Ep 68: The "Forever Chemicals": PFAS with Lauren Gropper (Repurpose)
We know, another acronym to remember, but it’s an important one. PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances) are a group of chemicals that have made certain useful products possible (e.g., rain jackets and non-stick pans) but what are their environmental and physiological impacts? In this episode, we dive into the science behind PFAS and its potentially significant harm to the environment and public health.
And it’s our favorite for the expert interview–an entrepreneur! We chat with Lauren Gropper, the Founder and CEO of Repurpose, on how she started her plant-based serviceware company and how Repurpose became the first tableware brand to address, eliminate, and replace PFAS in its products. Join us as we dive into the nitty-gritty of PFAS and learn how people can avoid, or at least reduce, further PFAS exposure.
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Episode Intro Notes
What We Will Cover
What is PFAS–what do we know and what don’t we know?
Why is PFAS harmful?
Where can PFAS be found?
What are the alternatives/substitutes for PFAS and how could we eliminate PFAS?
How is PFAS currently regulated and what are some of the current policy proposals?
How can people avoid, or at least reduce, further PFAS exposure?
Expert guest: Lauren Gropper, Founder and CEO of Repurpose
What is PFAS–what do we know and what don’t we know?
To start, PFAS, also known as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), is defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as a large group of chemicals widely used in industrial and consumer applications since the 1950s, most usually where extremely low surface energy or surface tension and/or durable water- and oil-repellency is needed. In other words, they are chemicals that are used in various products due to their valuable properties such as their ability to repel water and oil, to resist heat, and to persist.
There are both short and long-chain PFAS, which can be distinguished based on the length of the fluorinated carbon chain. We say fluorinated carbon chain because PFAS contain bonds between fluorine and carbon atoms. The length of the fluorinated carbon chain can result in different properties that influence the substance’s behavior in the environment and in organisms, and its bioaccumulation and (eco) toxicity. In other words, different kinds of PFAS have different effects.
We’ll get into the potential effects of PFAS later in the episode.
We'll also later get into their applications but some quick examples of where PFAS are used are non-stick cookware, food packaging such as pizza boxes and candy wrappers, cosmetic products, dental floss, and waterproof clothing.
PFAS are in these products and others because they enable a lot of properties that humans enjoy and depend on. For example, their heat resistance is useful for firefighting foam and their insulation is useful for certain aerospace applications.
While there is a lot of research going on to find PFAS alternatives, some of these important products don’t currently have readily available PFAS substitutes or the substitutes don’t perform as well.
Why were these man-made chemicals invented in the first place?
The origin story of PFAS starts with research on the refrigerator. A researcher at Kinetic Chemicals, a subsidiary of DuPont, was on the hunt for a less toxic chemical to use as a refrigerant. From his research in the late 1930s, he made a new substance under the name of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and was trademarked by DuPont as “Teflon” in 1945.
If you want to hear another episode we struggle through long chemical names, check out episode 3 on neonicotinoids.
By 1951, Teflon was distributed commercially, specifically in the bread and cookie-making market.
Soon after, a French engineer by the name of Marc Gregoire found a way to bond PTFE with aluminum.
Gregoire originally used this Teflon coating solely for his fishing gear to prevent tangles, but it was soon suggested by his wife to use that same coating on her cooking pans. This idea was patented and kitchenware with this technology was on store shelves by 1955.
Today, there are thousands of different types of PFAS, globally. This is part of why there is an ever-evolving debate over how to regulate thousands of chemicals efficiently, many of which are actively in commerce today. For example, do we treat all PFAS the same or group them in some way and regulate them differently? We’ll talk about PFAS policy more later on.
Throughout the episode we may use the words PFOA and PFOS. PFOA and PFOS (sometimes known as “C8” due to their chain of eight carbons) are the two “legacy” PFAS that PFAS researchers have focused the most on since they have been the most extensively produced. Their uses have been largely phased out globally, while shorter chain PFAS have entered the market.
The potential impacts of PFAS on humans and animals are raising some major red flags. While scientists still don’t fully understand the extent of the effect of PFAS exposure on humans, current peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that exposure to certain levels of PFAS may lead to:
Reproductive effects such as decreased fertility or increased high blood pressure in pregnant women.
Developmental effects or delays in children, including low birth weight, accelerated puberty, bone variations, or behavioral changes.
Increased risk of some cancers, including prostate, kidney, and testicular cancers.
Reduced ability of the body’s immune system to fight infections, including reduced vaccine response.
Interference with the body’s natural hormones.
Increased cholesterol levels and/or risk of obesity.
PFAS needs to enter our bodies to cause these issues. So how does it get in there?
PFAS can enter your body if you breathe air, eat food, or drink water containing them. It’s possible for PFAS to enter the body through skin contact as well.
Once inside, PFAS tends to remain there for years. It takes nearly four years for the level in the body to go down by half, and PFAS mainly leaves the body through urine.
PFAS don’t only affect humans. Animals can also be exposed to and ingest PFAS by swallowing or drinking contaminated groundwater, surface water, feed, or soil.
So it’s the combination of toxicity and longevity that makes PFAS so dangerous. But, there is still a lot to learn about PFAS and their impacts on humans and the environment.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists a number of questions and issues regarding PFAS that scientists are still trying to sort out. These include:
How to better and more efficiently detect and measure PFAS in our air, water, soil, and fish and wildlife
How much people are exposed to PFAS
How harmful PFAS are to people and the environment
How to remove PFAS from drinking water
How to manage and dispose of PFAS
Why is PFAS harmful?
In short, PFAS leads to the negative effects we mentioned because of its stability and persistence. The stability comes from PFAS being made by joining carbon and fluorine–one of the strongest bonds in organic chemistry. In fact, this bond is virtually indestructible.
Hence why PFAS has earned the nickname “forever chemicals.”
As with other kinds of chemicals, once PFAS get into the groundwater or released into the air it can travel. Plus, they can bioaccumulate, meaning they can build up in your body over time.
We mentioned potential negative health impacts from PFAS exposure, but how and why do certain PFAS have these impacts on our bodies?
When PFAS chemicals enter our body, they bind to certain protein molecules and some have the potential to disrupt hormone signals, which is why certain PFAS are also known as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Any chemical that is an EDC can be particularly dangerous for children when these signals are turned off and on.
Some PFAS can also emulate fatty acids. Fatty acids serve as the energy and building blocks for the muscles, heart, and other organs, so it’s easy to see how a PFAS being an imposter in our biology can be extremely disruptive.
Also, when those specific PFAS mimicking fatty acids try to bind to cell receptors designed for fatty acids, it’s an imperfect fit that can lead to cell damage and metabolism disruption.
In summary, as PFAS enters our body with the ability to both interrupt our hormone signals and mimic our fatty acids, it sets up the perfect playing field for the health issues to emerge that we’ve referenced in this episode, like developmental and reproductive effects.
Where can PFAS be found?
Unfortunately, PFAS can currently be found just about everywhere. From drinking water to your favorite sandwich from a shop down the street, to your go-to hiking shoes - it’s all too common.
The EPA compiled a list of places where PFAS can be found, and it’s a very long list:
Drinking water, including public and private water systems
Soils and water near waste sites like landfills and hazardous waste areas
Fire extinguishing foam
Foods, like fish from contaminated waters, dairy from exposed livestock, and even in food packaging, like fast food containers, pizza boxes, and candy wrappers
PFAS are also found in household products ranging from that non-stick cooking pan in the kitchen to paints, clothing, and personal care products like shampoos
A disheartening fact is that a federal study found PFOA and PFOS was in the blood of 98% of Americans. And this was a 2007 study!
John Oliver in October 2021 did a fantastic segment on PFAS. If we had the rights, we could have just played that and called it a day. That segment mentioned how the company 3M wanted a control group to compare against its employees who handle PFAS during their manufacture. It looked globally but couldn’t find people with clean blood free of PFAS. To get its control group, it had to use blood that had been taken and archived from army recruits at the start of the Korean War. Crazy.
And sorry, one more finding that sticks out to us on the ubiquity of PFAS. European researchers published a study in summer 2022 that found rainwater everywhere would be judged unsafe to drink based on the latest U.S. guidelines for PFOA in drinking water. The study found that even in the most remote areas of the world, such as Antarctica and the Tibetan Plateau, rainwater was still contaminated with unsafe levels of PFAS. This is concerning since many people around the world drink rain water directly, and it feeds into water systems.
What are the alternatives/substitutes for PFAS and how could we eliminate PFAS?
With the overwhelming amount of research finding negative impacts of PFAS on our environment and health, as well as policy proposals curbing or outlawing the use of PFAS, the result is private industry putting significant effort into finding alternatives and putting some into the marketplace.
Washington State’s Department of Ecology (DOE) has looked into PFAS alternatives because of a 2018 law that made it the first in the nation to ban PFAS in food packaging. The law directed DOE to implement a program to reduce priority chemicals in consumer products. Over two reports, DOE has found safer alternatives for food boats, pizza boxes, plates and wraps, liners, bags and sleeves, bowls, flat service ware, open-top containers and closed containers. For example, for bags and sleeves, the safer alternative it recommends is densified paper and wax-coated options.
Washington State has continued to lead on PFAS legislation. In April 2022, a new law was passed that bans the use of PFAS in a range of these products, including apparel, non-stick pans, cosmetics, cleaning products, and firefighter gear after 2025. That’s the fastest timeline in the United States.
With cookware, we found an article from Food and Wine, that details some alternatives. The main ones were ceramic, stainless steel, and cast iron.
We here at Sustainability Defined love a good cast iron skillet dish. I have made some tasty salmon dishes in mine. Send us your best cast iron skillet recipes!
A lot of rain jackets that are water-resistant use PFAS. We found a Sierra Club article showing some alternative jackets.
For example, Norway-based Helly Hansen has a rain jacket that repels the rain with fabric that is woven in a special design that beads water at its surface, rather than letting it soak through.
Also, the Swiss brand Mammut says it’s innovating to be completely PFAS-free across its entire brand by summer 2025.
Note that it’s not only in jackets but all kinds of apparel. I was looking for a new pair of Merrell hiking shoes and saw a bunch of waterproof options with Gore-tex. I googled if Gore-tex had PFAS and found this statement on its website, “The high-performing durable water repellant (DWR) treatments that Gore currently uses in its moisture barrier products are based on a type of PFAS known as short-chain side chain fluorinated polymers, which may contain trace residuals of non-polymer PFAS.” Gore-tex is working on alternatives and will be offering products with a PFAS-free membrane in late 2022. But after reading all this, I opted for a non-waterproof hiking shoe since I was concerned about the PFAS issue, but of course, my shoe isn’t waterproof, which would have been nice!
For fast food packaging, the alternatives being pushed are uncoated paper, bamboo or plastic derived from corn starch or sugar cane — and alternative coatings including bio-wax or clay.
The switch is needed considering Consumer Reports tested in fall 2021 more than 100 different kinds of food packaging products from many restaurant chains and found the presence of PFAS in packaging from all the chains, from Arby’s and Taco Bell to Cava and Sweetgreen.
Many restaurants are now saying they will remove PFAS from their packaging including McDonalds, Starbucks, Whole Foods, and Restaurant Brands International, which owns Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Horton.
The trick will be finding alternatives that perform just as well.
If you’re making a big purchase, test for PFAS before installing it to ensure you’re not going to be exposed. The City of Portsmouth, NH learned this the hard way. It paid $3.5 million for an artificial turf that the manufacturer touted as free of PFAS. A local advocacy group tested the field after it was installed and unfortunately, there was PFAS. The manufacturer says that the contract only specified that the chemicals be undetectable by a particular EPA-approved testing method, which some on the city council seem to agree was sufficient. Portsmouth is familiar with PFAS and spent the extra money for what it thought was PFAS-free turf because PFAS contaminated part of the city’s water supply due to the use of aqueous firefighting foam at a former Air Force base there.
This also is a good example of the issues with different kinds of testing out there.
How is PFAS currently regulated and what are some of the current policy proposals?
The accelerated development of products with PFAS is another example of an invention that while bettering the human experience in certain ways, has very serious long-term environmental or health-related side effects.
It doesn’t seem that the inventors of this innovation intended to make a negative impact on our environment or health but as scientific understanding and technology evolves, so should our manufacturing processes and products.
That being said, there is pretty clear evidence that manufacturers became aware of the risks from PFAS and hid it from the public. As far back as 1950, studies conducted by 3M showed that the family of toxic fluorinated chemicals now known as PFAS could build up in our blood. By the 1960s, animal studies conducted by 3M and DuPont revealed that PFAS chemicals could pose health risks. There are internal memos, studies, and other company documents showing how these companies deceived the public.
Some of you may be familiar with the movie Dark Waters that tells the story of a lawyer who specialized in defending large chemical companies but when approached for help by a West Virginia farmer, gets involved and pursues a class action lawsuit against DuPont. Spoiler alert: in 2017, that attorney won a $617 million settlement on behalf of more than 3,500 plaintiffs.
We’ve laid down the facts, and we’ve learned about the long-term impacts of PFAS on our health and environment, so how is this group of chemicals regulated?
Let’s first start with examples of PFAS regulation in the United States at the federal level
Regulation on PFAS in the U.S. started with the EPA exercising its authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), publishing two “Significant New Use Rules (SNURs)” in 2002. It required manufacturers to report to EPA the manufacture or import of 75 PFAS chemicals being voluntarily phased out by 3M, which was and is a major PFAS manufacturer.
In 2006, the EPA created the PFOA Stewardship program and invited 8 major PFAS producers to pledge to reduce 95% of their facilities’ PFOA emissions by 2010.
The EPA’s regulation of PFAS through the Safe Drinking Water Act began in 2009, when the EPA released provisional health advisories for PFOS and PFOA. In 2016, the EPA reported a lifetime drinking water health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOS and PFOA. These were updated in June 2022. The updated advisory levels, which are based on new science and consider lifetime exposure, indicate that some negative health effects may occur with concentrations of PFOA or PFOS in water that are near zero and below EPA’s ability to detect at this time. Let’s emphasize that. EPA is saying negative health effects occur below what they can detect at this time.
Importantly, health advisory levels are not enforceable standards, but rather values collected to help officials in their efforts to protect the public’s health.
Still, these health advisories are currently being challenged in court as unconstitutional by Chemours, which is a DuPont spin-off that some say was created to take the PFAS liabilities away from DuPont.
Some lawmakers are also critical of them. For example, Senator Capito of West Virginia issued a statement saying the updated lifetime advisory levels are impossible to detect and will create confusion for water system compliance efforts and users.
Over at the Food and Drug Administration, it regulates the use of certain PFAS chemicals in food packaging, and it came out in 2020 with a three-year, voluntary phase-out program. The agency is now reviewing a petition from environmental groups calling for a PFAS ban in some food packaging.
What’s next at the federal level in the U.S.?
Eight federal agencies will continue to execute the steps they outlined in mid-2021, which includes EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap that goes from 2021-2024.
We also want to highlight two planned EPA actions.
EPA is moving forward with proposing a PFAS National Drinking Water Regulation in fall 2022. As EPA develops this proposed rule, the agency is evaluating additional PFAS beyond PFOA and PFOS for further action.
The other notable EPA action is its plan to designate PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances under the Superfund law that focuses on the cleanup of contaminated sites.
And what about the state level in the U.S.?
We’ve already discussed some of Washington State’s actions.
Another leading state is Maine, which in July 2021 passed a comprehensive law that first bans new carpets, rugs, and fabric treatments that contain intentionally added PFAS as of January 1, 2023. Then, starting January 1, 2030, the sale or distribution of any new product containing intentionally added PFAS will be prohibited.
In total, ten states including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington have adopted legislation banning the use of PFAS in all or some food packaging.
We found a nice piece from JD Supra that breaks down how various states regulate PFAS in drinking water as of March 2022.
30 states have no regulation of PFAS in drinking water.
Beyond the U.S., most of the action we found on PFAS is in the EU, although we also found some mention of regulations in Canada and Australia.
In the EU, the governments of Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway announced in mid-2021 that by July 2022 they will formally propose to the European Chemicals Agency that these chemicals be restricted under the REACH (registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals) legislation.
A final agreement by EU member states to prohibit the production, marketing, and use of these substances throughout Europe could happen as early as 2025.
How can people avoid, or at least reduce, further PFAS exposure?
Unfortunately, while PFAS in blood levels can be measured, this is not a routine test that can be done in a doctor’s office.
Even if the test is done, it’s not yet clear what the results might mean in terms of possible health effects since exposure does not necessarily mean negative impacts on human health or the environment.
One thing you can do is check to see if your tap water has PFAS.
Here’s some resources:
The PFAS Exchange has a map showing sites across the U.S. with known or suspected PFAS contamination, and where communities are advocating stronger health and environmental protections.
Environmental Working Group also has an interactive PFAS contamination map at ewg.org/pfasmap.
You can ask your local water utility or health department if your water has been tested for PFAS.
You can also pay to have a lab test your water for PFAS. We found a testing kit from Cyclopure for $79.
If your water has concerning levels of PFAS:
consider installing in-home water treatment (e.g., filters, reverse osmosis) that are certified to lower the levels of PFAS in your water.
using bottled or canned water for activities such as cooking with foods that soak up a lot of water (e.g., soup, rice) or for drinking (be it humans or pets).
You can also be careful about the seafood you buy. If you eat locally sourced fish or shellfish, check your local fish advisories before you chow down.
Another suggestion is dust your home regularly since PFAS can collect in household dust. Vacuum carpets, use a wet mop on solid floors, and wipe other solid surfaces with a wet cloth.
Then there are some smart substitutions you could consider.
If you have nonstick pots and pans that are chipped or cracked, consider replacing them with stainless steel and iron cookware, as we discussed earlier.
Note though that the main concerns come from overheating or scraping non-stick pans rather than regular use.
Eat less fast food and takeout.
As discussed earlier, many of the containers that the food comes in have PFAS coating.
Ditch bagged popcorn.
Buy corn kernels and heat them in a glass microwaveable popcorn popper instead.
When outfitting or remodeling your home, don’t buy stain-resistant carpets and upholstery (although we get that’s easier said than done–stain-resistant is nice!)
And in general, when searching for substitutes for PFAS such as in weatherproof outdoor gear, EcoCult advises that “if a brand says its products are PFAS-free, PFC-free, or free of fluorinated chemicals, then they are clean. If it says they are PFOA-, PFOS-, long-chain- or C8-free, or says it uses short-chain DWR, then it still uses a certain type of PFAS that has similar health concerns, albeit somewhat less studied.”
About our guest
Today we have the opportunity to speak with Lauren Gropper, Founder and CEO of Repurpose, Inc.
Repurpose has been making green alternatives to disposables since 2010. In other words, it’s all about more plants, less plastics. Its products are available at more than 17,000 stores across the nation, and it has been ranked more than once as one of Inc 500’s fastest-growing private companies.
We talk with Lauren about how her company provides sustainable alternatives that fit into people’s busy lives so they can reduce their exposure to chemicals like PFAS. In fact, Repurpose was the first tableware brand to address, eliminate, and replace PFAS in its products.
We enjoyed talking with Lauren about how they went about removing PFAS from their products and the journey she has been on as an entrepreneur with this eco-minded company. Let’s get to it!