How does this argument not apply to everything? The counterfactual (where 3M continues to produce these) is ... obviously bad? Producing materials that are bad for the environment and human health! Now less is produced, at least in the short term.
An example where your argument doesn't play out like you say: many chemicals manufacturers decided to no longer sell chemicals that would be used for administering the death penalty via lethal injection. So many did this that states _had to basically stop applying the death penalty_, and basically try and trick companies to sell them the materials. A win for those who pushed for that to happen (mitigated by the endless cruelty of the SC but..). Alternative companies didn't show up to "fill the gap".
At one point doing things actually matters. Especially when we look at how large conglomerates own many parts of the value chain, at one point the end result is simply that these chemicals stop being used.
Well one hypothetical way it wouldn't apply is if the US federal government backed 3M's move and banned Chinese and other foreign companies from unfairly competing with a company that is choosing to avoid intentionally poisoning their customers.
It seems like there are many usable substances which are hydrophobic (usable as a water repellent). Not so many alternatives which are oleophobic (oil repellent).
I am sure proper research is being conducted to find replacements.
This is the prisoner's dilemma situation. Everyone would benefit more from a reduction, but if only one company does it, they benefit (in the short term) even more.
I think the signalling is also valuable -- humans have a remarkable tendency to adopt attitudes over time, and I think every contribution towards the attitude that we should not harm the environment is a good one.
I for one currently support and will continue to support companies with sustainable environmental practises even if the cost is higher, and I encourage everyone to do the same. For, that increased cost is like a payment for that piece (however small) of the environment that I otherwise would not have, and I think that's worth it.
PFAS are used because there isn't a better alternative. A globally coordinated reduction in production only increases the price of products for consumers.
...which is a good thing! we should stop taking $20 teflon pans, nonstick fast food containers, and $40 raincoats with negative externalities for granted.
We did fine without PFAS, we'll be okay with expensive PFAS (where externalities are internalized and built into the cost) too.
Does paying for the pollution really help fix the problem? Will the government use that money to filter rivers for PFAS?
I think a lot of this need also comes from other supposedly environmental choices. My work banned plastic cups and now has paper cups with PFAS which are more toxic. I think the plastic ones were the better choice if recycled properly.
And raincoats were really really horrible before Gore-Tex.
Price elasticity is real: if PFAS is more expensive, people will buy (and businesses will produce) fewer PFAS-derived products. Raising the price is especially nice because it causes price-elastic use cases (think PFAS coated paper cups) to drop out, while price-inelastic use cases (think teflon joint implants) are not made illegal, just more expensive. If the government earmarks PFAS tax revenue for remediation, that'd be awesome, but that's just a side benefit - the price increase is the main benefit.
I do thing greenwashing and environmental whack-a-mole is a real problem (heck, we see it in the PFAS space with GenX replacing PFOA). I don't see that as a valid reason to do nothing.
Paying for pollution makes the customer consider the full cost of the product, reducing demand to cases when the benefits of using the chemical are actually bigger than the external costs.
It's not about using the money to solve the problems. It's about making the economy more efficient.
> And raincoats were really really horrible before Gore-Tex.
Nope, they were fine. A bit heavier but far longer-lasting, including the waxed versions which can be re-waxed if needed to keep up waterproofing. I'm still using my army-issued raincoats from when I served in 1992, one of them has been with me on a number of expeditions (months of paddling the Yukon from Whitehorse to the Bering Strait, climbing several mountains, etc) where it doubled as a tent bottom, it is still perfectly serviceable. The lighter version I still use when cycling, it is still waterproof and the seams - which usually are the weak spot - still hold. I'm also using a 20yo wax coat which I re-waxed a few times (still using the original tin of wax), that one hardly contains any synthetics. Anything made of Gore-Tex would have delaminated after a few months of this type of use.
Waxed fabrics do "breathe" more or less as much as much as Gore-Tex does and - important - keep on doing so as long as you keep them waxed enough but not too much. Don't make the coat look like a waxed cheese, you're using too much wax. Use enough to get the fabric to reject dripping or flowing water, no more. Gore-Tex was made to imitate this characteristic without the need for wax but once the membrane is damaged it can not be repaired, unlike waxed fabrics.
This isn't true. The Gore-Tex layer isn't damaged like this. You're referring to the DNW coating, and there's no reason this can't be a waxed layer like old-school rain jackets. In fact a lot of companies started offering wax based DNW coatings in the name of environmental responsibility.
The actual "Gore-Tex" layer, now no longer under patent and produced by many under names such as Dermizax, H2No, Sympatex and many others, is a thin, flexible, *fragile* PTFE membrane. This allows air through, and via a heat-pump-like mechanism drives water on its surfaces from the warm side to the cool side. There is no 'old school rainjacket' equivalent for this.
Usually when your Gore-Tex jacket stops working it is because the DNW layer is gone. If you used a wax replacement the actual Gore-Tex would still be fine and your rain jacket would still be miles better than anything available 100 years ago.
It might work fine for a weekend hike but the stuff does not hold up to repeated strain. Eventually it'll start to delaminate at the shoulders due to wear from backpack straps, cuffs and other exposed spots. This 'eventually' will depend on what you're doing while wearing the things, as said that weekend hike won't put as much strain on it as does walking the Appalachian trail or crossing the Hardangervidda, let along climbing a few mountains. I like to use material which keeps and can be repaired if needed so for me this is a no-go. My backpacks are between 30 and 50 years old, my raingear between 20 and 30 years, my tents and sleeping bags between 20 and 25 years, my cooking gear is more than 40 years old. It may not be fashionable - who cares about fashion when you're alone in the woods - and it may not be the lightest or most high-tech but I know I can depend on it.
You can get Gore-Tex patch kits for any punctures you encounter.
There are also a wide range of textiles available for the outer layers. Many have high Kevlar/aramid content and are much tougher in abrasion than waxed cotton.
I have a Ventile jacket which should be the pinnacle of cotton waterproof design, and it is much easier to damage than modern synthetic jacket, and on top of this it doesn't breath as well, or keep me as dry under continuous downpour conditions. It's also harder to repair due to the high density of the fibres.
That delamination doesn't happen for normal gore-tex where the membrane is one of the inner layers. It's only with the ultra-thin version used by cyclists that is hydrophobic on the outside. My gear usually starts ripping before the waterproofing is compromised.
But I replace my gear when needed anyway and recycle it. I do hike, but not very far from the civilized world. And previously I lived in a place where it rains every day in winter (western Ireland) so good breathing raingear is really a must have.
Why are people big on recycling plastic? In the West, non-recycled plastic goes to landfill and is LESS likely to end up in the oceans or whatever, as "recycling" is often sent overseas.
In fact, single use plastic means more oil being used for plastic and less burnt for fuel, leading to lower CO2 emissions.
>> I think a lot of this need also comes from other supposedly environmental choices. My work banned plastic cups and now has paper cups with PFAS which are more toxic. I think the plastic ones were the better choice if recycled properly.
Why do you need to choose between plastic or paper (PFAS)? Does your work not provide glasses? Ceramic mugs? Can you not bring your own reusable water bottle?
We should stop taking the pans, one-time use containers, etc, but a GoreTex jacket costs $400, not $40, and even the "cheap" GoreTex knockoffs cost $200...
What will happen is that the PFAS pan becomes $26 instead of $20. PFAS is not the most expensive part of the pan, only a minor component. A doubling or tripling of PFAS prices is unlikely to price anyone out of getting that pan or raincoat. It's just going to make middle and lower class people cumulatively billions of dollars poorer.
Iron pans are ridiculously cheap these days and they last forever if you bother to read the 3 line instructions included with them.
Teflon isn’t as great as people were deceived into believing. Even if you’re absolutely meticulous with care, it’ll have a noticeable lack in non-stick abilities within months and be noticeably sticky after 2 years, and rapidly degrading into useless territory. An iron pan starts out about as sticky as a slightly used Teflon pan and feels like brand new Teflon after a few uses and stays that way for as long as a human lifespan.
I mean pans are only one thing. PFAS are used in many products. Yes you can make inferior substitutions but again this reduces standard of living.
This is not to mention its widespread use in military applications. There is already concern about China's lock on the global supply of rare earths and other raw materials like silicon and magnesium (80%+ market share). What happens when the US can't make fighter jets because a belligerent China refuses to export PFAS?
There is no proof that PFAS is causing large scale poisoning. Industrial workers with insufficient PPE may get increased risks of health effects if they are subject to prolonged exposure to concentrated amounts. But so does exposure to fertilizer and aspartame. The research is not anywhere near saying PFAS are causing large scale poisoning.
It reminds me of the microplastics debate too. Lots of panic about it, little scientific evidence that it is causing large scale health problems.
I’m glad lawmakers, investors, businesses, and nearly everyone else are not waiting around for “proof”, since that is a nearly impossible standard. We know that these substances are everywhere, and there is evidence of it causing harm in animals and in humans
> With many health effects noted for a relatively few example compounds and hundreds of other PFAS in commerce lacking toxicity data… [1]
If we were to wait to run studies on all of those hundreds of substances, there will just be that much more pollutant in our environments and bodies that will be virtually impossible to clean up. The risk/reward tradeoff is pretty clear.
It depends on demand elasticity. Products with very little demand elasticity like energy or medicine just make everyone miserable and worse off when production is cut, because you can't live without them. Yes you can scrimp and save and stretch your dollar, but at the end of the day you have to pay up no matter the price.
I'm not sure that anyone knows what the demand elasticity for an industrial chemical like PFAS is, but it's obviously not a completely discretionary item.
Energy has a lot of demand elasticity, it just takes a few years for demand to catch up with price changes. See for example how fuel efficiency changed during the oil crisis a few decades ago. Or how building insulation changes with rising energy prices.
Let's take one example. Teflon coated cookware. As an alternative there are cooking sprays, butter, oils, or stiring the contents of the pan more frequently.
In this case it's not a nessacity but a convenience. Why don't we start by restricting the use of PFAS to those products in which there are no alternatives and are a nessacity.
In my experience non stick pans are pretty awful, basically anything else is a better alternative.
You can't get them hot enough to sear a steak properly without damaging the non stick coating, and the non stick coating is oleophobic which means that oil pools rather than spreading out so you can't get proper browning on anything even if you do cook it at an appropriate temp.
Seasoned cast iron and carbon steel will be non stick without either of those downsides, and even regular stainless steel is perfectly fine as long as you let it heat up properly before using it.
I agree. I used nonstick pans for a long time. But once the coating starts to degrade, they're worse than decent-quality traditional cookware. Because food starts to stick, but you still can't use metal utensils to scrape it off.
Now I just use stainless-steel or (rarely) cast iron, and I'm much happier.
And it's even cheaper, long-term. A decent stainless-steel pan costs $50-$200 USD, but lasts approximately forever. Whereas a decent non-stick equivalent costs $30-$50, but needs replacement every few years even if I'm careful with it.
IKEA make a fantastic stainless steel[1] pan called "SENSUELL". Best pan I ever bought! Heavy indestructible construction, heats evenly, retains heat, cleans easily, can be placed under the grill, looks good, etc. The price has gone up recently, but it's still great value IMO!
[1] actually, like many high-end pans, it uses a 3-ply construction with an aluminium layer between two steel layers
I love my cast iron, stainless, and carbon steel pans, but calling them nonstick is a stretch. In fact, their stickiness is pretty much their valuable property in getting good browning on food.
You can definitely cook delicate fish and scrambled eggs on say, cast iron, but you will either be scraping hard during clean up or using an absurd amount of oil to cook. I don't mind it myself, but its clear why nonstick is popular.
I season my stainless steel pan with a few drops of oil, rubbed on with a paper towel. Very rarely do I have problems with anything sticking to it.
If I'm searing a steak or something at high heat, sure, it's going to leave some burnt-on marks, but if you add water and leave it simmering on minimum heat with a bit of baking soda for 15 minutes, pretty much anything will wipe off with no effort.
A high quality, well seasoned cast iron pan will allow you to fry an egg while said egg slides around the pan as if nonstick.
Not every pan is capable of this, and meticulous care is required to keep it in shape, but I became a believer in non stick cast iron when I first met a pan that could do it. I had used plenty of "stickier" cast iron pans before and my perspective shifted a bit.
Cast iron is useless for food with starch, eg. hash browns. The starch absorbs the seasoning and you end up with an unseasoned pan with burnt pieces stuck everywhere.
Nonstick pans are not meant for searing steaks. They're meant for making things like creamy scrambled eggs that are difficult to get right on cast iron.
Ceramic cookware is also PFA free, and while it isn’t 100% as good as Teflon for nonstick purposes, it’s about 95% as good for roughly the same price.
It’s not all that much convenience you give up anyway. My home is PFA free for cookware (indoors, at least) simply by virtue of owning birds because PFA is toxic to birds. I have to use the pressure cooker and air fryer outside but the ceramic pans I use indoors do just fine and aren’t too much harder to clean vs Teflon pans.
I think the only noticeable pain where my ceramic pans clearly lose to Teflon is eggs - eggs want to cling to basically anything and Teflon is just really good at not having things cling to it. Otherwise it’s almost always just as easy to clean the ceramic pans as it is to clean the Teflon ones.
Just to chime in about your use of the word "signaling" and when others use "virtue signaling".
I believe the traditional term is "setting a good example" and even if the motivation is selfish there's a positive outcome. "Virtue signaling" was invented to demonize this behavior by focusing on (the assumed) motive as selfish.
The use of the phrase "virtue signaling" tells me immediately that the rest of the comment has absolutely no value whatsoever and can be safely ignored.
The entire US benefits from rules only California makes for itself. The entire world benefits from rules only the EU makes for itself.
That very same globalization sometimes causes influence as a pure byproduct.
Regardless, it's not an all or nothing situation. If there are 6000 problems, it's perfectly fine to pick just one of them, and do something that only makes it 1% better. So what there are 5999 other problems? So what most of this one problem didn't even get better because there is some way around it? Tomorrow you just keep doing more of the same and make the current problem 2% better. Or make one of the other 5999 a little better.
It really only takes the EU and US agreeing that something is bad. Together they represent a huge chunk of the imports of nearly every sector of the global economy. In practice that is what globalization largely is - other countries producing stuff that the US and EU buy.
If you manufacture a chemical and the US and EU both decide that chemical is banned and can't be imported, your business may very well be toast, and you will have a large incentive to produce stuff that they want instead. This doesn't necessarily even take legislation as the relevant governments have a variety of ways they can apply tariffs, disincentives etc. to stuff they don't like.
It doesn’t even take both agreeing necessarily. In many cases just either one of the EU or the US legislating something is sufficient financial incentive to follow the same rule globally.
You establish agreements over a large enough market that it actually makes a different so that competitors doing the right thing aren’t penalized or aren’t penalized enough that they’re disincentivized.
Sometimes that market is the US and you only need a local bill to do that. Sometimes you do a bilateral or multilateral treaty. But these things happen all the time even today. Eg if not for trump there would probably have been a new pacific trade agreement and Biden has managed to rally multilateral cooperation around security issues around Russia (eg see new applications to NATO as one example as well as related economic agreements and sanctions) and climate change.
The main challenge is that Trump’s behavior of cancelling deals that were on the finish line as well as backing out of existing agreements (Paris accords + Iran) means that partners are now more wary of entering into agreements in the first place.
This has less to do with globalization and more to do with USA’s increasing instability as a reliable partner that can execute on agreed-upon commitments across political transitions. So now countries are less reliant on commitments from the USA. From one perspective, that’s good - local autonomy is a powerful tool. From a different perspective, the USA frequently (not always and maybe not even a majority of the time) lead the way and set a global direction through unilateral action (ie even without treaties). Again, that’s gone less because of globalization I think and more that the world has grown tired of USA’s political weight throwing and realpolitik behavior rather than sticking to common principles (democracy, rule of law, not torturing enemies no matter what they’ve done, human rights, raising up scientists and facts even when politically inconvenient or leaders applying pressure to move their voter base instead of playing tail wag the dog, having principles about who we count as our allies etc). One set of behaviors engenders trust while the other degrades it and leads to whatsboutisim politics. Agreements in low trust environments are rarer and harder to maintain. Agreements in high trust environments are much cheaper.
So, while I agree that the “governments around the world coordinating” is harder I disagree that it’s impossible or that it was caused by globalization Val multi-generational realpolitik weight throwing and underhanded behavior that killed a lot of the good will brought about as the “saviors of WWII” propaganda that was wide spread + “golden city” aura post WWII and during the Cold War + technological and economically outpacing Russia. We’ve been leveraging that good will more than our finances because the former is completely invisible and impossible to quantify and measure.
I'm curious - if companies knowingly continue to use PFAS for purely financial reasons, would they also risk liability? It's becoming increasingly clear from studies that PFAS are toxic to humans.
There was that huge settlement by tobacco companies, despite the fact that tobacco is still legal, because they ignored clear science for years in order to make a profit.
As a chemist I am not sure it's even possible to create matching alternatives. The stronger links inside molecules and outside, the more they are "alien" to life and environment. While reducing their usage is a good strategy, an outright ban strips technology of useful materials.
I have no experience or advanced education in chemistry or material sciences. Do you think it's possible that a ban would spur innovation? I imagine our modern world has use cases that can't just disappear or settle for something not as effective.
Unfortunately probably not much - the relevant properties come from the element itself (fluorine) where there literally doesn't exist an alternative. It is possible that some alternatives will come to light, but there is a limited design space and it's not as if people haven't been looking for cheaper[0] and better solutions.
I'm curious as to the scope of this, and what end products are effected. A lot of the best-in-class greases (krytox) and orings (FFKM aka kalrez) rely heavily on fluoro-components. FFKM orings in particular are head and shoulders above everything else by ~100C worth of working temperature range. FKM 'Viton' orings are also incredibly popular and are widely used in automotive applications for temperature and oil resistance in addition to having major industrial uses.
[0]Fluorine is a real PITA to produce and make derivatives from - environmental issues aside functionally equivalent non-fluorine compounds would almost always be cheaper.
For consumers goods there are already many alternatives though. Ceramic nonstick and nanotech based water repellents come to mind. They are good enough for average people who aren't avid hikers or foodies.
I wouldn't be surprised if they started using other plastics in frying pans one day, meant to be used with some fancy temperature control induction system. Lots of stuff is slippery enough for food applications, you just need one that's safe at the temperature oil gets to.
I doubt my life would be affected much at all without any fluoropolymers in goods I directly own.
A ban does stimulate innovation, as the banning of CFs shows (See Montreal protocol), It spurs innovation for alternatives as there is good money in it and it also spurs innovation by end-users. It is a long and slow process though.
It's a question of priorities. Do you put human (and non-human) lifeforms' health and safety above technology, or not? If all you value is money and efficiency, then you end viewing things through the lens of what technology needs or wants, which is really just an extension of the economic policy of growth, growth, growth.
Before Teflon, people had pans, and they cleaned them. After teflon, people will have pans, and they will clean them.
It's not even a case like lithium batteries where my lifestyle would be significantly impacted if I had to go without.
To some degree prioritizing tech makes sense, if the tech is replacing some other thing that harms living beings more. I doubt an LED factory is environmentally perfect, but the alternative would probably be people using oil lamps in many places.
And some things are just too convenient to give up for 1 in a million possible risks, like WiFi.
But things that only benefit a small enthusiast community in nonessential ways with large costs to everyone else are just too much.
Can you name one essential application where PFAS is really necessary? Something where society would actually be substantially worse without it. I’m not talking about ski wax here.
Only reasonable example is AFFF fire fighting foam. But realistically the amount of liquid fuel fires that you have to fight in this world probably pale in comparison with the production volumes of unnecessary anti-stick cookware and gore-tex fabrics.
It will need an international effort, like the Montreal Protocol for banning CFCs and HFCs. Legislation need to ban the end-use as well as the production of these chemicals. I was involved with a study in the late 80s early 90s about the economic impact of the Montreal protocol in southern Africa and there was huge resistance against it from major car manufacturers (the biggest consumption were car air conditioners at the time, more that the use of CFC-11 in foam packaging). Dealers stock piled stocks and rogue manufactures continued producing for many years. It takes 5-10 years for alternatives to be developed and 20-30 years for wide adoption before they disappear all together.
Honestly, I try to buy 3M stuff more then existing alternatives, even with the higher price, largely cause 3M stuff tends to work a lot better and my time not dealing with crappy stuff is worth the cost. That won't change with the increased cost of safer alternatives. If anything, I'll buy more 3M products.
A few years back, 3M entered a near-$1 billion settlement with Minnesota for PFAS groundwater contamination. I suspect they have been working on a replacement since 2010 or not long after (when the legal action first started up) and, given the two year timeline to phase them out, I'm thinking they've got the replacement already and just need to get it to market.
I feel like in 10 years we will be reading panicky articles asking why the important production of PFAS and other synthetic organofluorines was offshored to an increasingly belligerent China.
No my argument is that just like America decided that rare earths mining was gross and messy, therefore offshoring all of these strategic material production to their geopolitical foe, the same thing is liable to happen to other components and chemicals. Note that PFAS has a lot of military applications.
Out of sight, out of mind right? Until you really need it.
"No my argument is that just like America decided that rare earths mining was gross and messy"
By saying "just like that" you are implying the decision was sudden and without reason. That's false.
You also are basically saying "I'll be sorry" because the military needs them but are there alternatives and is it essential?
Finally you used "gross" and "messy" as a manipulation technique. Messy is also used to describe anything from clothes left on the floor to in toys left out. Similar with "gross". You are trying to lump pollution with other benign activities to imply it isn't important.
And china can put them on products and send them to the USA anyways and mis-label them because almost nothing that is imported is actually checked for toxic chemicals/paints/etc.
some will continue to buy the old stuff elsewhere.
some, however few and small, will choose to buy the new, more expensive, less convenient, less performant stuff for a variety of reasons, once it exists at all.
And as time goes on, pressures and variables change.
Nothing happens without starting somewhere, and the first step of ecery change that ever happened can always be characterized as impractical, ineffective, irrational. And yet, countless such changes have happened anyway despite those perfectly reasonable sounding arguments.
The market signal on that using PFAS is imposes serious liabilities on a company is crystal clear. Even a giant like 3M is in rough waters because it cannot bear the liabilities.
It is common that large public companies deinvest some part of their business that cause bad PR. They usually sell a part of their business to a smaller/more anonymous/non-public company that is prepared to take the liabilities. In this case there is no indication of a possible sale of the 3M plants and a complete closure is the most likely scenario.
A second aspect is that many 3m-customers will be forced to reevaluate the decision to use PFAS. A good example is the usage in firefighting foam. Any producer of firefighting-foam is now fully aware that selling foam which is guaranteed to be released into the environment is a major liability.
There are even proposals to ban end-products that contain PFAS at the EU-level. Lobbying is not fully transparent, but I suspect 3M was one of the last strongholds that lobbied against such regulation.
Today, in many emerging markets environment law is weak or the enforcement is absent today. However, we see that all emerging markets are catching-up. In 5 to 10 years PFAS-producers will face a similar regulatory risk in some emerging markets.
The last element is that the market-share of 3M was huge. It is unlikely that competitors in emerging markets can fill that gap in 3 years.
In the short term, we will see some PFAS-producing companies in emerging markets making record profits because of this decision. However, I think it is unlikely that growth in emerging markets will come even close to filling this gap.
Overheating teflon pans will kill any pet birds in the house. It's also not great for humans (but details have been suppressed by large corporate campaigns)
But try to find a pan without teflon?
impossible to determine (almost)
I remember finding that hexclad alledgedly doesn't use teflon...
until I found out they do ... and they put it on the OUTSIDE of the pan too. ugh.
I've been to events/cafeterias with made-to-order omelettes and they all use small nonstick frying pans. (not refuting that most kitchens use stainless/etc, just a data point)
I don't agree with your reasoning. Most bad things aren't driven by supply and demand. If you jail a rapist, you aren't creating incentive for someone else to commit more rapes.
Also, performing a dirty industrial process in a country with strong environmental and workplace safety regulations is better than moving that process to a country with no protections.
This is just not true.
For many of the products there are no quick and dirty replacements from China and even if they would field a product it’s not just a 1:1 replacement. Qualification is complicated.
3M is gifting sales to it's competition to avoid future liabilities. Chinese companies are ready to pick up the slack.
3M is certainly developing safer alternatives, but until they are as good and as cheap, companies will buy their toxins elsewhere.