"A problem is a challenge with a least one workable solution. A dilemma is challenge with multiple choices, all equally bad."
If we eliminated all PFAS chemicals today, society would collapse. What's the point of eliminating PFAS chemicals to improve life expectancy if the very act of doing so would cause a famine?
Cleaning products. Water-resistant fabrics, such as rain jackets, umbrellas and tents. Grease-resistant paper. Nonstick cookware. Personal care products, like shampoo, dental floss, nail polish, and eye makeup. Stain-resistant coatings used on carpets, upholstery, and other fabrics.
Teflon is not rubber, as far as I know PTFE are petro- flourochemicals
Teflon is not rubber, but viton is fluorinated elastomer, and it's used everywhere as well.
Obbiosl computing would be radically altered as well but I'm not actually sure how much that would matter. Other than during the 90s, there just simply isn't much evidence for all this extra computing having a significant effect on growth.
Small amounts of hard to replace PFAS may be contained in devices such as antenna connectors for devices with WiFi (which cannot cause pollution unless destroyed in an inappropriate way).
Nevertheless PFAS are absolutely irreplaceable in various chemical equipment used in chemical analyses and in various fabrication processes, for instance in the fabrication of all semiconductor devices (because no other substances have comparable corrosion resistance). PFAS would also be very difficult to replace in a few other applications, e.g. vacuum seals and insulators for high-frequency applications (as no other materials have a similar combination of low dielectric constant and low losses).
In all such industrial applications the risks of pollution are much smaller than in mass-market applications. However, it is likely that after PFAS will hopefully no longer be used for mass-market applications their price for professional applications might increase a lot, causing some price increases in other products, e.g. electronic devices.
Viton is essential in modern engines. Basically anywhere you are in contact with gasoline, you need fluoroelastomer.
The entire chemicals industry - everything from medicine to energy to commodity chemicals - would collapse overnight if you took away teflon, viton, and PVDF. That's not hyperbole, it's used everywhere and there are no drop in alternatives. Silicone can fit the bill for some purposes, but it has nowhere the compatibility and longevity of viton. We have no real non-fluoronated alternative to teflon.
Oh no, less waterproofing, what will we ever do? Guess we should keep this cancer material around.
Oh no, we lose some classes of medications, guess we should just poison the Earth and generations to come because losing lipitor and prozac is just unacceptable.
I think this is a failure of imagination. The modern world, largely as we appreciate it today, existed in 1940 in Europe and the U.S. That is well before the widespread deployment of plastics. It was a world in which everyone, including the very rich did with a little less but still, a fairly high quality of life.
The only question that separates then from today, is whether we can scale that kind of material to the much larger global middle class.
Without PFAS there would be no production of modern electronic devices, so no computers and no mobile phones.
Nevertheless, unlike with PFAS used in things like clothes, kitchenware or packing, when PFAS are used in industrial processes or in electronic equipment (as high-frequency electrical insulators or in optical devices) it is much easier to avoid any pollution.
Uh, yup. That in no way contradicts what I said.
> Nevertheless, unlike with PFAS used in things like clothes, kitchenware or packing, when PFAS are used in industrial processes or in electronic equipment (as high-frequency electrical insulators or in optical devices) it is much easier to avoid any pollution.
Yeah, I'm not arguing for a ban. I'm arguing that from a historical perspective, civilization in no way hinges on plastics. They are ubiquitous so an abrupt end of plastics would obviously be very disruptive. But there was a pretty decent life to be had before they became so and I imagine we could figure out how to do that again.
Metal, wood, resins, etc were just far more ubiquitous, doing many of the jobs plastics do now. Lots of things were a bit more expensive because of this. But none the less, people lived pretty decent lives.