Those compostable fiber salad bowls are up to 25% PFAS.
The extruders that make your dried pasta and other machine parts that make other processed foods are coated with PFAS.
The paper that your sandwich is packed in is coated with PFAS.
The paper straw that replaced your plastic one, to save the turtles...is coated with PFAS. Did you really think a cardboard straw could hold up for more than a few seconds in a cup of liquid without some type of coating??
That's the food supply. Don't get me started on everything else. The device you are touching right now, your cell phone screen, is coated with PFAS.
Maybe everyone just assumes it's a relatively harmless wax coating like ye old Dixie cups and not some "forever chemical?"
Sources:
- https://bioplasticsnews.com/polylactic-acid-or-polylactide-p...
- http://tylertalkstrash.com/2013/06/02/can-you-compost-paper-...
https://www.fda.gov/food/chemical-contaminants-food/authoriz...
Do you have a source for that? I work with these and as far as I'm aware they are made with bagasse[1] and are not coated. The hard surface comes from pressure and heat.
Even in standard PE lined paper coffee cups the plastic is only 3-4& by weight, the rest being virgin paperboard.
Some of the board products, like the take-away containers and "plastic free" paper coffee cups use an aqueous dispersion coating. The manufacturers are generally quite cagey about what's in it because it's commercially sensitive, but they are all certified for direct food contact.
[1] It's a by-product of sugar cane.
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-rainwater-unsafe-due-chemicals...
> "What's changed is the guidelines. They've gone down millions of times since the early 2000s, because we've learned more about the toxicity of these substances."
unsafe in scare quotes because the article says environmental levels have been steady for the past 20 years and we aren't all dead yet... and lots of animals of course drink rainwater more directly out of bodies of water.
It's obviously not a good thing but I don't this means "we're doomed"... the article here cites a professor saying we just have to live with it, but it would be also interesting to see if anyone had leads on removal or any sort of mitigation/protection/neutralization schemes.
> Mercury, a naturally occurring element, is released into the environment through a variety of natural processes and human activities, including mining and coal-fired power plants. "Mercury is a global pollutant," said Weiss-Penzias. "What's emitted in China can affect the United States just as much as what's emitted in the United States."
> As atmospheric mercury rains down on oceans, it is converted by anaerobic bacteria in deep waters to methylmercury, the most toxic form of mercury. Upwelling brings some methylmercury to the surface, where it is released back into the atmosphere and carried by fog. At high concentrations, methylmercury can cause neurological damage, including memory loss and reduced motor coordination, and it can decrease the viability of offspring.
> "Fog is a stabilizing medium for methylmercury," said Weiss-Penzias. "Fog drifts inland and rains down in microdroplets, collecting on vegetation and dripping to the ground, where the slow process of bioaccumulation begins."
> In physical activation, wood, coal, or any regular carbon source is first heated up to 600 to 900 degrees Celsius (1000 to 1600 degrees Fahrenheit) in a chamber filled with inert gas. The inert gas ensures that the carbon doesn’t burn. Instead, as the carbon is heated, any impurities left on it are vaporized and removed, leaving nothing but pure carbon.
> Next, the pure carbon is exposed to oxygen or steam baths at even higher temperatures. This causes the carbon to fracture and form the fractal shapes with their extremely large total surface area.
> In chemical activation, raw carbon sources are mixed with an acid, base, or a salt. The mixture is then heated. Chemical activation takes less heat and less time to achieve the end result, which makes it the method of choice for large scale activation.
Doesn't look "easily" to me but that's the first link google showed me (https://www.thinkcrucial.com/blogs/blog/how-activated-charco...)
What bothers me though is that our environment is changing so much and so fast that homo sapiens could not emerge tomorrow like they did first. No way a primate without culture or science is going to regularly scramble a charcoal filter to drink water.
Burn hardwood to make charcoal. Cool overnight.
Powder the charcoal using a hammer or mortar and pestle.
Add calcium chloride solution.
Spread on a clean sheet or cheesecloth.
Bake at 250 F for 30 minutes or until all moisture is entirely gone.
Go ahead.
[0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/prescription-rheum...
I think it's a legitimate complaint about rainwater not being safe from PFAS.
i would think you would need to add back (salt, magnesium, calcium etc) whatever was lost or it would be pretty unhealthy. [0]
[0] https://healthyliving.azcentral.com/what-are-the-dangers-of-...
You get the vast majority of those salts just from the food you eat.