| By Ava Wong |

Forever Chemicals Creating Immediate Risks

PFAS, or “Forever Chemicals”, are chemicals found in many everyday products including waterproof jackets, food packaging, firefighting foams, and nonstick pans. They are also commonly used in industrial processes and manufacturing, leading to their continuous presence in household and industrial waste, air emissions, and wastewater discharge. These chemicals are particularly dangerous because they don’t break down and can bioaccumulate in organisms.

According to the North Carolina Environmental Quality department, most Americans have been exposed to PFAS, primarily through drinking water. Scientists have demonstrated that exposure to PFAS have been linked to decreased fertility, increased blood pressure in pregnant women, developmental effects in children, low birth weights, accelerated puberty, bone variations, increased risk of cancer, and limited immune abilities. 

Early this year, a U.N. human rights team pointed to a PFAS manufacturing plant in North Carolina as a violation of human rights. A Chemours plant near Fayetteville, they claim, has enabled widespread contamination in the area despite information about the toxic impacts of PFAS on human health and drinking water. The U.N. panel also called out lax enforcement from state and federal regulators, claiming that the EPA had been “captured” by the plant’s current and past owners. 

Stakeholders Helping and Hindering Urgent Actions

Chemours, the company manufacturing and discharging the chemicals, argues that PFAS affects nearly every sector of the economy, solving problems that would enable the energy transition, electrify transport, power AI, and combat pandemics, for example. The company opposes proposed European regulations, arguing that it would harm jobs, supply chains, and the ability of the EU to achieve climate objectives. In response to the allegations against its North Carolina plant, the company advocates that these industrial processes produce “vital technologies for green hydrogen, electric vehicles and semiconductor manufacturing.”

Another stakeholders are the individuals affected by PFAS in North Carolina. An organization entitled Clean Cape Fear has championed regulatory efforts, describing an “environmental human rights crisis”. The community action group has demanded company accountability for water treatment and clean-up costs for impacted residents and expressed concern about the company’s plans to expand production to its Fayetteville Works plant and to ship PFAS waste from  the Netherlands

The EPA, in its responsibility to regulate these processes, has withdrawn permission for these waste shipments because Chemours provided inaccurate information. They had communicated that they would work in close partnership with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality as well as with the company to protect people from dangerous PFAS chemicals.

Leadership And Regulation Needed for Collaborative Solutions

Currently, the main methods of PFAS disposal are landfilling, wastewater treatment, and incineration. However, all of these methods can return the original PFAS or their degradation products back into the environment. Because of the chemicals’ cyclical nature, North Carolina DEQ must prioritize regulations that ensure the human health of its citizens. 

The North Carolina DEQ has implemented an action plan including a pilot program to support North Carolina residents with PFAS contamination in private drinking water wells. In 2022, they also scaled upsampling to prepare for the final adoption of the EPA’s proposed drinking water regulation announced in March. They are also requiring PFAS information for new facilities and industries, accelerating rule-making concepts for ground and surface water standards, and collaborating with the scientific community to strengthen relations with academic experts. 

A potential solution would be to completely ban the use of PFAS in North Carolina. However, this fails to take into account the need for essential technologies enabling the energy transition. Therefore, regulators must explore varied disposal methods, restrict importation of waste from the Netherlands, and prioritize regulations and reparations resources to promote and protect human health.