PFAS Chemicals: Navigating the Complex Web of Health and Environmental Impacts

Ashley

September 16, 2024

Dark Waters and the truth behind PFAS contamination

If you haven’t heard of the movie “Dark Waters” starring Mark Ruffalo, I’d highly encourage you to watch it! It’s based on a true story where Ruffalo plays Rob Bilott, who is a lawyer fighting against large chemical companies that have knowingly released harmful PFAS chemicals. Bilott also wrote a book documenting his initial case against DuPont called “Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle Against DuPont” which also served as inspiration for the movie.

The movie plot follows Bilott as he initiates discussions with a family friend who is claiming DuPont has poisoned his farm, causing all of his cows to die of strange diseases. Bilott reluctantly decides to work on the case and finally discovers information on PFOA which is unregulated by the EPA. It turned out that DuPont had conducted their own studies on the significant negative effects of PFOA. These negative effects were many, including leading to cancer and birth defects. There are records of DuPont releasing contaminated material in the environment near his family friend’s farm. I won’t give up too many other details of what happened in the movie. However, Bilott used that initial DuPont case to catapult him into helping many other people across the country fight against PFAS contamination. He is still working on these cases today.

PFAS: not just one chemical structure

So what is PFAS? PFAS stands for “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances”. If you have taken organic chemistry, you’re familiar with chains of carbon atoms that are typically surrounded with hydrogen atoms. Perfluoroalkyl substances mean that fluorine has replaced all hydrogen on the carbon chain. Polyfluoroalkyl substances mean that fluorine has replaced all hydrogen on at least one carbon atom in the chain. The below chemical structures are a simple example, but don’t necessarily exist in real life. There are thousands of individual chemical structures that belong to the “PFAS” group. The carbon-fluorine bond is extremely chemically and thermally stable and therefore difficult to break down. For this reason, you may have heard of PFAS chemicals referred to as “Forever Chemicals”. 

How to know if something belongs to the PFAS family

It’s important to understand where you can find PFAS chemicals in everyday products and how the materials show up in product manufacturing and ingredient labels. The abbreviation “PFAS” is a broad definition for the entire class of thousands of unique chemical structures. Each grouping of chemical structures also has an abbreviation. The abbreviation typically starts with “PF”. Any chemical or ingredient that starts with “perfluoro-” or “polyfluoro-” also belongs to the PFAS family. Legacy PFAS chemicals are perfluorooctanoic acid (abbreviation PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (abbreviation PFOS). PFOA and PFOS have regulations around them to some extent. These are the primary chemicals that the film “Dark Waters” is about. However, when you see items with the label “PFOA-free” or “PFOS-free”, it is essentially admitting that a different PFAS chemical is in the product! Otherwise, the label would read “PFAS-free”. 

PFAS research and its limitations

Now that we know the definition of PFAS chemicals, let’s talk about how they can impact our health. PFAS substances are present in the blood of almost every human being. This is due to how many commercial products they are in and due to how stable the materials are. PFAS substances “bioaccumulate”, meaning they build up in our bodies faster than our bodies can get rid of them. Research into PFAS-related health impacts has only just begun and there are a lot of caveats to this research that we need to be aware of.

As we already mentioned, there are thousands of PFAS chemical structures, so it’s just not possible to determine the impact of each material individually. We have to group similar materials together and make some assumptions to come to any type of conclusion. Additionally, many companies using PFAS materials claim confidentiality and don’t actually disclose which PFAS materials are in their products. This limits scientists’ ability to test for specific types of PFAS chemicals and also limits their ability to understand people’s exposure to what type and how much.

Another caveat related to testing is that standards are not available for each individual material. This makes identification and quantification almost impossible. So, when Mamavation says she “found PFAS” in a material – she isn’t actually testing “PFAS” because there are thousands of individual chemicals that are part of this category. It’s not even possible to test for each individually because there aren’t standards available. Even if this testing could be theoretically possible, it would be cost prohibitive. What she is testing for is total organic fluorine which is an indicator that PFAS chemicals may be present.

Lastly, the primary focus of research is on singular PFAS chemical structures. Then scientists will apply the findings to materials of a similar structure. The reality is that our exposure is not just to one singular PFAS material, but a variety of mixtures of PFAS materials. It is different for each person and it’s near impossible to find any data currently on the effects of PFAS mixtures on human health.

PFAS manufacturing and its complications

Manufacturing PFAS brings its own host of complications. When manufacturing PFAS through direct fluorination, it typically creates a lot of byproducts, degradation products, or intermediates. Typically these byproducts also fall under the PFAS chemical structure definition. Because these are just by-products that aren’t of much interest to the manufacturer, there’s typically even less information available on them. 

PFAS substances have been around for seventy years and current estimates of annual production volumes are around 230,000 tons globally. During the manufacturing process PFAS substances can release into the atmosphere as well as through liquid waste streams. These emission volumes on an annual basis are around 46,000 tons globally.

PFAS impacts on human health

As for initial findings of the impact of PFAS on our health, there is strong evidence of the following:

  • PFOA and PFOS are strongly associated with high cholesterol
  • PFAS exposure is strongly associated with suppressed immune system responses
  • PFOA is strongly associated with thyroid diseases; some PFAS have been proven to alter thyroid hormones
  • Long-chain PFAS are strongly associated with kidney cancer and liver damage (liver damage due to PFAS seems to be more prevalent with obese patients)
  • PFAS exposure in general is strongly associated with testicular damage; PFOA in particular is strongly associated with testicular cancer
  • PFAS exposure is strongly associated with lower birth weights

Additionally, there are initial findings indicating the following; however, these findings need additional research as the evidence is less strong:

  • PFOA may be associated with inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis)
  • PFAS may be associated with infertility, lower sperm count, and mobility as well as menstrual cycle changes
  • PFOA may be associated with pre-eclampsia and pregnancy-induced hypertension
  • PFAS may be associated with development effects when children are exposed in utero. Early onset of puberty, higher risk of obesity and reduced responses to vaccines are some of the cited effects.

Current estimates of health-related costs due to exposure to PFAS are around $52-84 billion annually in Europe and $37-59 billion annually in the US.

PFAS impacts on the environment

PFAS materials also have a significant effect on the environment. Scientists are detecting these materials in some of the most remote regions of the world, like Antarctica. Since PFAS materials bioaccumulate in us, they also bioaccumulate in many animals. Again, there are a lot of unknowns and a lot of the same caveats apply that we discussed earlier. Many PFAS materials, especially if they are newer, are unregulated. Since many companies can claim their production processes and materials are confidential, not much information is available.

The two primary methods of transport of PFAS in the environment are through air and liquid (primarily water). PFAS substances are also commonly found in soils, plants, and animals globally. Most human exposure is thought to be through contaminated drinking water and through use of commercial products that contain PFAS. Humans can also be exposed through food if it was irrigated with contaminated water or if humans are consuming animal products that contain PFAS materials. Disposal of products that include PFAS materials in landfills can also contribute to the increase of PFAS in the environment (particularly soil and water).

The PFAS water cycle

Since the majority of uncontrolled human exposure is through contaminated water, this has been the primary focus of PFAS environmental research. Granular activated carbon and reverse osmosis water treatments can remove PFAS materials from water. The challenge with these types of treatments is that the PFAS that you are removing from your drinking water has to go somewhere. These treatments essentially concentrate PFAS further. The “PFAS concentrate” is now an additional PFAS source that will be cycle back through the environment. This new PFAS source may go through an incinerator which will introduce it back into the atmosphere. Or it may go through a landfill which will introduce it to the soil and water (again).

Can we get rid of PFAS?

When it comes to actually destroying PFAS substances and removing them from the environment altogether, it’s not easy! The strength of the carbon-fluorine bonds that characterize a PFAS substance and make it useful in many industrial applications, also make it extremely difficult to break down. Many treatments are new and scientists are still learning about what is most effective. With all treatments one of the biggest concerns is that because scientists do not understand individual PFAS substance’s degradation pathways, there is always the possibility that materials aren’t fully degrading and a different or new PFAS material forms instead. Additionally, while scientists know some PFAS material degradation pathways in a lab setting, these don’t always replicate well in real-world conditions where complex mixtures of various different PFAS substances exist.

Some thermal treatments have been evaluated at a small scale. However, significantly high temperatures (up to 900°C) are required. These treatments have not been proven to work at a large industrial scale and would require significant resources to implement. A non-thermal option that scientists are exploring is using plant-specific enzymes or bacteria to degrade various PFAS species, which is more environmentally friendly than the thermal options.

The extent of PFAS regulations, and why they can’t keep up

So, why haven’t PFAS substances been regulated if there are so many negative health and environmental impacts? Quite simply, our laws make it easy to approve new materials for use and the regulatory environment can’t move fast enough to collect enough information on all new substances to make an informed decision whether or not to regulate it. For PFAS materials in particular, the vast number of different chemical structures and the inability to test for each individual substance is prohibitive to understanding how to manage them.

Some of the more well-known, legacy PFAS materials like PFOA and PFOS have some regulations to an extent because sufficient data now exists on the harm these materials cause. For instance:

  • The US EPA initiated a PFOA stewardship program where US manufacturers decided to phase out manufacturing by 2015. While this program is great, it does nothing to account for international manufacture of PFOA and importation into the US.
  • The US EPA announced a drinking water advisory that PFOA and PFOS concentrations combined should be less than 70 ppt. Some states have instituted guidelines at an even lower concentration than 70 ppt.
  • PFOA and PFOS were added to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, meaning they are banned in the European Union due to their persistent and bioaccumulative nature.
  • A handful of PFAS substances are on the European Union Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) list, meaning they will be banned from use and importation into the EU.

These legacy PFOA and PFOS materials are long-chain polymers, but due to increasing regulatory challenges companies are frequently replacing them with newer, short-chain PFAS polymers which do not have regulations around their use. The shorter chain molecules were originally thought to be safer, but now many of the same concerns are arising with the newer PFAS materials. Thus far, regulations as noted above have been focused on individual PFAS materials where enough data is available to justify it. Due to the continual development of new PFAS materials to replace the banned PFAS materials, there is increasing pressure particularly in the EU to regulate all current and new PFAS materials that fall under the definition, as regulatory bodies and governments are recognizing they will never be able to move fast enough to understand and potentially ban them individually.

Controlling your exposure to PFAS

As I mentioned before, the primary routes of exposure for humans are through drinking water and exposure to products that use PFAS materials. Activated carbon or reverse osmosis can remove most PFAS substances from your water, so it’s important to have a water treatment system you can rely on. Another important way to control your exposure is through minimizing products you use with PFAS in them. Some examples of products likely to contain PFAS are:

  • Personal care products like nail polish, dental floss, or waterproof mascara
  • Fabric, carpet, or leather, particularly if it’s being marketed as resistant to water, grease, or stains as PFAS materials are typically a key ingredient to making these products perform as marketed
  • Non-stick coatings on cookware
  • Coatings on food take-out or storage containers
  • Flame retardant additives or materials used in fire fighting foams 
  • Surfactants used in floor or carpet cleaners
  • Additives used in paint, sealant, and stains

The reality of PFAS contamination and what we can do

PFAS contamination is a reality of living in 2024. Unfortunately companies are going to continue to produce and incorporate PFAS into consumer products, and PFAS are going to continue to contaminate our water, our soil, and our bodies. It is scary to think about this, and I believe we have a duty to live responsibly, but not a duty to live in fear. Little steps in the right direction can make a big difference. If you’re looking to minimize your exposure to PFAS materials, here are some steps.

  1. Avoid PFAS containing products. See the previous section for a list of common consumer products that contain PFAS materials. Look for PFAS-free labeling or contact companies to inquire about their ingredients if you’re unsure. Supporting companies and purchasing products without PFAS encourages companies to move away from these ingredients.
  2. Use Mamavation as a resource. Mamavation is a consumer safety advocate who tests many different consumer products for indications of PFAS. She publishes these results and provides rankings of bad, better, and best brands to look for.
  3. Filter your water. A simple granular activated carbon filter (what we use) will remove most PFAS contaminants from your water. These filters are relatively inexpensive and worth the investment. To learn more about water filtration and more advanced options, you can consult my post about water stewardship.
  4. Fight for regulations on all PFAS materials. Support organizations that are fighting for regulations and fighting for people who are being severely impacted by PFAS contamination. Two examples are the PFAS Action Group and the Great Lakes PFAS Action Network. You can also contact your local, state, and federal representatives. 

I hope you have a better understanding of PFAS and how to avoid exposure if that’s something you want to pursue. What other PFAS questions do you have? Let me know in the comments below!

SOURCES:

Category :

Health

,

Natural Resources

Related Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Ashley

sharing my responsible journey and inspiring yours

Follow me on social media!

Popular Posts

sharing my responsible journey and inspiring yours