America’s first high-volume ‘PFAS Annihilator’ is up and running in W. Michigan | Hacker News Reader

America’s first high-volume ‘PFAS Annihilator’ is up and running in W. Michigan

woodtv.com

300 pointsrmason168 comments

This is for landfills, not wastewater. "The facility takes in landfill leachate — essentially rainwater that filters through landfills, collecting chemicals and other contaminants. The raw leachate is pushed through three treatments that separates the PFAS compounds from the leachate. That concentrated material is then run through the “PFAS Annihilator,” which uses super-critical water oxidation, or SCWO, to break the extremely durable PFAS chemical bonds."

That's a far lower volume of water than comes through a sewerage disposal plant.

Here's a location which might use that.[1] This is Bedwell Bayfront Park. It's in Menlo Park, CA, near Facebook HQ, and it used to be a dump. That's a small sewerage disposal plant to deal with the leachate from the dump. There was also a small power plant with Diesel engines running off the methane from the dump, but it's no longer needed now that the dump has decayed.

The hills near Google HQ were a similar dump. Palo Alto also had one, at what's now Byxbee Park.

[1] https://earth.google.com/web/@37.49539607,-122.17552873,7.18...

It's less water, but wouldn't likely have a higher concentration of PFAS chemicals?

I couldn't say because I'm not a scientist or anything, but I don't understand the whataboutism; both / all sources should be handled, not just whichever source might be the biggest one at this time.

Incredible how much is a Bay Area is a superfund.

Yes, they went from poisoning the earth to poisoning our brains. There was a golden era in the middle that I will always remember fondly.

Not-so-fun fact: When superfund sites are cleaned up, there's no monitoring of what is done with the waste.

I wouldn't be surprised if the soil removed is then just sold to construction projects than need fill.

Often soil is washed with solvents to remove the Dense Non Aqueous Polar Liquids (DNAPL). These are chloro/fluoro - carbon liquids that settle down to the bottom of the water table and flow downhill over many years - deep in the ground, and finally emerge as a DNAPL 'spring' on a river bank. Many of the super fund sites are these. Here is the rabbit hole for them

https://www.google.com/search?q=DNAPL+super+fund&rlz=1C1CHBF...

https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-waste-management

there are a lot of regulations around what monitoring and remediation is required for superfund waste material.

they probably ship it on a train to poor states like Alabama (kinda like this: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/18/603718526...). Alabama doesn't give a fuck about the environment even though we have the most ecological diverse state in the country.

Probably ever major city for the past century. Heck I am in a small city and we have one.

Privatize the profits, socialize the costs (like toxic cleanup).

It's literally the American way.

> Privatize the profits, socialize the costs (like toxic cleanup).

Any business would love to do the same, if possible. Because that's the businesss: increase the profits.

Should it then be considered a "natural" way? And where should we draw a line (if any) on what's ok?

> Privatize the profits, socialize the costs (like toxic cleanup).

Of course you privatise the profits. Profits come after public taxes.

You mention taxes, that's part of the issue here.

In America we aren't particularly good market capitalists and bail out corporations (see 2008) when they fail and then generally never have any sort of similar process for when they succeed (see Big Energy companies right now). So we're all for market capitalism when things are going well...but not when they're going poorly.

The concept that seems to be missing/underused is "windfall tax".

Google tells me we tried it in 1980 under Carter and apparently did a horrendous job of it but the concept seems sound enough.

I'm not sure I understand. I'm saying one of the first things we do is take tax. So we always get taxes, but businesses don't always get profits. And by definition those profits are private, because the government has already taken money out.

Profits are what's left after doing things useful enough people voluntarily pay for them, paying others for their share in achieving that, and then the government taking the amount of money it decides it wants to take. How could the leftovers not be private?

You should see Houston

SCWO has been eyeballed for decades as a way to clear superfund sites. It’s used from time to time for chemical cleanup.

The hard part is building a ceramic that can handle heat, pressure and the corrosive salts produced during the reaction. Apparently it’s a Pick Two situation.

What does "superfund" mean? Non-American who has to leave his desk before having time to google here.

That’s a typo, it’s supposed to say “superfun.”

Just kidding, superfund is a big pool of money that was created to clean up toxic waste sites around the country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfund

The US EPA, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has a large fund of money -- literally the "super fund" -- set aside to address very large, high impact environmental disasters or issues.

In other words, a superfund site is an environmental disaster site targeted for cleanup by the FedGov.

To add to what others said, it can be any kind of pernicious pollution, including but not limited to: nuclear waste leakage, creosote from wood preservation, PCBs from power distribution equipment, toluenes (including TNT), aromatic hydrocarbons and other nasty solvents from industrial processes, to just people dumping bad batches of chemicals for years without getting caught, often once the money runs out, at which point there's no money to pay for cleanup and the company goes bankrupt.

So then the Feds have to step in and pay for it.

A number of these compounds have benzene rings in them, or nasty chlorine or fluorine bonds. Supercritical water, injected with oxygen, is literally liquid fire. You can fully oxidize anything that can be oxidized, and unlike incineration most of the product is in aqueous solution at the end where it can be filtered and collected instead of ejected into the atmosphere to become someone else's problem.

Pollution needs to be stopped at the source. I worry that this will be used by marking assholes, the same ones that invented the so called 'recycling' logo on plastic packaging, to keep on filling the planet with waste as usual. Hey look we don't need to ban anything, make lifestyle changes or assume chemicals are unsafe until proven otherwise because look there is this magic machine that can 'annihilate' our waste.

I put my plastic packaging in a recycling bin that is picked up by the municipality. Everything seems to come in plastic packaging but I try to avoid it where possible. I grow my own vegetables. They like to tell me I'm doing the right thing but I know it all ends up in some poorer country. The consumer doesn't really have any sway at the bottom of the cliff. Ban at the source.

> Ban at the source.

I think we need a stricter regulatory mechanism for proving the safety of products that can pose a substantial risk to health or the environment, akin to that of the FDA.

Right now, it seems like you can put something relatively unproven on the market, and by the time we realize it’s unsafe, everyone has become dependent on it.

In response, companies cook up an analog that does the same thing, and the market switches to that.

Eventually, we discover that the analog suffers from very similar issues, and the entire process starts over again.

The bans should (and could) extend to classes of compounds, instead of just some exact compound. They manage to do it with psychedelics, that they haven't with these problematic compounds is probably because industry has a larger sway on legislators than drug enthusiasts.

Yes.

I recommend watching The Poison Squad documentary which digs into the reasons the FDA was formed in the first place. The meat packing industry used to sell a lot of spoiled food containing chemicals unsafe for human health.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuukM9OY-is

Strong arguments, ideally legislation would ensure plastics break down and if not, some sort of breakdown cost incorporated into the goods. But that stifles industry and innovation. Maybe we can have incentives for packaging that breaks down, I believe the technology exists at this point in time.

> But that stifles industry and innovation

Subsidies are what stifles innovation.

I _think_ you are not being sarcastic, but apologies if I am misunderstanding. Allowing industry to externalize costs does not promote innovation. It does the opposite, as offloading those costs to others is effectively subsidizing the behaviour.

Yes on the sarcasm, you bring up a great point. True "innovation" would take into account the optimal outcome, but sometimes that has to be legislated in. As in many industries where regulation improves outcomes for society.

Incentives are good but you still have to watch out for greenwashing lies. If you take a look at carbon credits for instance there is an incentive to plant trees but what happens in reality is quite different; the industry is full of frauds such as not planting out forests that are on someones books. Sure you can use cardboard for a a lot of things but liquids and pressurized goods like soda are difficult. I don't think there is a way to have a biodegradable coke bottle. We need go to standard sizes of glass or s/s packaging. It will require infrastructure and it will cost some money which of course the companies won't like.

> break down

If there exists a use of "«break down»" intended to mean "biodegrade", the term remains too close to "crumble".

You would not eat a bottle, but having tiny chunks of plastic around makes "you eat 5 grams of plastic - one credit card - per <period>" fully credible (i.e. you want it to stay big to stay out of the body - you want materials not to shed themselves around). Crumbling plastic just creates microplastic. Which is relevant, because some actors seem to have confused the goals - transforming vs pulverizing.

(See e.g. https://theconversation.com/were-all-ingesting-microplastics... ; https://theconversation.com/youre-eating-microplastics-in-wa... )

Break down means "to biodegrade" in American English, among other meanings

In the case of plastic, you have a chemical issue. The linguistic issue - the ambiguity and the "poor choice", that plastic will more easily "break down" in chunks, not in de-structured carbon etc. -, can point to that.

We are already seeing some material variations that are strongly ineffective for their intended purpose, and that will contribute more to the diffusion of microplastic instead of (re-)cycling.

This generation's recycling logo seems to be eco-friendly materials.

It's a hard one because cardboard containers and wooden utensils are objectively better. But clearly also serve the interests of reducing political will for legislation against plastics.

A lot of cardboard containers are lined with plastic, and come with plastic lids. So while it's arguably less plastic, it's still too much plastic...

We bought some eco "bamboo" plates for our toddler because he keeps breaking ceramic plates. But they just mix some bamboo fibres into the plastic. It does feel a bit nicer to touch than normal plastic, but I'm not sure how it is more eco-friendly. It's still plastic that's going to end up in a dump.

(That being said, I don't worry too much about the material of something that gets years of use)

You can use shellac-finished wooden plates and bowls. Biodegradable, natural, doesn’t break, lightweight, carbon-neutral material.

Does my head in seeing people put eco plant based labels on disposable ldpe packaging.

It’s still the same plastic even if you change the feedstock.

Logos. Plural. At least in the UK.

Having just looked at boxes in my kitchen I counted 5 different logos that look the same at first glance, except they're not. 3 arrows with a number in the middle, one circular arrow, 3 arrows with no number, and they're the ones I remember.

I'd like to thank the shoe company Wolverine for dumping so much of an untested chemical into the watershed that my town had to push for someone to figure out if it was actually bad for humans. Grand Rapids seems to be a magnet for new tap water inventions, we were also one of the first to put fluoride in our drinking supply.

I refuse to buy Wolverine shoes, even though I’m in Grand Rapids and they’re a local company.

I'll be the odd person out and say I think the PFA danger is being mis-applied.

Should we use PFAs in underwear, handsoap, women's fashionware, mens hair products, sweaters, holiday decorations, etc? Absolutely not. These items are seasonable and disposable.

Is it ok to use PFAs in outdoor wear, long term infrastructure, and other things designed to have a lifespan of 10-20 years? Yeah probably; a huge net positive for the environment is reduce consumption.

Building fewer things that last longer is a good thing. I have no idea how we would manage this, I don't have all the answers. Obviously PFAs have no place in Fast Fashion, which by itself without PFAs is extraordinarily hard on the environment (lookup textile waste).

The real problem is PFA usage is being completed abused. I think PFAs are needed when durability actually matters, as it's a good tradeoff.

This is my opinion, I'm sure people will disagree.

It seems to me like the biggest concern (at least this is the case for me (a layman) and my girlfriend (a PhD candidate studying Chemical Biology)) for us is that building infrastructure that uses PFA-based materials increases the chances of them ending up in water or food.

For example, I used to drink tons of unflavored, purified carbonated water (aka "Seltzer Water"). I thought this is likely not very unhealthy since it's literally just pure water + carbon dioxide dissolved in it. It made me drink tons of more water (we're talking significantly more water than I would normally drink) so I thought it's a net benefit. But some evidence came out [1] that common seltzer brands have detectable amount of PFA in them. This may be because (1) PFAs are in water sources, (2) PFAs are in the plumbing systems of these companies' factories, (3) something else. Since we don't know how much PFA is too much, we've been a lot more meek about drinking seltzer water. To be honest, I still do drink it, but a lot less so. I mostly drink tap water, and in the area I live in (Boston, MA), there is no PFA detection, or it's very low.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pfas-chemicals-in-sparkling-wat...

Aside from the PFA situation, it's possible to turn your tap water in to selzer water (probably generating less waste and saving money) with a SodaStream or similar.

Yes, and get an RO system to remove PFAS first

SodaStream is much better for the environment, but it’s also really not the same thing.

I was so disappointed when many of our local restaurants stopped serving bottles of San Pellegrino, and instead switched to whatever the commercial food service equivalent of a SodaStream is.

This project [1] is about replicating various mineral waters at home. They have a spreadsheet with chemical analysis of many different bottled waters, and a calculator where you can get your own tap water analyzed and calculate what to add to go from your tap water to Pellegrino, or your preferred mineral water. I haven't tried it yet, but as soon as we get our home carbonation system up and running, am looking forward to it.

[1] https://khymos.org/2012/01/04/mineral-waters-a-la-carte/

If an approximate match is good enough, you can use "Burton salts". It's a blend of salts sold at homebrewing suppliers, matching the mineral content of water from Burton upon Trent, which is famously good for brewing hoppy ales, and which tastes very similar to San Pellegrino.

You can get a zip hydrotap that dispenses carbonated water from a standard built-in tap.

It’s “real” carbonated water and is also chilled. It works quite well.

Further, it has standard tank hookup so you can attach a huge co2 tank if you prefer. We only have to change it out yearly.

The tap water here in Barcelona contains so much chlorine that it smells like a swimming pool after I shower lol. No way I'm drinking that even filtered.

A semi-decent under-sink reverse osmosis system can remove the vast majority of chlorine from drinking water. If it's as bad as you say, I highly recommend the investment!

Scam. While you are at it any timeshare you can also recommend? Or get rich quick from bitcoin scheme?

RO works, but like any solution there are pros and cons

I'm aware it wastes an unfortunate amount of drinkable water. I'm also aware it filters things that might be beneficial, fluoride being one of them. I regret the water usage but I feel it a better alternative to poor health or bottled water, and I use high-fluoride toothpaste to compensate.

Are there other cons I'm not aware of?

energy consumption

My RO system works purely on water pressure and requires no electricity. Do you mean the increased pressure causes increased power consumption?

Water Pressure is a form of potential energy, like rolling a ball up a hill. The RO system is high pressure on the raw side and low pressure on the clean side - the difference in pressure is the consumed energy.

Right that makes sense, but if that’s a serious drain of energy then one would imagine clogged pipes cause dramatically more waste?

Seems like small potatoes compared to having clean drinking water.

Fair point. At utility scale the power requirement is non-trivial. Like anything, there's more than one way to do it, and there's pros and cons to everything. It's up to the owner to decide what they're comfortable with :)

I understand that the difference in pressure at the inlet and outlet of the RO system indicates that work was done moving the water through the system, but the RO system is there to fill a glass of water - it's not clear to me why the outlet pressure is relevant.

Are you saying that the amount of energy it takes to deliver a given volume of water, varies based on the resistance at the outlet?

This poster is in Europe - like most of the rest of the world, they don't have to worry about fluoride removal from water because it's not there in the first place.

Most toothpastes make my teeth sensitive. Interestingly, one of the few that doesn't is fluoride-free. There's been no negative difference in the health of my teeth over the last several years of using that. My experience - fluoride overhyped, especially if you have an electric toothbrush.

You possibly have healthy enamel. I do not - and fluoride has been shown in many studies to prevent tooth decay.

It’s also a heavy metal, so if you don’t have problems with tooth decay I’d say you have nothing to worry about :)

Fluoride isn't a metal!

I'm from Europe and I got several fluoride treatments as a child, with fluoride gel applied for a few minutes. I'm nearly 50 now and I ony had a couple cavities :) So it seems to work. And it's in some toothpastes too. It doesn't have to be in the water.

Counter top ro systems like aqua tru waste very little water, and you get to keep the waste water, eg to water plants

As grumby said, the energy consumption. Power is consumed as the water is forced through the membrane. As the membrane blinded off, more energy is required for the same amount of water.

Filters are very effective at removing chlorine.

Activated carbon filters will adsorb all contaminants including chlorine. Eventually the adsorption potential is consumed and you have to replace the filter. It's cheap and gold-standard effective.

Water utilities will all be moving to activated carbon filtration as emerging contaminants are better understood and regulations catch up.

Get a tank of CO2 and make your own.

Sadly, you can’t replicate San Pellegrino using tap water and a co2 tank.

You can come close, using distilled water and some powdered minerals that are available at homebrewing supply stores:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/san-pellegrino-clone.56...

finally dehydrated luxury water

See my comment upthread… zip hydrotap. It’s closer to that German brand that starts with a ‘g’ but every bit as “real” as San pelligrino

You mean Gerolsteiner? Also, what Hydrotap machine are you referring to specifically? Zip HydroTap G5 CS? Just having this discussion with my wife and am researching options. Thanks!

I am in the US ... we have a "HydroTap Arc BCS":

https://us.zipwater.com/hydrotap-product-range/hydrotap-arc-...

A lot of people are complaining about SodaStream et al due to mineral content but my complaint is actually different! I prefer purified water anyway (I don't need the minerals for taste, tap water is good enough). I have a soda maker at home (it's not gas-based SodaStream-like, it creates CO2 through baking soda and citric acid). However, these do not carbonate water as much as Polar or Canada Dry seltzer waters. I like it when my water is maximally carbonated, it almost burns my tongue. Half-carbonated water tastes gross, it's like someone opened a can of seltzer and let it sit for 30 mins...

I think generally solutions should be applied in proportion to

1. The relative harm of the type of PFA to human and animal health 2. The longevity of that PFA in the environment 3. The removal/price ratio for any technique getting rid of that PFA 4. How likely that PFA in the environment will infiltrate water supplies, food supplies, the biosphere

> 2. The longevity of that PFA in the environment

They're the "forever" chemicals. Like mercury in tuna fish.

PFAS are handy, but there are alternatives. The potential for harm is documented, and developed nations have a duty to consider protecting their populations from their effects.

PTFE, the end product, is safe for general use. PFOA/PFOS were used in its manufacture, but does not need to be present in the final product or dumped unprocessed into the wastewater or landfill. It's only in our environment due to cost-savings reasons.

PTFE isn't the only end-product. There are a lot of products that use PFAS directly for water resistance and other properties. Even some personal care products like dental floss, shampoos, etc.

I did not realize this. That seems rather unnecessary.

The dental floss you're talking about is PTFE and not PFAS.

Nope: https://www.ehn.org/pfas-floss-2658203711.html

PFAS is a class of chemicals that includes both the safe/stable PTFE and cancer-causing ones like PFOA, PFOS, and new ones

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per-_and_polyfluoroalkyl_subst...

Great fire retardant, heavily used in soft foam furniture like sofas.

Also great for preventing stains, used on carpets.

Lots of attractive applications of these chemicals and that's why they're so pervasive

It’s in our environment because it was used to fight fires at munition depots.

It's in fire fighting foams at airports. Every military air base has a ground plume beneath it.

Correct. Which is, incidentally, why most military air bases are superfund sites.

This is a reasonable take.

I grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan (worse actually, Rockford Mi, the wolverine HQ) and only moved away from the state at age 23 for work. (I grew up on well water in Kent county.) I was diagnosed with leukemia at 29, no family history, and it’s very likely it was due to PFAS exposure. My treatment cost my insurance > $1M and 9 months on long term disability. If I wasn’t a software engineer, I’d be dead most likely.

I have no recourse, obviously.

I don’t think it’s a minor issue.

It wouldn't take much to test well water in Kent County. You could literally go to any gas station and pull a sample with with the owner's permission. At least that may give you some definitive answers.

Sorry to hear your diagnosis :(

There’s a map that shows I lived near a hotspot. 10 mile road. I’m not sure testing is worth it the cost, even if it shows the water is contaminated, I don’t live there anymore, and I’d still have no recourse. There’s no possible outcome that helps me.

Is there evidence you were exposed to high concentrations of PFAS and that they cause leukemia? If it was caused by pollution it's more likely to be something else.

Shoulda coulda woulda......governments are incapable of properly regulating due to self interests

Plastic products tend to be both the cheapest and longest lasting. Kinda an unfortunate combo.

Since there is yet to be a single positive top-level comment (at the time I’m posting), I’ll make one. This is effing amazing. I am so happy to hear this. It is the best news I’ve read in a month. Maybe in several.

I think there is a lot to be said for humanity pushing ahead with innovation and then figuring out how to deal with the side effects afterward.

Look at fire. This was probably one of humanity's first innovations. It is extremely destructive and I think we are just now getting handle on fire safety, but I think the benefits have outweighed the harms.

Same with agriculture. Again, lot of bad side effects, but overall better for humanity as it has freed up a significant number of people to be able to do other stuff besides just think about where their next meal is coming from.

Anesthesia, electricity, antibiotics, birth control, have all followed this pattern.

I'd rather not have my life shortened, or have to live with weird sicknesses, or have wildlife / ecosystems harmed due to us blacklisting when we could be whitelisting substances. I'm sure some of these chemicals let us do very cool things, but when the innovation in question is something like water-resistant clothing, can we please just fucking prove the chemicals are safe first.

There's no way to opt out of any of this, and the potential for harm extends well beyond what we've seen so far.

How do you prove a chemical safe?

You test it for various common and uncommon cases. Like how does it influence fruit fly fertility if the concentration is above x%.

But nothing is 100% sure in the real world, if that was your point, but for practical matters we can get close enough, if we want to. But I know that quite some tests are not being done, because the results would not be welcome.

There is no ethical way to do control tests on humans. Proof is not in the realm of biology, risk management is.

Humans don't seem to mind considering how many people buy these jackets either way.

I'm sure enough volunteers could be found.

The burden of "figuring out how to deal with the side effects" is placed on a subset of the population who didn't consent to it and often lacks the wherewithal to fight it, so this is an awful take.

The amount of technophile sociopaths on this website is incredibly alarming. I can see why tech people are so hated by the general public.

And it's made worse by the fact that you're not supposed to call it out, because that wouldn't be "assuming good faith" (which is a noble goal, but is too often used to let low-key malicious takes slide). You're expected to pretend they're respectable perspectives and not absolutely insane opinions that deserve to be ridiculed.

I don’t think this logic can be applied uniformly across areas of progress, nor should it be assumed to remain true over time (if it ever was).

No doubt some developments were well worth their initial risk, but other developments have been demonstrably the opposite.

As the environment gets more critically out of whack, the weight of that risk increases as does the risk itself.

And as time goes on, the increasing complexity of the developments we call “progress” means we’re less and less likely to understand their impact.

Hopefully this will be counteracted by better and better models of the world.

It’s kind of a slippery slope argument, but benefits in agriculture or other very helpful technology is a lot different compared to applications like making your floss easier to glide between teeth or your coat repel water.

We don't follow that pattern with 3 of your 4 examples. The FDA regulates and approves anesthetics, antibiotics, and birth control drugs. We required new drug makers to prove both safety and efficacy of their medication before they are approved for use on the general population.

I think I think we should do the same thing for industrial chemicals/additives or anything that gets released into the environment from an industrial/commercial process.

You don't get to poison the town then say "oops how could we have known better".

The development of anesthesia predates the FDA. Look at how Morton, Liston, and others were developing and using anesthesia for surgery without regulatory oversight. Regulation came later.

Antibiotics were developed and saw use without FDA oversight. I don't think Penicillin ever underwent the clinical trials that drugs do now. Only after issues surfaced, were they regulated more strictly.

Am I the only one uneasy about the output being sent to the municipal water supply?

If this system has any flaws and/or mishaps allowing landfill leachate toxins to reach the output stage, this loop delivers them directly to the water supply.

Wouldn't it be better to send the output back where it came from for the natural process to resume? At least that way if your system is messing up, you're probably not making things worse for people than if you did nothing at all.

I'm sure it's going to waste water treatment facilities, so not directly to the water supply (but maybe released quite near water supply intakes). There will be monitoring and so on going on for that to happen.

It wouldn't be all that surprising if their agreement with the water treatment facilities said they had to test very regularly. Like they could be required to hold the water and test the batch for PFAS before releasing any of it.

> Like they could be required to hold the water and test the batch for PFAS before releasing any of it.

But PFAS aren't the only thing of concern in landfill leachate, and it wouldn't otherwise be normal for wastewater treatment facilities to be drawing water directly from a landfill, not AIUI.

This treatment facility is focused on PFAS, but landfills are toxic places for far more reasons than PFAS.

They must have been doing something with it before.

Where do you think the water you're drinking now comes from?

The ground under my front yard.

Mine comes predominantly from a large lake up in the mountains, which itself gets filled from the sky. There are undoubtedly some pollutants, but they are very diluted and easy to treat.

Pulling water directly from under a landfill definitely ups the risk that treatment might miss something.

To be clear, almost no cities recycle their wastewater back into drinking water. In modern times, storm water is generally directed into wastewater and that has many of the same nasty chemicals you find in landfill leachate.

I’m not sure what you’re suggesting even. If you dump all the water back on the landfill, most of it is just going to flow straight back through. You can’t do this. The liquid is removed because if you let too much liquid build up, the leachate will create too much pressure and break the membrane and leak into the groundwater.

In most landfills, the accepted process is wastewater treatment followed by release into rivers.

for my fellow europeans: https://archive.is/R0xpY

EPA is working to regulate levels of PFAS discharge from landfills.

https://www.epa.gov/eg/landfills-effluent-guidelines#new-rul...

This is wonderful to see! I grew up around that area; in fact, there was one of the Wolverine Worldwide dumping sites found quite close to my house. This was a huge concern for my parents when the PFAS contamination was found, especially since my brothers and I were quite young and we drank well water. I hope they continue to remove these chemicals and restore the area!

These PFA's leach out for a long time, but the amount decreases asymptotically. These PFA's are not very soluble in water - there are solvents in which PFA's are much more soluble that at the same time are not water soluble and are also safe. By taking the leached water and mixing, say 100 gallons of water with one gallon of this safe solvent and agitating it well, you can get most of the PFA in the 100 gallons now concentrated in the one gallon of the safe solvent. The exact ratio of that concentration depends on the 'partition coefficient' (PC) if the PC is 100, after mixing and settling the two liquids separate, with that PC. So about ~~99% of the PFA is in that one gallon of solvent. A little solvent also dissolves in the water. This can be repeated and also run in 'counter current' flow to optimise the separation. AFter an experimental series, with various solvents and PFA's the best process is found. If the PFA is a solid and not volatile, the solvent can be boiled off in a vacuum = pure PFA = destroy with SCWO. Some PFA's might steam distil or boil = mixed solvent and PFA = destroy with SCWO. Water in a sealed space gets hotter and hotter as you heat it. If the space is strong, you can heat water to the critical point = the temperature/pressure where it is no longer water but is totally vapor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_point_(thermodynamics... In this regime oxidizers, like ozone or O2 can be added and in those conditions almost all organics and oxidised to water, CO2. Fluorine bonds are broken and fluorine ions result and the same with most other inorganics, chlorides, bromides etc. This is at 705 degrees F and 3200 PSI = steam that can set stuff on fire = why HP boilers are so risky and so regulated. The company does not say much about their process, but the term SCWO says it all.

The good thing is you can concentrate the PFAS down to a small volume by the concentration = a small processor can safely destroy the PFAS that issue in dilute amounts in a large volume. You can even make small low pressure concentrators at every land fill and ship the extracted concentrate to a small number of central places for oxidation - which I thing will end up being the functional process.

West Michigan is a really awesome area. It’s unfortunate it only makes the news for PFAS but at least this time it’s good news!

Funnily (or not so funnily) I searched “superfund site Rockford” expecting to find info on the Wolverine contamination. Little did I realize groundwater contamination is so rampant that it returned results for Rockford, IL as well.

Also, fuck Wolverine. They need to do more. As I understand it they have weaseled out of some responsibility by claiming they cant afford it.

Shhhh don’t tell the people from California. I like my cheap housing prices coupled with a west coast salary.

Too late. And it's not just California. One possible element of my retirement plan is to dump my house in the PNW (merely $1M, not exactly California levels, but still) and buy something in the midwest about a third of the price on about 10 times the land.

Don't we need to stop using PFAS all together for this stuff to make a difference?

When it comes to the environment, everything helps. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good.

But this is wasting electricity and other resources for a somewhat pointless cause as PFAS production will outpace this. To me, that's a net negative to the environment without any real gain?

Why can't we stop producing PFAS?

If PFAS in the environment is bad, why is reducing the taste at which PFAS accumulates in the environment pointless?

As long as spending electricity and other resources on PFAS destruction doesn't inadvertently cause even more PFAS production than it prevents, then this concept seems to make sense at some level. That doesn't mean it's ideal, but we're going to need this anyways even if PFAS winds up being fully phased out.

> But this is wasting electricity and other resources for a somewhat pointless cause as PFAS production will outpace this. To me, that's a net negative to the environment without any real gain?

Insufficient != pointless. What if we made a bunch more of these and offset the electrical consumption by banning utterly useless and wasteful cryptocurrencies? That sounds like an environmental win/win.

> Why can't we stop producing PFAS?

Good question, let's do that too.

The world is full of nasty stuff I dont want to drink. Filters are good.

Increasing production without filtration = increasing contamination in drinking water.

Increasing production + filters? well, if the filters are 100% effective, then my water is clean.

There are other creatures that live in/on/near the water or require water for survival, and they don't have filters. Vegetables grown with contaminated water don't have filters either. There are numerous ways you can ingest that contaminated water besides drinking it directly.

You are part of an ecosystem, and you need that ecosystem to function in order to stay alive. This applies to all humans, not just you.

>well, if the filters are 100% effective, then my water is clean

Translation: "fuck you, got mine"

> Why can't we stop producing PFAS?

PFAS are pretty useful chemicals.

So was Agent Orange.

Blood levels where higher in the US 20 years ago, the decline is due to a phase out of production.

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/health-effects/us-population....

I guess the compounds in landfill effluent can be coming from things manufactured overseas, but collecting and destroying them is a good way to avoid releasing them into the environment or having to deal with them later.

Probably, but even if we do that it's still good to have technology to deal with the PFAS already out there.

Apparently 3M has announced that they're going to stop making PFAS by the end of 2025. So, that's progress I guess even if it's happening a lot slower than it probably should.

That actually sounds pretty fast. Not to be a downer or anything, but I have a nagging feeling that maybe they will stop making PFAS but the replacement will be a very similar, substitute compound that may or may not have the same effects. We just don’t know because it hasn’t been studied. In other words, a very similar situation to the BPA-free reusable water bottles, which sound nice, but might still have a harmful substitute.

This already happened with C8 -> C6 which bioaccumulates in water rather than in the physical form. Fundamentally, making something immune to water requires also making it immune to the normal way that things break down in the environment. So the performance qualities are really the thing we may need to phase out, but there are applications (e.g. in surgery instruments) that are more or less essential.

Well, we need to stop using PFAS in things like drinking straws and footgear.

However, we still need PFAS for certain things like semiconductor manufacturing. The systems are closed, but neverthless you still need some.

The problem is, we started putting pfas in drink straws because the old normal plastic (PET?) Straws got banned in Europe. The new paper ones have to be coated in pfas to stop them from soaking.

Of course banning straws would work too but they are extremely useful especially if you have sensitive teeth.

It's always seemed unfortunate that they're going after high-volume but mostly inert and harmless plastics like PE/PP/PET in bans, causing them to be replaced by alternative materials which need to be augmented with much worse substances.

What was wrong with the old method of using waxed paper? Non-toxic and waterproof. They did of course eventually go soggy at the ends but it's somewhat incredible that we go for known toxic coatings instead of previously-used non-toxic alternatives.

> The end result is clean water and salts, usually sodium or potassium.

So, sodium and potassium fluoride? It's weird that they're not saying outright where the fluorine is going. That's kind of important.

Good to see, however such technologies need to operate along side improved regulations.

1) Regulate, 2) Issue strong penalties, 3) Reposes ownership to a publicly owned and governed entity before resuming compliant operations.

We need to embrace a culture of accepting that some businesses _should_ fail. If corporations cannot adapt to modern environmental standards - they should not be operating.

"This content is not available in your country/region."

Really? What content do you have, WoodTV.com, that needs to be region locked?

Tracking cookies? I think that is the usual reason in modern web. Happen to be in location where you are not sure of if what you are doing is legal, just block them.

https://archive.is/R0xpY

Compare to ozone, how effective SCWO is ?

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