this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
317 points (96.8% liked)

News

23287 readers
3854 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

As lawmakers around the world weigh bans of 'forever chemicals,” many manufacturers are pushing back, saying there often is no substitute.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Haywire@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Which one would be your first choice?

[–] rallatsc@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

PFAS are used in so many forms (solvents, polymers, etc.) that I think the replacement will be very dependent on the specific use case (and potentially other regulations on alternatives, particularly for solvents). I'm not knowledgeable about every field these compounds are used in and for privacy/NDA purposes I can't talk about the specifics of the ones I worked with.

[–] Haywire@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You are certainly much more knowledgeable about this than I.

In broad general terms:

Doesn't the fluorine make them both effective and forever? Isn't it difficult to create a lower energy state molecule than a compound of fluorine.

Is "forever" the problem?

The points you have brought up seem to be an issue with responsibile manufacturing more than the nature of the chemicals themselves. Seems like that should be addressed on a much wider discussion than just these particular compounds.

[–] rallatsc@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago

Doesn't the fluorine make them both effective and forever? Isn't it difficult to create a lower energy state molecule than a compound of fluorine.

For many applications, yes. Fluorinated compounds tend to be quite inert. There are definitely some applications where the compounds don't need to be resistant to every type of chemical attack and you could use a more specialized compound that is generally less inert but performs similarly in whatever conditions you put it under.

Is "forever" the problem?

Forever is a big part of the problem, but it's worth noting that if a compound is completely nontoxic then bioaccumulation doesn't matter as much (though some nontoxic chemicals can increase the potency of other, toxic chemicals and cause problems that way: see this article)

The points you have brought up seem to be an issue with responsibile manufacturing more than the nature of the chemicals themselves. Seems like that should be addressed on a much wider discussion than just these particular compounds.

Yes. We need increased strictness on regulations and enforcement for these compounds and others because that's the only way to make companies comply.