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GoGreenNation News: 3M agrees to $10.3 billion settlement in "forever chemicals" claims
GoGreenNation News: 3M agrees to $10.3 billion settlement in "forever chemicals" claims

3M has struck a $10.3 billion settlement with U.S. cities and towns over claims of water pollution to "forever chemicals," the chemical and manufacturing company announced Thursday.Why it matters: The settlement in the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) case that'd be paid over a 13-year period marks a major step in efforts to curb the threat of the chemicals that've been linked to health problems, and which were found to have contaminated drinking water systems.The Minnesota-based 3M is facing thousands of lawsuits over PFAS contamination claims and has pledged to stop making and using "forever chemicals" by the end of 2025 following increased scrutiny from regulators, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.Yes, but: 3M did not admit liability in its settlement that's subject to court approval."If the agreement is not approved by the court or certain agreed terms are not fulfilled, 3M is prepared to continue to defend itself in the litigation," the company said.Driving the news: Under the agreement, 3M would provide funding to cities, towns and public water suppliers to test for PFAS and treat any contamination, per a statement from the company.It resolves current and future drinking water claim, including multi-district litigation based in Charleston, South Carolina, 3M noted.3M was due to face trial Monday in that lawsuit, brought by Stuart over allegations that the company had polluted the Florida city's water supply. But a judge granted the plaintiffs' request for a delay as they sought to reach an agreement.The big picture: 3M's settlement announcement follows a $1.19 billion settlement agreement by chemical producers Chemours, DuPont and Corteva earlier this month with water providers around the country over water contamination claims.What they're saying: Mike Roman, chair and CEO of 3M, in a statement called the agreement "an important step forward" for the company that builds on its commitment to "exit all PFAS manufacturing."

GoGreenNation News: Opinion: Two flaws in how the U.S. EPA wants to assess hazardous chemical groups
GoGreenNation News: Opinion: Two flaws in how the U.S. EPA wants to assess hazardous chemical groups

Calls for rail reform after the East Palestine train derailment overlook a more fundamental policy issue: The need for stronger regulations on the hazardous materials that infuse our products and saturate our lives.More than 80,000 chemicals are registered for commercial use with the U.S. government. Tens of thousands of these have never been assessed for public health risk or impact. Worse, there is nearly no knowledge or measure of how the millions of potential chemical group co-exposures endanger our human health and fellow living species. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking slow, irregular and flawed steps to assess risk. The latest steps, building on a 2003 framework, are up for public comment – yet to date the announcement has drawn 497 views on the Federal Register website and just 10 comments, four of which were posted April 20 by the same person representing four different chemical consortiums asking for a deadline extension.The public comment period is scheduled to close Friday, April 28, and I urge you to make your voice heard.Phthalate risk assessmentThe agency seeks comment on three facets: Cumulative risk assessment principles, approach for risk assessment of phthalates, and a slate of candidates for an advisory panel guiding the process. Together these principles and committee members will have tremendous power and decision-making influence over the environment of billions of living animals, plants and humans.The other six public comments focus just on the candidates, skipping over seemingly bland – yet important! – bureaucratic principles and assessment approaches. Focusing on the proposed principles of cumulative risk assessment, the document describes:Priority populationsTypes of stressorsRoute of exposuresHow cumulative chemical groups will be defined for assessment.Include animals, plants and other organismsAs a former senior advisor for health policy in the New York City Mayor’s Office and a doctoral student in public health at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, I strongly urge the EPA to reconsider two structural flaws of their proposed principles:First, the principles must be rewritten to include plants and animals in cumulative risk assessments of chemical groups. The history of environmental health is a repetitive one, where hazards, risks and impacts are first identified among plants and animals. In the 19th century, the adaptation of peppered moths to their polluted environment was an early influence on evolutionary theory – the white and black moths gradually became mostly black to better blend into a sooty environment.Amidst the Minamata Bay disaster in the 1950s, where a factory dumped large quantities of mercury into the water, the first signals of environmental health danger were erratic behavior among cats. In East Palestine, Ohio, numerous reports already describe thousands of domestic and wild animals dying.Partly because of their shorter lifespans and reproduction cycles, cumulative risks – including intergenerational impacts – can be more quickly and thoroughly identified in plants, animals and other organisms than by studying humans. Plus omitting animals is an inhumane violation of the inherent natural rights and dignity due to our fellow Earthlings. EPA claims plants, animals and other organisms are left out because of a lack of related guidance documents, which is indicative of a larger unacceptable reality of chemical regulation. This is dooming an unknown number of living species to unknown dangers causing unknown harm.Prioritize real-world exposuresThe second structural flaw is how EPA prioritizes chemical groups for assessment. Considering EPA’s perpetually limited resources and strained enforcement mechanisms, risk assessments of chemical groups should be identified and prioritized by real world co-exposure considerations. This approach better reflects the “ifs” and “whens” we come into contact with in a cumulative chemical group.This reduces the likelihood of industrial companies clogging the assessment pipeline with chemical groups that we would likely never see. Unfortunately, we will experience more chemical train derailments, toxic spills into our water table, unfettered air pollution from chemical production and other industrial catastrophes in the United States.As documented in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Toms River by Dan Fagin, the US government could do little in the late 20th century to assess the cumulative impact of different chemicals contaminating groundwater or air. Some 50 years later, our government still lacks a thorough and adequate process to conduct assessments of, and to collect critical information about, the cumulative risk and impact of co-exposures such as vinyl chloride via air pollution and dioxins through groundwater contamination that are occurring today in East Palestine.To better regulate the production, transportation and destruction of chemical groups we must know all of the risks. Ignoring the mistakes of the past places our health – and the health of our fellow living beings – in peril. The EPA must update its Proposed Principles of Cumulative Risk Assessment Under the Toxic Substances Control Act to include animals and prioritize co-exposures for cumulative risk.Patrick Masseo is a former senior advisor for health policy in the New York City Mayor’s Office from 2019 to 2022 and a doctoral student in public health at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. Views expressed in this piece are those of the author and not necessarily those of Environmental Health News or its publisher, Environmental Health Sciences.

GoGreenNation News: Where did the PFAS in your blood come from? These computer models offer clues
GoGreenNation News: Where did the PFAS in your blood come from? These computer models offer clues

Downstream of a Chemours fluorochemical manufacturing plant on the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, people living in Brunswick and New Hanover counties suffer from higher-than-normal rates of brain tumors, breast cancers and other forms of rare — and accelerated — diseases. Residents now know this isn’t a coincidence. It’s from years of PFAS contamination from Chemours. It wasn’t easy to make the connection. More than a decade of water testing and lawsuits identified the link between aggressive cancers and per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS – a class of more than 9,000 toxic and persistent man-made compounds known informally as “forever chemicals.” They’re commonly found in nonstick cookware, water-resistant clothing, firefighting foam, cosmetics, food packaging and recently in school uniforms and insecticides. The difficulty of tracing these chemicals to a specific source is that Americans — 97% of us, by one estimate — are exposed to potentially thousands of PFAS. New research published in Science of the Total Environment now finds that tracing models can identify sources of PFAS contamination from people’s blood samples. Instead of using environmental measures of PFAS as a proxy for how people are exposed, the methods use blood samples as a more direct way to map people’s exposure. “If this works, it would allow us to identify, without any prior knowledge, what people are being exposed to and how they’re being exposed to it,” Dylan Wallis, a lead author of the paper and toxicologist formerly at North Carolina State University, told EHN. The research, while not yet perfect, marks the beginning of what could become a wide-scale method of determining where the PFAS in our blood came from—such as our food, drinking water or use of nonstick cookware—and how much of it came from each source. But its effectiveness hinges on the need to collect more comprehensive data on where PFAS occurs in people’s bodies, the environment and sources. If scientists can collect this data, then these methods would be able to draw a roadmap for people’s exposure, allowing us to pinpoint problem areas, avoid contamination and implement regulatory changes. PFAS in blood samplesFor this tracing method to work, scientists need an idea of which compounds exist in air, water, food and everyday products in a determined community. First, they have to know where to look for PFAS. This study used data from previous research to identify the types of PFAS in drinking water. Then, they test blood samples for which PFAS are in people’s bodies—although using blood alone gives us only part of the contamination picture, Carla Ng, a chemical and biological engineer at University of Pittsburgh, told EHN. Once they match PFAS proportions in blood to what’s in their drinking water, as in this study, they can gain clues to which sources contributed the chemicals showing up in people’s blood.“You start to build this picture of what are the inputs, what’s the material they’re getting their exposure from, and then what’s in their blood,” Ng, who was not involved in the study, explained. The new study analyzed blood samples taken in 2018 and 2020 from residents in Wilmington, North Carolina, and three towns in El Paso County, Colorado. Both communities are near well-known PFAS polluters: the Chemours facility in North Carolina, which manufactures fluoropolymers for nonstick and waterproof products, and the Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado, which uses PFAS-containing firefighting foam, also called AFFFs. Related: PFAS on our shelves and in our bodiesThe team used computer models to identify 20 PFAS compounds from residents’ blood samples and then grouped them in categories representing different sources. Some are easy to identify because manufacturers often use a specific type of PFAS. For example, the compounds found in firefighting foam have a unique signature, like a fingerprint, making Peterson Space Force Base the obvious culprit. But more diffuse sources of PFAS, such as those in dust or food, are harder to pin down because scientists aren’t sure which PFAS are in them or where they come from.In North Carolina and Colorado, the sources were more obvious, allowing the research team to test models’ ability to identify sources. However, to conduct similar research on a national scale is not so simple. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey has tested levels of PFAS in blood samples nationwide since 1999, but it only tests for a specific list of PFAS, which could overlook the full spectrum of compounds. Drinking water in both locations in the study shows high levels of fluoroethers and fluoropolymers, many of which are “legacy” PFAS, meaning they have been phased out of production for at least a decade but are still found in drinking water. Because the chemical bonds are so strong, they persist in the environment for years, which is why they show up in blood samples long after companies have stopped using or manufacturing them. Long-chain PFAS like PFOA and PFOS, which are the most-studied compounds with a longer structure of carbon-fluorine bonds, are harder to break down, and they bond to proteins in the blood more easily than short-chain compounds.“These last a really long time,” Wallis said of long-chain PFAS, which were recorded at levels several times higher than national averages. “If you were drinking a really high level of it 40 years ago, you would still have really high levels of it 40 years later.”A pollution snapshotWallis said they were surprised the models worked because they have never been used for PFAS before. They were built to trace other contaminants in the environment, like particles in air pollution, rather than in people.Tracing PFAS is more challenging than tracing air pollution for several reasons, Xindi Hu, a lead data scientist at the research organization Mathematica, told EHN. Hu conducted earlier research using a different type of computer analysis of blood samples to identify the main sources of PFAS contamination in the Faroe Islands. Many PFAS lack distinct chemical fingerprints to tell researchers exactly where a particular compound came from, Hu said. But in the study led by Wallis, the chemical fingerprints from the Space Force base in Colorado and fluorochemical facility in North Carolina are well-known.“When you take a blood sample, it’s really just a snapshot,” she said. “So how do you translate this snapshot of concentration back to the course of the entire exposure history?”That’s partly why the new paper’s authors conducted this study: The more compounds that are correctly linked to a source, the better these models will work, Wallis said. In essence, they need a better database of PFAS compounds so the models know how to connect the dots. PFAS also react differently in the human body than in the environment, and scientists still don’t fully understand how we metabolize different compounds. Shorter-chain PFAS, for example, are more likely to appear in urine samples than in blood because they are water-soluble, said Pittsburgh’s Ng, who studies how PFAS react in humans and wildlife. “If you’re doing everything on the basis of blood levels, it may not tell you everything you need to know about exposure and potential toxicity,” she said, adding that PFAS could also accumulate in the liver, brain, lungs and other locations where it’s difficult to take samples. Worse, more modern PFAS with carbon-hydrogen bonds can actually transform into other types of compounds as the body metabolizes them, which could give a false impression of what people are exposed to. “The key to identifying a good tracer is a molecule that doesn’t transform,” Ng said. Some PFAS are great tracers, she added, but “the more transformable your PFAS is in general, the poorer the tracer is going to be.”That’s why newer PFAS compounds like GenX were not detected in blood samples or used as tracers in the recent study. “These models aren’t going to account for everything,” Wallis said. “No model is.” Stopping the contamination Wallis and their co-authors said they hope the models can become more accurate for less exposed communities in the future. With more data, it would be easier to suggest what to avoid instead of guessing where PFAS exposures come from, Wallis said, adding that it could lead to more protective regulations.Although these models can vaguely help identify where compounds might come from in a particular community, it’s not a definitive solution, Alissa Cordner, an environmental sociologist and co-director of the PFAS Project Lab who was not involved in the recent study, told EHN. Even if there’s no immediate application of these methods, identifying where PFAS are is the first step.“Everybody can point their fingers at other possible sources of contamination,” Cordner said. “The best way to address this is not to try to, after the fact, link people’s exposure to a contamination source. It’s to stop the contamination.”

GoGreenNation News: Minnesota enacts nation’s broadest ban of “forever chemicals”
GoGreenNation News: Minnesota enacts nation’s broadest ban of “forever chemicals”

Last month, Minnesota passed a bill that will ban all nonessential uses of PFAS, a class of harmful chemicals that accumulate in people and the environment. The first round of restrictions will take effect in 2025, banning the sale of PFAS-containing products from 13 categories, including menstrual products, cookware, children’s goods and certain types of firefighting foam. By 2032, after the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has conducted further investigations, all additional unnecessary PFAS uses will be eliminated as well, which could include products such as clothing. The new bill additionally requires companies to disclose which products contain intentionally added PFAS by 2026. “It’s important that Minnesota be a leader in tackling PFAS because it was invented in Minnesota,” Democratic state representative Sydney Jordan, who helped to negotiate the final version of the bill, told Environmental Health News (EHN). “We need to create the solution for it.” 3M, the Minnesota-based chemical giant, developed the first PFAS in the 1940s. For several decades, 3M dumped PFAS-laced waste in four sites in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region, contaminating the drinking water of roughly 140,000 residents. In 2018, the state of Minnesota settled a $850-million lawsuit against 3M. PFAS, a class of more than 12,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are nicknamed “forever chemicals” due to the ability to resist breaking down in water, soil and the human body. Dangerous in even minute amounts, PFAS are linked to a range of health harms including cancer, immune dysfunction and low birth weight. These substances, often used for their water, heat and stain-resistant properties, are found in a vast array of products such as cosmetics, food packaging, clothing, carpeting and electronics. Advocates hope that the Minnesota bill can act as a roadmap for other states. “It really does prove that this can be done,” Avonna Starck, the state director of the advocacy group Clean Water Action Minnesota, told EHN. Minnesota adopted a broader definition of PFAS than the EPA’s, categorizing the substances as chemicals that contain at least one fully fluorinated carbon atom. “I'm hoping that other states mimic our language and hold firm on the definition, to keep it narrow and concise.” “The jocks and the theater kids, and then there were the cancer kids” The bill is also known as Amara’s law, after Amara Strande, a former student at Tartan High School in Oakdale, Minnesota, who developed a rare form of liver cancer at the age of 15. Cancer is so common at the school, which sits in the contamination plume of the 3M dumps, that students talk about “there being the jocks and the theater kids, and then there were the cancer kids,” Starck said. Strande was a passionate advocate for the PFAS bill, testifying numerous times before lawmakers. She passed away in April 2023, just two days shy of her 21st birthday. “She was in so much pain and she was so uncomfortable. But she was not going to go down without a fight,” Starck said. While PFAS bans “can be the start to an effective management program,” there are certain limitations, Jamie DeWitt, a immunotoxicologist at East Carolina University who studies the health effects of PFAS, told EHN. These chemicals are so ubiquitous, she said, that companies might not even know if their products contain them or not. Flooring, for example, can contain multiple layers from several different manufacturers, who, for confidential business or proprietary reasons, may not be forthcoming about the chemicals their products contain. “Some companies will have to be very strategic about how they get information from their suppliers about intentionally added PFAS,” DeWitt said. Tonight the Environment, Natural Resources, Climate, and Energy Conference Committee agreed to a groundbreaking proposal to tackle PFAS forever chemicals. This would not have been possible without the work of Amara Strande. https://t.co/Dpv4B82vNN— Sydney Jordan (@SydneyJordanMN) May 5, 2023 Chemical industry representatives met the bill with less enthusiasm. In a statement, Rudy Underwood, vice president of state affairs for the American Chemistry Council, said the bill was overly broad, would cost Minnesotans jobs and hamper access to cell phones, automobiles and other products. The bill, however, exempts the use of PFAS in items considered essential to health and safety, and for which no alternatives currently exist. These include car and airplane parts, medicines and biomedical devices. State and federal PFAS bans 3M’s legacy of PFAS pollution in Minnesota is far from an outlier. Last week, 3M struck a tentative $10 billion settlement for dozens of PFAS pollution cases across the country, and is potentially on the hook for $143 billion in clean-up costs alone. According to company documents uncovered by the Environmental Working Group, 3M knew as far back as the 1960s that PFAS pose health risks and accumulate in blood, but kept this research secret from employees and the public. 3M announced in December that it will stop PFAS manufacturing by 2025. While several other states have enacted legislation to reduce or ban PFAS, notably Maine and California, the Minnesota bill is the most comprehensive and has stricter definitions of what constitutes nonessential use. State-level legislation joins federal efforts: In March, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed the first national drinking water standard for six types of PFAS, limiting levels to the lowest detectable amount. For Rep. Jordan, the idea that PFAS restrictions might be seen as controversial, or be met with opposition, is “pretty outlandish. This is a manufactured toxin that gives people horrible, rare forms of cancer.” Bans such as these, she said, aren’t something “we get to do. This is something that we have to do.”

GoGreenNation News: EPA begins review of PVC ingredient vinyl chloride, which could lead to restrictions or ban
GoGreenNation News: EPA begins review of PVC ingredient vinyl chloride, which could lead to restrictions or ban

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it’s reviewing vinyl chloride under the Toxic Control Substance Act (TSCA), which could lead to restrictions or a ban on the widespread, toxic chemical. Vinyl chloride is used primarily to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics. The chemical is already classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a carcinogen, and is linked to higher rates of lung and liver cancer, as well as liver disease, neurological problems and miscarriage. Billions of pounds are produced annually in the U.S. It is one of five chemicals the EPA will review under TSCA, which is the primary chemical safety law in the U.S. The other chemicals include acetaldehyde, acrylonitrile, benzenamine, and MBOCA. “Under the Biden-Harris Administration, EPA has made significant progress implementing the 2016 amendments to strengthen our nation’s chemical safety laws after years of mismanagement and delay. Today marks an important step forward,” assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention Michal Freedhoff said in a statement. Under TSCA, the EPA will examine all exposure routes — including air emissions, drinking water and soil contamination — as well as workplace and accident exposure. The latter is especially significant as on Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern train carrying a long list of toxic chemicals — including vinyl chloride — caught fire as it approached East Palestine, Ohio. The train derailed and the cars burned for three days. Months after the incident, residents, despite reassurances from the EPA and other agencies, were experiencing myriad health problems. Many residents left and never returned. “We have seen firsthand what vinyl chloride can do to a community,” Hilary Flint, vice president of Unity Council for the East Palestine Train Derailment and director of communications and community engagement for Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community, said in a statement. “This is a step in the right direction and we will continue to fight for a total vinyl chloride ban. The American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical manufacturers, said it appreciates the “agency working to engage the public early in the process,” and encouraged the EPA to put “science first” in its review. “Gathering the most relevant data to inform future decision-making will be critical. Anything less will add regulatory burden, cost, delays, and impede progress to a sustainable and circular economy,” the Council said in a written statement. Environmental justiceAn April report from Toxic-Free Future found that vinyl chloride particularly threatens communities of color and economically disadvantaged communities in the U.S. due to pollution from plastics manufacturing plants. The report found 19 PVC factories in the U.S. released more than 400,000 pounds of vinyl chloride into the air in 2021. Five companies – Westlake Chemical, Formosa Plastics, Occidental Chemical, Shintech and Orbia (Mexichem) – were the worst offenders. Roughly 373,262 Americans live within three miles of a vinyl chloride or PVC manufacturing facility or PVC waste disposal facility, according to the report, and 63% are people of color. In addition, residents living in the three-mile radius earn an income 37% below the national average. Vinyl chloride ban Many environmental and health organizations welcomed the EPA’s announcement. “This is one of the most important chemical review processes ever undertaken by the EPA. I applaud the EPA for launching this review,” Judith Enck, President of Beyond Plastics and former EPA Regional Administrator, said in a statement. Beyond Plastics has called on the EPA to ban vinyl chloride. The EPA announced means the agency will now examine the chemicals to see if they’re “high priority substances,” which is determined by the hazard and exposure potential of each contaminant. If they are determined high priority, a further risk evaluation starts to determine restrictions or a ban.You can read more about the EPA’s TSCA process, and watch for a public comment period, here.

GoGreenNation News: Chemical recycling grows — along with concerns about its environmental impacts
GoGreenNation News: Chemical recycling grows — along with concerns about its environmental impacts

St. James Parish, located on a stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans dubbed “Cancer Alley” due to the high concentration of petrochemical plants, is home to the country’s largest producer of polystyrene — the foam commonly found in soft drink and takeout containers. Now, the owner of that plant wants to build a new facility in the same area that would break down used foam cups and containers into raw materials that can be turned into other kinds of plastic. While there’s limited data on what kinds of emissions this type of facility creates, environmental advocates are concerned that the new plant could represent a new source of carcinogens like dioxin and benzene in the already polluted area.The proposed plant comes as the U.S. federal and state governments and private companies pour billions into “chemical recycling” research, which is touted as a potential solution to anemic plastics recycling rates. Proponents say that, despite mounting restrictions on single-use packaging, plastics aren’t going away anytime soon, and that chemical recycling is needed to keep growing amounts of plastic waste out of landfills and oceans. But questions abound about whether the plants are economically viable — and how chemical recycling contributes to local air pollution, perpetuating a history of environmental injustices and climate change. Skeptics argue that chemical recycling is an unproven technology that amounts to little more than the latest PR effort from the plastics industry. The Environmental Protection Agency is deciding whether or not to continue regulating the plants as incinerators, with some lawmakers expressing concerns last month about toxic emissions from these facilities. “They’re going to be managing toxic chemicals…and they’re going to be putting our communities at risk for either air pollution or something worse,” Jane Patton, a Baton Rouge native and manager of the Center for International Environmental Law’s plastics and petrochemicals campaign, told EHN of the proposed new plant in Louisiana.The air of St. James Parish, where the new plant will be located, has among the highest pollution levels along the Mississippi River corridor dubbed “Cancer Alley.” A joint investigation in 2019 by ProPublica, The Times-Picayune and The Advocate found that most of the new petrochemical facilities in the parish –including the recycling plant– will be located near the mostly Black 5th District.What is chemical recycling?When most of us picture recycling, we picture what industry insiders call “mechanical recycling:” plastics are sorted, cleaned, crushed or shredded and then melted to be made into new goods. In the U.S., though, less than 10% of plastics are actually recycled due to challenges ranging from contamination to variability in plastic types and coloring. “No flexible plastic packaging can be recycled with mechanical recycling — the only real plastic that can be recycled are number one and number two water bottles and milk jugs,” George Huber, an engineering professor at the University of Wisconsin and head of the multi-university research center for Chemical Upcycling of Waste Plastics, told EHN. Enter chemical recycling –– processes that use high heat, chemicals, or both to break used plastic goods down into their chemical building blocks to, in theory, make more plastics. Proponents say that chemical recycling can complement more traditional recycling by handling mixed and harder-to-recycle plastics. “An advantage of advanced recycling is that it can take more of the 90% of plastics that aren’t recycled today, including the hard-to-recycle films, pouches and other mixed plastics, and remake them into virgin-quality new plastics approved for medical and food contact applications,” Joshua Baca, vice president of the plastics division at the American Chemistry Council, told EHN. A long and winding historyThe technology has actually been around for decades, with an initial wave of plants built in the 1990s, but it didn’t take off then because of operational and economic challenges. Huber said some factors have changed, like a significant increase in plastic use and China’s refusal to accept other countries’ waste, that make chemical recycling more viable this time around. Yet a 2021 Reuters investigation found that commercial viability remains a major challenge for chemical recyclers due to difficulties like contamination of the incoming plastic, high energy costs, and the need to further clean the outputs before they can become plastic. “It's one thing in theory to design something on paper — it's a whole huge challenge to build a plant, get it operational, get the permits and for it to perform like you think it would,” Huber said. Tracking down just how many chemical recycling plants operate today in the U.S. is tricky — and depends in part on what one counts as “recycling.” Potential climate impacts Most of the plants in the U.S. are pyrolysis facilities, which use huge amounts of energy to heat plastics up enough to break their chemical bonds, raising concerns about their climate impacts if that energy comes from burning fossil fuels. An analysis from Closed Loop Partners found that, depending on the technology, carbon emissions from chemical recycling ranged from 22% higher to 45% lower than virgin plastics production. “It's a very promising technology to tackle the problem of (plastic) waste, but if you don't concurrently tackle the challenge of where the energy is coming from, there's a problem,” Rebecca Furlong, a chemistry PhD candidate at the University of Bath who has conducted life cycle assessments of plastics recycling technologies, told EHN. A life cycle assessment study prepared for a British chemical recycling company found that chemical recycling has a significantly lower climate impact than waste-to-energy incineration — but produced almost four times as many greenhouse gas emissions as landfilling the plastic. The American Chemistry Council, or ACC, says that there are at least seven plants in the U.S. doing plastics-to-plastics recycling, although many of those facilities also turn plastics into industrial fuel. For example, according to records reviewed by the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, or GAIA, in 2018 a facility located in Oregon and owned by one of the companies planning to build the Louisiana plant, converted 216.82 pounds of polystyrene into the plastics building block styrene, sending roughly the same amount to be burned at a cement kiln. The ACC, European Union regulators and Furlong and her advisor, Matthew Davidson, say plastics to fuel shouldn’t count as recycling. “Clearly digging oil out of the ground, using it as a plastic, and then burning it is not hugely different from digging it out of the ground and burning it,” Davidson, director of the Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies at the University of Bath, told EHN.Unknowns about environmental health impacts Chemical recycling saw a boost under the Trump administration, including a formal partnership between the federal Department of Energy and the American Chemistry Council, which lobbies on behalf of the plastics industry, to scale up chemical recycling technologies. There’s limited information, however, on the environmental health impacts of chemical recycling plants. Furlong said she had not included hazardous waste generation in her life cycle assessments because of a lack of data. Tangri said there have been few studies outside the lab, in part because there are relatively few chemical recycling plants out there. Additionally, the ones that do exist are either too small to meet the EPA’s pollution reporting threshold, or are housed within a larger petrochemical complex and so don’t separately report out their air pollution emissions. Earlier this year, the Natural Resources Defense Council released a report looking at eight facilities in the U.S. The environmental group found that one facility in Oregon sent around half a million pounds of hazardous waste, including benzene and lead, to incinerators in Washington, Colorado, Missouri and three other states. Hazardous waste incinerators can release toxic air pollution to nearby communities. Additionally, some hazardous waste incinerators in the U.S. have repeatedly violated air pollution standards and the EPA has recently raised serious concerns about a backlog of hazardous waste piling up due to limited incineration capacity. The Oregon facility, which is supposed to break down polystyrene into styrene, also sent more than 100,000 pounds of styrene in 2020 to be burned in waste to energy plants rather than recycled back into new plastics, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council’s report. Plastics contain a range of additives, like phthalates and bisphenols, that have serious health concerns. The European Chemicals Agency expressed concerns in a 2021 report about the extent to which chemical recycling could eliminate these chemicals, especially “legacy” additives like lead-stabilized PVC that the EU no longer allows, and prevent them from showing up in new plastic products. The agency also cautioned that, depending on the type of plastic waste the facilities are processing, pyrolysis and gasification plants can generate hazardous compounds such as dioxins, volatile organic compounds and PCBs. Dioxins are considered “highly toxic” by the EPA as they can cause cancer, reproductive issues, immune system damage and other health issues. Volatile organic compounds can cause breathing difficulties and harm the nervous system; and some, like benzene, are also carcinogens. The agency noted that companies are required to take measures, like installing flue gas cleaning systems and pre-treatment of wastewater, to limit emissions. Additionally, experts interviewed by the EU highlighted an overall lack of transparency about the kinds of chemicals used in some of the chemical recycling processes. The American Chemistry Council, or ACC, says that emissions from most chemical recycling plants are too low to trigger Clean Air Act permits, citing a recent report from consultant Good Company and sponsored by the ACC that found that emissions from four plants in the U.S. were on par with those from a hospital and food manufacturing plant. The trade group claims the plants are “designed to avoid dioxin formation with many interventions, the primary one being that the plastic material is heated in a closed, oxygen-deprived environment that is not combustion,” and that the facilities would be subject to violations or operating restrictions if dioxins were formed. Policy debateAs the EPA decides what to do about chemical recycling plants, 20 states — including Louisiana, where the new plant could be built — have already passed laws that would regulate the facilities as manufacturers rather than solid waste facilities, according to the American Chemistry Council — a move that environmental advocates say could lead to less oversight and more pollution. “Whenever I see a big push for exemptions from environmental statutes, I get a little concerned,” Judith Enck, director of the anti-plastics advocacy group Beyond Plastics, told EHN. Advocates in Louisiana fear the new law will exempt the new facility from being regulated by the state Department of Environmental Quality, something the ACC says won’t happen. However, it is unclear in the text of the law which state agency will oversee its environmental impacts (the state Department of Environmental Quality didn’t respond to our question). In a recent letter to the EPA, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and more than 30 other lawmakers requested that the agency continue to regulate pyrolysis and gasification plants as incinerators. Additionally, they also urged the EPA to request more information from these facilities on their air pollution and climate impacts. “Communities located near these facilities need to know what chemicals they are being exposed to, and they need the full protection that Congress intended the Clean Air Act’s incinerator standards to provide,” wrote the lawmakers. The American Chemistry Council contends that chemical recycling plants take in plastics waste that is already sorted, and that regulating these facilities as solid waste facilities, with measures like odor and rodent controls, does not make sense. The ACC adds that, like other manufacturing facilities, chemical recycling plants would still be subject to air and water pollution and hazardous waste regulations. Tangri, from GAIA, said that the U.S. should also follow in the footsteps of the EU and not count plastics to fuel as chemical recycling. Overall, environmental advocates would prefer to see stronger measures taken to reduce plastic use and require that manufacturers take more responsibility for plastic packaging — a concept known as “extended producer responsibility.” Enck suggested that there be mandatory environmental standards for packaging similar to auto efficiency standards. “We really need to move to a refillable, reusable economy,” she said. “Do we need all these layers of packaging on a product? Do we need multi-material packaging?”

GoGreenNation News: 2024 could be a big year for PFAS bans: Report
GoGreenNation News: 2024 could be a big year for PFAS bans: Report

Policymakers in 36 states will consider more than 450 bills that deal with toxic chemicals in 2024, according to a new analysis of anticipated state legislation from Safer States.Safer States is a national alliance of environmental organizations aimed to protect people from harmful chemicals. Most of the anticipated bills in their new report will deal with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), water quality, plastics and cosmetics. The analysis estimates 35 states will introduce policies to ban PFAS chemicals in some of the chemicals’ uses. And the policies will go beyond bans, such as food packaging, the authors write, and will include monitoring and testing of PFAS in water, sewage sludge (which is often spread on farms and can contain the chemicals), and labeling and restrictions in firefighting equipment.“Because of pressure from firefighters, farmers, and families there is a tremendous amount of momentum to address these threats from petrochemicals like PFAS and toxic materials like fossil fuel-based plastics,” said Sarah Doll, national director of Safer States, in a statement.Last year there was a movement among companies to address PFAS contamination in their products, especially at outdoor retailers including Dick’s Sporting Goods and REI, and Minnesota passed the nation’s broadest ban to date. Washington state is currently recommending bans on PFAS in clothing, cleaning products and car washes.The new report estimates at least 25 states will consider laws addressing plastic pollution and waste, and at least 15 states will consider policies on harmful chemicals in cosmetics.Other legislative priorities include microplastics in drinking water and chemical disclosure.“Allies across the country are actively pushing for retailers to eliminate more toxic chemicals and plastics from the products on their shelves and move to safer solutions across the board,” Cindy Luppi, national field director of Clean Water Action, said in a statement.See the full report.

GoGreenNation News: Op-ed: Why is the chemical industry pitting public health against economic growth?
GoGreenNation News: Op-ed: Why is the chemical industry pitting public health against economic growth?

Recent reporting on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new proposed rules that would restrict or ban an array of toxic chemicals used in industrial manufacturing presented the regulation as a ‘tough choice’ for a White House seeking to balance its economic agenda and public health. The “public health vs economic growth” framing is unhelpful and demonstrably false. The only “tough choice” to be made is whether to stick with an outdated and toxic model that benefits a few regressive companies or to focus on innovation in chemistry that catches up to our competitors abroad and saves on American medical bills to boot. To understand why, let’s tally the costs of continuing business as usual. A report just published on March 21 in the Annals of Global Health estimates that in 2015 the health-related costs of plastic production – the single most common use of industrial chemical manufacturing today – exceeded $250 billion globally. And, in the U.S. alone, the annual health costs of disease and disability caused by four industrial chemicals – PBDE, BPA, DEHP and PFAS – approach a staggering $1 trillion. Considering that there are more than 86,000 industrial chemicals in circulation, it seems likely that the actual health costs are much, much higher. A growing emerging body of research supports those seemingly astronomical estimates. A 2015 study published by the Lancet Group estimated that the cost of disease mediated by exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals in the U.S. could exceed $340 billion annually. A 2022 cohort study used historical data to link phthalate exposure in the US to roughly 100,000 premature deaths and a resulting $40 billion in societal costs annually. There are serious climate risks too. A 2022 study from Lund University in Sweden found that petrochemicals are responsible for a tenth of global greenhouse gas emissions when researchers evaluate their full lifecycle, which might include everything from a fracking well in Pennsylvania to a raft of Styrofoam disintegrating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. More recently, the Minderoo Foundation published an analysis showing that cradle-to-grave greenhouse gas emissions from plastics alone – a subset of total petrochemical use – were roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of Russia. Critically, the plastics and petrochemicals industry has known about the health-harming effects of its products for decades. In the 1970s, research by 3M scientists showed conclusively that compounds in the PFAS forever chemical family bioaccumulate in the human body and pose significant health risks. Yet rather than remove the chemicals from use and develop safe alternatives, the industry doubled down on defending their products, resulting in the universal PFAS contamination that can be found in every American and every American community today.EPA’s oversight is importantStatus quo chemistry is costing us money and shortening our lives. To make matters worse it’s also standing in the way of necessary innovation and likely impairing economic growth. By not incorporating the cost of health and environmental harms of petrochemical production and use, the existing industry enjoys an artificially low cost of doing business, thus hindering new researchers and companies seeking to develop healthier, more sustainable chemical products.The European Union (EU) has found an approach that could translate. Europe is pursuing a “Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability” roadmap that puts innovation at its core while strengthening the concept of “no data, no market.” This can only be achieved by testing the chemicals before they enter the market with the best of today’s biomedical science, including tests for endocrine disruption.The European approach centered on safer solutions is already in action at the state level in the U.S. – from Maine to Washington state. Corporations are taking the lead as well, enacting ever more stringent chemical policies to protect their workers and customers. Related: The Titans of Plastic The EPA’s oversight is important. So is preventing the U.S. petrochemical industry from expanding with a new generation of toxic projects that will extend the health-harming and economy-stifling status quo for decades. Many of these projects are located in disadvantaged communities that are already severely polluted – places like the Gulf Coast of Texas, “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, and the Ohio River Valley. That’s why Michael Bloomberg recently launched a new campaign, Beyond Petrochemicals: People Over Pollution, that will block the expansion of more than 120 proposed petrochemical and plastic projects concentrated in three target geographies – Louisiana, Texas and the Ohio River Valley – and will also work to establish stricter rules for existing plants to safeguard the health of American communities. The EPA’s proposed rules represent a critical step towards leveling a playing field that has enriched the few and harmed the many for far too long. Now is the time to unleash the innovative brilliance of American scientists and companies in pursuit of chemistry that is truly safe and sustainable by design, from the production facility to the store shelves and into our homes. Our health and our climate cannot wait another moment.Linda Birnbaum is former Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Scholar in Residence at Duke University. Terry Collins is a Teresa Heinz Professor of Green Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon and founder of Sudoc.

GoGreenNation News: Toxic PFAS pollution is likely at more than 57,000 US locations: Report
GoGreenNation News: Toxic PFAS pollution is likely at more than 57,000 US locations: Report

Toxic PFAS have likely contaminated roughly 57,412 locations across the U.S., according to a new study. Those locations include certain industrial facilities, waste processing facilities, and places where firefighting foam containing PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) have been used, such as airports and military bases. The study, published today in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, found likely PFAS contamination sites in all 50 states. It is the first study to use existing scientific data on PFAS contamination to create a model that can predict locations where contamination is likely. “PFAS contamination at these sites is not just possible, but probable,” Alissa Cordner, senior author on the paper and co-director of the PFAS Project Lab, told EHN. “Testing for PFAS is extremely expensive and requires a lot of time and technical capacity… One of our big goals is to help decision makers prioritize testing and remediation at these locations based on this high likelihood of contamination.”Related: What are PFAS? PFAS don’t break down naturally, so they linger in the environment and human bodies. Exposure is linked to health problems including kidney and testicular cancer, liver and thyroid problems, reproductive problems, lowered vaccine efficacy in children and increased risk of birth defects, among others. The chemicals have been found in drinking water systems throughout the U.S., in the bodies of humans and animals around the globe, in plants and crops, and even in rainwater at levels too high for safe consumption. Research on the chemicals has increased in recent years, but due to a lack of testing requirements at the federal level, we lack critical data about the scale, scope, and severity of PFAS releases and contamination in the U.S. The new study helps fill that gap and also provides a map of presumptive contamination sites. The researchers looked at 11 existing studies and regulatory lists that clearly linked levels of PFAS contamination to specific types of facilities, then referenced national databases to map the location of similar sites across the country. To ensure its accuracy, the researchers compared the results from their model against their existing map of known contamination sites based on published PFAS testing data, and found that about 70% of known contamination sites were captured by the model. The remaining 30% of sites were locations where PFAS have been found by testing at locations where they wouldn’t be expected by the model. "This model is likely an underestimation of contaminated sites,” Cordner said. “For example, we know that locations where sludge has been applied to farmland, and locations where firefighting foam has been used in training exercises are likely to be contaminated, but there are no federal databases of those sites, so they aren’t included here.”Lack of regulationsIn 2021, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) laid out a road map to new regulations for PFAS, including regulating the chemicals in drinking water, but many health advocates and scientists who study the chemicals believe the agency is moving too slowly. In the meantime, some states have begun regulating the chemicals, but that has led to a patchwork of protections. “There certainly is a need for a federal [drinking water limit] on PFAS that’s protective of public health,” Cordner said. “In the meantime, we would love to see this research used broadly by local, municipal, and state decision makers to prioritize sites for testing and public health interventions.”PFAS in PennsylvaniaThe report identified about 2,100 presumed PFAS contamination sites in Pennsylvania, according to Cordner, putting the state 10th nationwide for number of presumed contaminated sites. California was the top state with roughly 7,200 sites, according to Cordner. In contrast, only 10 locations in Pennsylvania show up on the report’s map of known contamination sites.From 2019-2021, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) conducted statewide PFAS sampling that revealed one out of three drinking systems exceed the EPA’s recommended health thresholds for PFAS.Related: How toxic PFAS chemicals could be making their way into food from Pennsylvania farmsThe DEP has been working to set drinking water limits for PFAS in the state since at least 2017. That process is expected to be complete in 2023. In the meantime, the EPA’s recommended health thresholds for the two most common and dangerous PFAS, PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid), were lowered substantially earlier this year, putting Pennsylvania’s proposed limits on these chemicals hundreds of times above recommended health thresholds.“The EPA’s interim health advisory limits are so low, they’re essentially saying almost any amount of exposure to these chemicals is likely to be hazardous to human health,” Cordner said. She also noted that PFOA and PFOS are only two of a class of more than 12,000 similar chemicals, and called on regulators to move away from regulating them one at a time and instead regulate them as a class. “We need to stop all non-essential use of these chemicals in industrial processes, commercial products, and firefighting foam to prevent these harmful exposures.”

GoGreenNation News: Companies to pay billions in "forever chemical" water pollution settlements
GoGreenNation News: Companies to pay billions in "forever chemical" water pollution settlements

Major chemical producers have agreed to pay billions of dollars to settle claims from U.S. water providers over toxic "forever chemicals" pollution.Why it matters: The settlements are a significant step forward in the effort to reduce potentially dangerous chemicals in water systems across the country.They also follow the Environmental Protection Agency tightening regulations on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are a family of more than 12,000 chemicals.The chemicals have contaminated thousands of drinking water systems around the country, and most people living in the U.S. have some amount of PFAS in their blood, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The health effects of the chemicals are still being studied, but exposure to certain levels of PFAS has been linked to adverse health effects in humans and animals, including increased risk of kidney or testicular cancer.Driving the news: Chemours, DuPont and Corteva said Friday they reached a $1.19 billion settlement with water providers around the country.The water providers had alleged that the companies were responsible for environmental pollution from firefighting foams they manufactured that contained PFAS.Though the companies denied the allegations, the settlement would resolve hundreds of lawsuits against them that were consolidated in the federal district court for South Carolina, which must finalize the settlement for it to take effect.What they're saying: John O'Connell, the board president of the National Rural Water Association, said in a statement that the settlement "is the beginning of helping our utility members in the fight against PFAS."The group works with 50 state associations representing more than 31,000 water and wastewater utility systems, and helped filed a lawsuit on behalf of its members.Yes, but: Not included in the settlements are systems operated by states and the U.S. government, some smaller drinking water systems, and systems in the lower Cape Fear River Basin of North Carolina, which has been plagued by high levels of PFAS.Chemours, which produces products containing PFAS nearby, faces several lawsuits over PFAS exposure in the area. How it works: The durable synthetic chemicals, which resist degradation by repelling oil and water and withstanding high temperatures, have been used in hundreds of nonstick, water- and oil-repellent, and fire-resistant products.If the chemicals enter the environment through production or waste streams, they can resist breaking down for hundreds of years while contaminating water sources and bioaccumulating in fish, wildlife, livestock, and people.Research has shown that reducing levels of PFAS in drinking water or switching to other water distributors will likely require municipalities to invest millions of dollars into new infrastructure and incur ongoing maintenance costs.For example, officials in Cape Fear allocated $46 million and a recurring annual operating cost of $2.9 million to upgrade a treatment plant designed to filter PFAS from drinking water.Meanwhile, 3M — a major PFAS producer — has also reached a tentative settlement worth at least $10 billion with water providers, Bloomberg reported Friday.News of a potential settlement came just days before the company's first federal trial over PFAS pollution claims.Facing extensive PFAS litigation — including a lawsuit from the Dutch government — 3M announced in December 2022 that it would stop manufacturing and using the chemicals by the end of 2025.Go deeper: Communities of color disproportionately exposed to PFAS in drinking water, study says

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