We really need a concept of scale when it comes to branding a chemical "toxic". Small amounts for particular purposes are not harmful. Being everywhere may cause some problems.
And that's part of the problem with PFAS, because you can release them in tiny fractions (not toxic at this scale) but they end up concentrating in the food chain and people are still being harmed in the end.
We know PFAS levels in the environment can only increase in practice due to their very low degradation rate (hence their “forever chemicals” nickname). So even if these harmful levels aren't being reached now, they will definitely be at some point of we keep pouring them out there. And by that time it would be too late.
You don't wait for someone to be harm before intervening when the harm is likely.
There are already plenty (literally hundreds) of places where the amount accumulated in the environment already exceeds safe limits (mostly in the immediate vicinity of chemical plants processing them, or fire departments which use them extensively).
You said you cared about science in the first message but you obviously don't.
The government: There's almost no teflon in the ground, so that's good.
The market: Hold my beer.
Some of the feedstock chemicals used to produce PTFE are likely toxic. The most concerning of these is perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA); this is one of the chemicals that the EPA proposal applies to. Most manufacturers of PTFE have already voluntarily phased out the use of PFOA. There is some debate about whether the replacement feedstock chemicals are meaningfully less toxic. These feedstock chemicals can - and should - be prevented from ever entering the environment, which would largely nullify concerns about their toxicity.
The quality of the pan also makes a difference; cheap ones often use very thin metal that doesn't spread the heat well, resulting in hot spots.
I recommend using an IR thermometer to learn how your personal cooking setup behaves.
Unfortunately, most stoves do no adequately control temperature, and it’s easy to reach that temperature by accident.
You'd think we'd finally have gotten far enough in education to not be so easily carrot and sticked. But damn. People coming out of the woodwork in this thread to defend literal world contamination.
Note that this has not historically been the case, see for example all those superfund sites in SV.
There's no comment from a user called “tehjoker” nor any comments talking about total bans, in this thread.
Also, in another, different, threat, “tehjoker” is also not proposing a total ban, you're reading his comment wrong.
> For what it's worth, depending on the harms, a sudden total ban is not out of the question as being beneficial to humanity as a whole. It would just be disruptive to enterprise, boo hoo. We don't need to always treat bad actors with kid gloves.
Hardly the extremism you're implying.
They are arguing that even total bans should not be dismissed by default, and that there can exist situations “depending on the harms” that justifies a total ban.
And they did not say that in a vacuum, but as an answer to another comment that straight out dismissed total ban as an option.
This comment is in no way advocating for a total ban of PFAS in particular.
And they aren't even talking specifically about PFAS in this comment in the first place! They're answering, in the abstract, to a commenter that argues against total bans as a matter of principle. All they're saying is “I disagree that we should always dismiss the option of a total ban, there are situations where it is justified”. This isn't a proposal for a total ban of PFAS in any way.
>For what it's worth, depending on the harms, a sudden total ban is not out of the question as being beneficial to humanity as a whole.
Total ban should be considered against harms.
>It would just be disruptive to enterprise, boo hoo.
Harms are trivial because they are to enterprise.
>We don't need to always treat bad actors with kid gloves.
Implying that enterprises are bad actors, and deserve more harms.
But they said nothing about PFAS, and made no proposal to ban them.
Again, this is an abstract statement that says “stop shying away from punishing those bastards when they kill people”, not a proposal to ban PFAS in particular in this situation.
Let's go back to the original quote:
> For what it's worth, depending on the harms, a sudden total ban is not out of the question as being beneficial to humanity as a whole. It would just be disruptive to enterprise, boo hoo. We don't need to always treat bad actors with kid gloves.
How isn't that talking about “punishment”? What do you think the last sentence is supposed to mean?
You either have a pathological level of confirmation bias, or acute reading deficiency, I'm afraid.