Pollution cleanup method destroys toxic “forever chemicals”

This sounds like a self-solving problem: pollutants sinking deep, well past water table, near-impossible to get at, never to be seen again (and presumably recycled by Earth's geology in a hundred thousand years). What am I missing?

(Also, takeout containers.)

In Sweden we call “sale” a “realization”, meaning consumers pay the true cost without markup. I always say we’re realizing the wrong way - cost should quadruple for every H&M item we buy, and the money should go to enforcement of clean production.

Hard sell, but eventually a must; cut profit and increase price at the same time.

The only other issue I see is that I have to reapply the coating about once a year, or after I machine-wash the jacket.

Overall these are very minor inconveniences. I wonder if anyone really needs the performance gains of these chemicals - you only see the advantage in really bad weather conditions over long periods of time. How many people are doing day-long hikes in pouring rain?

Yes, but they're more expensive to manufacture. Capitalism is looking to min/max these things, as are consumers since people can't afford wool / waxed materials anymore - also because they can't find them anymore, except at specialist and smaller venues.

We tried shopping for new winter coats the other day, most of what we found was plastic or some cotton. The more expensive stuff we found was more polyester, but at 6x the price. There was no shop (on the high street) that sold anything woolen or cotton.

It's a way of not putting all the eggs in one basket.

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> The patent-pending process infuses contaminated water with hydrogen, then blasts the water with high-energy, short-wavelength ultraviolet light. The hydrogen polarizes water molecules to make them more reactive, while the light catalyzes chemical reactions that destroy the pollutants, known as PFAS or poly- and per-fluoroalkyl substances.

Oh. That does not sound like a process that I want happening inside my cells. So, yeah, what you said. No progress toward getting it out of people.

Forever chemicals are indeed forever, in the environment, because there are virtually no natural processes that break them down on human timescales. Many plastics similarly do not degrade in the environment on human scales.

It’s incumbent upon you, as a lay person, to understand that science isn’t categorical in nature. When scientists use phrases like “forever,” they’re making statements relative to the domain of interest.

What we know changes.

* We have found enzymes that degrade PET, which is highly recyclable anyway. There are no hints at all that we would be able to first find enzymes for the hundreds of other plastics, and then manufacture and release enough into the environment to make a difference.

* The seriousness of climate change has been communicated in every single way across the spectrum of possible approaches. Our civilization is simply not equipped to handle a problem of this magnitude. We are past the point of no return, and if you actually looked into our energy usage and what it would take to solve this with technology, you would come to the same conclusion. But feel free to keep denying it, makes no difference in the end.

Of course, it's a force that also has to compete with population increase.

I would hope people can understand that reporting is based on current knowledge and is subject to change in the future - especially in science.

You can't go back the way you came, reducing emissions again, even bringing the global temperature back down won't recreate the glaciers. Even if you get the temperature much lower, glaciers may not form at the same location again

We'll stil get it from food that uses untreated water to grow, and the wider environment still suffers, but it remains a big step.

Anyway, probably not, since the process requires hydrogen. I think if you're not near a water mains, other means of water purification will be a bit more important.