I've no idea how humanity hasn't managed to coordinate a global and immediate ban on these chemicals.
We really can't keep ourselves safe in the face of greed.
We really can't keep ourselves safe in the face of greed.
That is until we reach the brink.
Think of the Montreal Protocol from the 80's, a treaty for phasing out and eventually banning CFC/HCFC's in an effort to protect and hopefully restore the ozone layer. The protocol was in response to a dramatic seasonal depletion of the ozone layer over Antarctica in the 80's.
To me, from everything I read and hear about PFAS pollution, it would seem we are at the brink again in terms of those chemicals.
For example, containment of certain chemicals is pretty much impossible without Teflon.
Chlorosulfonic acid is one of them.
Also, if you're working with this chemical, it may be useful to make mixtures of PFOS, PFBS, etc in order to process other products and not have highly reactive situations (effectively 'explosions'). Obviously these should get out of the facility they are contained in to pollute waste water or anything else, and should be used in a way that they are recovered and recycled for use over and over - much like what the authors are suggesting to do here.
Of course it obviously doesn't work perfectly that way, and things like this also introduce pollution as well while cleaning the water. So of course this should only be applied where there is a chance that they can remove more PFAS than they introduce to the system, which may not be as universally applicable as we may think.
Most of the uses are not due to necessity, but because these dangerous chemicals are cheaper to produce and have higher margins. Or use of them has second order margin increases by allowing us to do other things cheaper.
Humanity is terrible at long term harm consideration. Unless the danger is immediate we can't really feel the urgency.
Look how we all live, as if we won't die. It's sadly the human condition, and that bug in our cognition may be our downfall.
What happens when the urgency comes and the damage we did can't be undone, regardless of our ingenuity?
As an example, my mother-in-law was using old non-stick pans. I had to tell about the FDA saying to throw out pans from before 2013. She was shocked. Then I had to explain the new pans still have similar concerns because they changed the formula which isn't that different and is just less tested. Her world view is that there's no way the government would allow anything harmful on the market. Yeah... ok...
Its reasonable to expect that people in government and the nedia are doing their job to inform the public.
I can't keep track of all the possible fuckups - like who here knows that Philadelphia police firebombed a house full of children in 1985 and noone was held accountable for their deaths?
If that happened today in your city, maybe you would be defunding the police.
It might be rational to expect that. But as you point out with your example, it's not actually reasonable to expect that. With the track record of screw ups that there are, it's more reasonable to assume that you have to do you're own research.
Like why should a naive person expect frying pans to be particularly suspicious and worth researching? How do you know to research issues with PTFA's, how would you know they even exist?
You have to trust that the rest of society is generally functional. This is what free market extremists do not understand, if all trust is gone, society collapses
If it's some new miracle product, like burnt on cheese not sticking to the pan, then it would be good to look into.
"You have to trust that the rest of society is generally functional."
And you would generally be right. In which case you should expect/accept that you might encounter products that fall outside of that general protection that put you at risk of harm.
As a member of society, you also have to think for yourself and question things. If 100% of society is just following everyone else, then nobody will discover, discuss, and address harmful situations.
"This is what free market extremists do not understand, if all trust is gone, society collapses"
Who said all trust is gone? Why are you bringing up extremists? Let's try to stay on-topic.
But are you questioning 100% of everything that's around you?
Do you do your own research on absolutely everything, from granola bars to plumbing of your toilet?
Ofcourse not, thats impossible.
So you have to prioritise, what is suspicious - maybe the financial system or why did Boeing MAX fall out of the sky.
A frying pan and a toilet is not gonna be at the top of that list.
Do you have a citation for that? The closest thing I can find from the FDA is https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/and... which says essentially the opposite:
> Non-stick cookware: PFAS may be used as a coating to make cookware non-stick.