 10 times higher than federal risk levels. A federal study last year found a higher risk of testicular cancer for Air Force servicemen engaged in firefighting with PFAS foams.Tobacco-like disinformationIn the end, the whole nation was betrayed, in a manner straight out of the tobacco disinformation playbook. Behind the image of convenience, manufacturers long knew that PFAS chemicals were toxic. Internal documents uncovered over the years show how DuPont and 3M, the two biggest legacy makers of PFAS, knew back in the 1960s that the compounds built up in blood and enlarged the livers of laboratory animals. By 1970, a DuPont document referring to a PFAS chemical under its famed “Teflon” trademark said that it “is highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when injected.”By the late 1970s, DuPont was discovering that PFAS chemicals were affecting the liver of workers and that plant employees were having myocardial infarctions at levels “somewhat higher than expected.” But that did not stop the industry from downplaying the risk to workers.One internal 3M document in 1980 claimed that PFAS chemicals have “a lower toxicity like table salt.” Yet, a study last year of documents by researchers at the University of California San Francisco and the University of Colorado found that DuPont, internally tracking the outcome of worker pregnancies in 1980 and 1981, recorded two cases of birth defects in infants. Yet, in 1981, in what the researchers determined was a “joint” communication to employees of DuPont and 3M, the companies claimed: “We know of no evidence of birth defects” at DuPont and were “not knowledgeable about the pregnancy outcome” of employees at 3M who were exposed to PFAS. The same suppression and disinformation kept government regulators at bay for decades. The San Francisco and Colorado researchers found internal DuPont documents from 1961 to 1994 showing toxicity in animal and occupational studies that were never reported to the EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act. As one example, DuPont, according to a 2022 feature by Politico’s Energy and Environment News, successfully negotiated in the 1960s with the Food and Drug Administration to keep lower levels of PFAS-laden food wrapping and containers on the market despite evidence of enlarged livers in laboratory rats.A patchwork responseEventually, the deception and lies exploded in the face of the companies, as independent scientists found more and more dire connections to PFAS in drinking water and human health and lawsuits piled up in the courts. Last year, 3M agreed to a settlement of between $10.5 billion and $12.5 billion for PFAS contamination in water systems around the nation. DuPont and other companies agreed to another $1.2 billion in settlements. That’s not nothing, but it is a relatively small price to pay for two industrial behemoths that have been among the Fortune 500 every year since 1955.In the last two decades, the continuing science on PFAS chemicals and growing public concern has led to a patchwork of individual apparel and food companies to say they will stop using PFAS in clothes and wrapping. Some states have enacted their own drinking water limits and are moving forward with legislation to restrict or ban products containing PFAS. In 2006, the EPA began a voluntary program in which the leading PFAS manufacturers in the United States agreed to stop manufacturing PFOA, one of the most concerning forms of PFAS.But companies had a leisurely decade to meet commitments. Even as companies negotiated, a DuPont document assumed coziness with the EPA. “We need the EPA to quickly (like first thing tomorrow) say the following: Consumer products sold under the Teflon brand are safe. . .there are no human health effects to be caused by PFOA [a chemical in the PFAS family].”Two years ago, 3M announced it will end the manufacture of PFAS chemicals and discontinue their application across its portfolio by the end of next year. But the company did so with an insulting straight face, saying on its products are “safe and effective for their intended uses in everyday life.”EPA action finally, but more is neededThe nation can no longer accept the overall patchwork or industry weaning itself off PFAS at its own pace. The EPA currently plans to issue drinking water limits for six forms of PFAS and place two forms under Superfund jurisdiction. The Superfund designation gives the government its strongest powers to enforce cleanups that would be paid for by polluters instead of taxpayers.”But there are 15,000 PFAS compounds, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. There is nothing to stop companies from trying to play around with other compounds that could also prove harmful. Cleaning up the PFAS chemicals that have already been allowed will take billions of dollars and water utilities around the country are already screaming, with some justification, that the federal government needs to provide more money than it is offering. And even the Superfund designation does not actually ban their use.It would be better if the United States were to follow the lead of the European Union, which is now considering a ban or major restrictions on the whole class of chemicals, fearing that “without taking action, their concentrations will continue to increase, and their toxic and polluting effects will be difficult to reverse.”The effects are scary to quantify. Regan said in his drinking water announcement that the new rules would improve water quality for 100 million people and “prevent thousands of deaths and reduce tens of thousands of serious illnesses across the country.” A draft EPA economic analysis last year predicted that tight standards could save more than 7,300 lives alone from bladder cancer, kidney cancer and cardiovascular diseases, and avoid another 27,000 non-fatal cases of those diseases.That makes it high time that the federal government borrow from DuPont’s arrogant assumption that it could push around the EPA. We need the EPA to quickly (like first thing tomorrow) say the following: Consumer products with PFAS are not safe and are causing unacceptable environmental consequences. We are shutting off the tap on ALL of them.”

Chemicals

Animals

Food

Rapidly rising levels of TFA ‘forever chemical’ alarm experts

Trifluoroacetic acid found in drinking water and rain is thought to damage fertility and child developmentRapidly rising levels of TFA, a class of “forever chemical” thought to damage fertility and child development, are being found in drinking water, blood and rain, causing alarm among experts.TFA, or trifluoroacetic acid, is a type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS), a group of human-made chemicals used widely in consumer products that do not break down for thousands of years. Many of the substances have been linked to negative effects on human health. Continue reading...

Rapidly rising levels of TFA, a class of “forever chemical” thought to damage fertility and child development, are being found in drinking water, blood and rain, causing alarm among experts.TFA, or trifluoroacetic acid, is a type of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS), a group of human-made chemicals used widely in consumer products that do not break down for thousands of years. Many of the substances have been linked to negative effects on human health.Studies from across the world are reporting sharp rises in TFA. A major source is F-gases, which were brought in to replace ozone-depleting CFCs in refrigeration, air conditioning, aerosol sprays and heat pumps. Pesticides, dyes and pharmaceuticals can also be sources.“Everywhere you look it’s increasing. There’s no study where the concentration of TFA hasn’t increased,” said David Behringer, an environmental consultant who has studied TFA in rain for the German government.“If you’re drinking water, you’re drinking a lot of TFA, wherever you are in the world … China had a 17-fold increase of TFA in surface waters in a decade, the US had a sixfold increase in 23 years.” TFA in rainwater in Germany has been found to have increased fivefold in two decades.“I’m worried about this because we’ve never seen in recent history a chemical that’s accumulating in so many media at such a high rate,” said Hans Peter Arp from the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “It’s accumulating in our tap water, the food we’re eating, plants, trees, the sea, and all in the past few decades.”He added: “We all have been experiencing rising TFA concentrations in our blood since the Montreal protocol [banned CFCs]. Future generations will have increasing concentrations in their blood until some kind of global action is taken. Accumulation [in the environment] is essentially irreversible and I’m afraid the impact on humans and the environment won’t be recognised by scientists until it is too late.”Last month, the German chemical regulator informed the European Chemicals Agency that it wanted TFA classified as reprotoxic, meaning it can harm human reproductive function, fertility and foetal development.Denmark and Germany have set limits for TFA in drinking water but the UK has not. England’s water companies have been asked to assess their drinking water sources for 47 types of PFAS but TFA is not on the list.Britain’s Health and Safety Executive has identified TFA as “a substance of concern, since there are indications that it might cause developmental toxicity” and the Environment Agency says it is planning a targeted programme to test for TFA in surface and groundwater.A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesperson said it would continue to “assess levels of PFAS occurring in the environment, their sources, potential risks and to inform policy and regulatory approaches.“Regulations require that drinking water must not contain any substance at a level which would constitute a potential danger to human health. Should TFA be detected in drinking water we would expect companies to react in the same way as for other PFAS compounds.”But TFA is incredibly difficult to remove from water. “There’s no way to get TFA out,” said Behringer. “Reverse osmosis is massively expensive and not scalable, so the logical course is to stop the input.”The European Fluorocarbons Technical Committee, representing the F-gas and chemicals industry, says TFA occurs naturally in large quantities in the environment. It says industrial use of TFA is limited and environmental releases are very low. It did not respond to a Guardian request for comment.But these assertions have been disputed. The US Environmental Protection Agency says TFAs are a breakdown product of F-gases. Moreover, studies of Arctic ice cores show TFA levels have been rising sharply since F-gases replaced CFCs in the 1990s.“Every time the industry says it’s natural, they quote certain scientific papers,” says Prof Shira Jourdan, an environmental analytical chemist at the University of Alberta. She said she had studied these decades-old papers and found they only suggested it was possible that TFA was naturally occurring because of a lack of knowledge of its origins at the time of the studies.“None of the evidence says it’s natural,” said Jourdan. “When industry says it’s natural it’s a danger, because then no one takes accountability for the pollution.”Ariana Spentzos, of the NGO Green Science Policy, said: “We’re following the familiar PFAS playbook by allowing reckless environmental contamination and only figuring out after the fact the trail of harm left behind. We are just beginning to understand the health hazards associated with TFA.”Environmental groups are calling on the UK government to take more action to tackle PFAS substances. “PFAS presents a global chemical pollution crisis which requires urgent action,” said Hannah Evans, from the campaign group Fidra. “We’re calling on the UK government to prevent PFAS emissions at source, which includes revising both F-gas and pesticide regulations to phase out PFAS.”The German Environment Agency recommends using natural refrigerants instead. Its president, Dirk Messner, said: “TFA is found everywhere – in water, soil, food and the human body. It does not break down and can hardly be removed from drinking water. However, TFA-forming chemicals are numerous and on the rise. Persistent substances from multiple sources like TFA fall through the regulatory cracks. To reduce the release of TFA into the environment, we need consistent, precautionary regulation, cross-sectoral minimisation and a substitution with TFA-free alternatives wherever possible.“

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Health

Water

Man allegedly pours bleach into Oregon hatchery tank and kills 18,000 salmon

Joshua Alexander Heckathorn, 20, arrested and booked into jail for second-degree burglary, criminal trespass and criminal mischiefNearly 200 programs dot the rivers in Oregon to raise baby salmon in a controlled environment before releasing them into the wild to live out their life cycle. Last week, a man broke into the Winchester Bay Salmon Trout Enhancement Program (Step) and poured bleach into a Chinook salmon tank, killing about 18,000 fish.Authorities arrested 20-year-old Joshua Alexander Heckathorn, a resident of Gardiner, Oregon, on 23 April, a day after the chemicals were dumped into one of the hatchery rearing ponds. He told law enforcement officials he had visited a storage area the day before and picked up a bottle of bleach, according to a Facebook post by Douglas county sheriff’s Office. Heckathorn was arrested and booked into the Douglas county jail on Tuesday for second-degree burglary, criminal trespass and criminal mischief. Continue reading...

Nearly 200 programs dot the rivers in Oregon to raise baby salmon in a controlled environment before releasing them into the wild to live out their life cycle. Last week, a man broke into the Winchester Bay Salmon Trout Enhancement Program (Step) and poured bleach into a Chinook salmon tank, killing about 18,000 fish.Authorities arrested 20-year-old Joshua Alexander Heckathorn, a resident of Gardiner, Oregon, on 23 April, a day after the chemicals were dumped into one of the hatchery rearing ponds. He told law enforcement officials he had visited a storage area the day before and picked up a bottle of bleach, according to a Facebook post by Douglas county sheriff’s Office. Heckathorn was arrested and booked into the Douglas county jail on Tuesday for second-degree burglary, criminal trespass and criminal mischief.The maximum penalty for poaching one Chinook salmon – a species that is protected under the endangered species act – is $750 per fish. If officials assessed fines for every salmon killed, Heckathorn could be asked to pay nearly $14m, state fish and wildlife officials noted, adding that “the case represents a significant loss to the Step program,” a non-profit volunteer group dedicated to raising Chinook Salmon for wildlife purposes.Volunteers drained the pond and removed the dead fish, which have been frozen and taken to Oregon state police as evidence.“What would possess someone to do something like this?” wrote the hatchery in a Facebook post, adding that the young fish, returning from the ocean as adults in three to four years, would have added 200–400 fully grown salmon available for harvest for fishermen, generating much needed revenue in local economies.The three-to-four-inch long salmon smolt were supposed to be released in June into the lower Umpqua River, and would eventually make their way to Alaska. Chinook salmon are Oregon’s state fish, and they hatch in freshwater streams and grow there for a year before making the journey to the ocean. Chinook spend between one and five years in the ocean before using their sense of smell to return to their home rivers to spawn and die. They are the largest of the Pacific salmon, and typically grow up to 25lbs, though some have clocked in at 100lbs.Salmon have already gone extinct in 40% of their historical range, mostly due to human development: what once were rivers and streams are now cities and roads in the estuaries of the Pacific north-west. Their decline impacts fishers and Indigenous groups, but also the resident killer whales, who eat only salmon. Environmental groups have pinpointed removing dams and reducing the amount of fish that humans can catch as potential ways to help the species continue to survive.This isn’t the first time Oregon’s hatchery fish have faced danger. Last year, 160,000 rainbow trout were killed in three hatcheries after they were infected with a new parasite. Workers raced to give the fish antibiotics but they didn’t respond, and they wanted to stop the parasite from spreading further into wild fish in Oregon waters.skip past newsletter promotionOur US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionAnd last month, hundreds of thousands of newly hatched Chinook salmon in the Klamath River died due to “gas bubble disease” caused by changes in water pressure. The largest dam removal project in US history is taking place along the river, the result of many years of pressure by tribes, fishers and environmental groups to return the river to a more natural state.The hatchery still has three other tanks of fish that are nearly a year old, numbering 60,000, and officials plan to release them in a few months to face the oceans and a challenging future.

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