Forever chemicals are both harmful and beneficial to people. Harmful because they can cause different kinds of health problems, including cancer. Beneficial because they are used in several important products, such medical equipment. How can people deal with these two conflicting matters?
The technical term or the right name for forever chemicals are per/poly-fluoroalkyl substances or PFAS for short.
Here’s a definition from the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS):
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[Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances or] PFAS are a large, complex group of manufactured chemicals that are ingredients in various everyday products.
PFAS are synthetic chemicals - meaning, they’re man-made - that are used by people in assorted ways.
Because humans created forever chemicals, they don’t exist in nature.
And this piece of information is what exactly makes things complicated and disturbing.
For nature can’t do anything to “destroy” them.
In other words, forever chemicals don’t break down.
According to the Chemicals, Health and Environment Monitoring Trust (CHEM Trust) from the U.K., PFAS belong to a huge family of chemicals.
There are 9,000 of them.
People make PFAS because they benefit from them in several ways.
For example, PFAS help medical professionals, they protect firefighters, and they generate profits for businesses.
They are used to store foods and to keep the pizza you ordered online warm upon delivery.
Stacks of brown Costco pizza boxes on a flatbed trolley
Would you believe, forever chemicals also ensure hassle-free cooking - even plaque-free teeth?
Oh, yes, they do.
Yet, they’re bad?
Yes. They can be good; they can be bad.
PFAS can be both.
Forever chemicals can be detrimental to people’s health.
With that said, they still get used - and continuously produced.
Perhaps people believe the purpose PFAS serve outweighs the possible problems.
Or, it could be that people are not that fully aware about the harm forever chemicals can inflict on them.
While those who know (such as their manufacturers) never cared at all?
Yes! A resounding “Yes!”
Case in point: DuPont.
DuPont logo in red uppercase letters and elliptic wording effect against a white background
Wilmington-based American company DuPont (DuPont de Nemours, Inc.) is one of the biggest manufacturers of chemicals in the world.
It traces its beginnings when it was still E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, a 19th-century gunpowder factory in Wilmington, Delaware.
Eleuthere Irenee du Pont (1771-1834), a French chemist who resided in the U.S. starting in 1799, founded it in 1802.
Fast forward to 1946.
DuPont started selling a cookware that promises not to make food stick while being cooked on it.
Before making that cookware, DuPont first created forever chemicals that the company patented under the name “Teflon,” according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
This Teflon is the coating that makes DuPont’s cookware non-stick.
EWG noted that DuPont knew that Teflon, as one type of PFAS, was dangerous.
It was only in 2001 that it was discovered that DuPont would discard forever chemicals in West Virginia’s 981-mile-long Ohio River.
Fifteen different kinds of non-stick pans hanging from a kitchen rack along with ladles and strainers
As part of safeguarding public health and the environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched a program called Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).
The TRI program monitors activities that may involve the use of toxic chemicals, such as forever chemicals.
The EPA requires companies and government facilities in America to report to the TRI the PFAS they use.
As of January 2020, the EPA identified 160 PFAS that needed to be reported to the TRI.
It seems there’s no escaping from forever chemicals because they appear to be present in almost everything.
From foods to clothes to certain furniture and equipment, PFAS can be there.
What to do then?
Use alternatives, widen your options, update yourself about news or advisories concerning products that possibly contain PFAS, and so on.
As what scientist Katie Boronow told BuzzFeed News in 2019:
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It’s about choosing safer products.
Boronow, who earned her master’s degree in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard, discovered the PFAS in those dental floss products mentioned earlier.
As forever chemicals can outlive each one of us, let’s prolong our lives by avoiding them.