>We have no idea how many PFAS companies like 3M are actually dumping into the environment. Extensive research exposes the existence of something like ‘dark PFAS’: countless variants of the forever chemical that no one knows about and no one measures, but that are harmful to the environment and health.
>
>Ultra-short PFAS in particular, the toxic littlest brothers of the family, occur en masse in the environment. Scientific publications, court evidence and government data indicate that the industry is deliberately creating a fog curtain about how they get there.
>
>The industry therefore has a bad tradition in terms of lobbying, influencing science and lack of transparency.
>
>Chat cake
>
>“Science fiction, nonsense, total nonsense.” The CEO of chemical company DuPont did not shy away from harsh words when he expressed his opinion in the industry magazine Chemical Weekly on July 16, 1975, about the theory that the ozone layer is being damaged by CFCs, chemicals that were used massively in the second half of the last century. as a coolant or as a propellant in aerosol cans.
>
>Coincidentally, the brazen swipe from DuPont’s CEO was anything but. The chemical company was at that time an important producer of CFCs. Since the early 1970s, scientific evidence has grown that CFCs are rapidly depleting the ozone layer. That knowledge posed a fundamental threat to DuPont and other CFC manufacturers.
>
>What happened next reads like a blueprint for today’s climate deniers. DuPont and other companies invested millions in lobbying and “research” designed to counter the growing scientific consensus. For years, the impact of CFCs on the ozone layer has been systematically misunderstood, despite hard scientific evidence.
>
>Even when the most successful international environmental treaty ever was signed in Montreal, Canada in 1987 and CFCs were banned, the industry continued to struggle.
>
>Ultimately, the lobby around DuPont had to give up, but at the end of the 1980s the goal of the organized campaign had long been achieved: the production and distribution of CFCs were extended by more than a decade, despite scientific knowledge about the harmful impact of the chemical substances on the environment.
>
>Fluor
>
>Apache, Follow The Money and Investigative Desk tell how that story is repeating itself today: once again the scientific evidence about the environmental and health hazards of PFAS is growing, but again we see the industrial counter-lobby, the scientific fog being spewed and the techniques to remove crucial to keep information out of the debate.
>
>The essential difference with forty years ago is in one atom. The industry switched from the chlorine atom, an important building block of CFCs, to the fluorine atom. This intervention provided the industry with a new cash cow. Or better, three dairy cows: fluorine-containing gases, PFAS liquids and fluoropolymers (such as Teflon).
>
>We now know that fluorine-containing gases [ play a detrimental role in global warming ](https://www.apache.be/nl/2021/06/15/3m-stootte-ongemerkt-gigantische-hoeveelheden-zwaar-broeikasgas-uit) . Flanders became aware of the impact of PFAS liquids on the environment and health in the aftermath of the PFAS affair.
>
>The story is inevitably technical. Together with the withholding of data about production processes and measurement results, organized complexity seems to be a conscious part of the business strategy of manufacturers and processing companies such as DuPont (now **Chemours** ) and **3M** . Because governments that do not know, cannot measure and hardly impose standards, let alone enforce them adequately.
>
>Poison slowly
>
>The PFAS bomb exploded in Flanders in the spring of 2021. Before then, hardly anyone had heard about *forever chemicals* and their detrimental impact on the environment and health. Without the study work of environmental activists **Thomas Goorden** and **Frank Vanhoutte,** this would probably still be the case today.
>
>Initially, the focus was on PFOS, which is a molecule within the PFAS group with a long carbon chain that was used, for example, as the basic ingredient of “Scotchguard” to make clothing waterproof. Not only the 3M business premises themselves, but also the wider area around Zwijndrecht contains far too high concentrations of PFOS in the soil and in the groundwater. The fact that **Lantis** , the developer of the Oosterweel connection on behalf of the Flemish Government, is building the new Scheldt tunnel precisely there and is therefore moving massively contaminated soil and pumping up polluted (ground) water, does not make the problem any smaller.
>
>What has received little attention so far are PFAS with an even shorter chain: the ultra-short PFAS that are built around two or three carbon atoms.
>
>It gradually became clear that it is not only PFOS that poses a major problem. are also [ PFAS with a shorter carbon chain ](https://www.apache.be/2021/09/27/problematische-pfas-uitstoot-lucht-door-3m) problematic for the environment and health. 3M stopped producing PFOS in 2002 and replaced it with the production of shorter-chain PFAS liquids, such as PFBA and PFBS. These substances also appear to occur in high concentrations in groundwater in the wider vicinity of 3M. They are not only discharged into the Scheldt, they are also exhaled through the factory chimney to settle further down the line. Ultimately, 3M was forced to largely stop these production processes and even to announce a complete production stop for fluorine-containing products.
>
>However, what has received little attention until now are PFAS with an even shorter chain: the ultra-short PFAS that are built around two or three carbon atoms. Last year, Apache reported for the first time about how the smallest brothers from the PFAS family are [ slowly poisoning Flanders ](https://www.apache.be/2022/09/16/3m-en-indaver-vergiftigen-vlaanderen-met-ultrakorte-pfas) while the government does nothing: ultra-short PFAS are not measured anywhere and the substances do not appear in any environmental permit.
>
>The latter is particularly significant because anyone who dumps substances into the environment must, in principle, apply for an environmental permit. Nothing may be discharged without an environmental permit. But as mentioned, no one seemed to know about the existence of the ultra-short PFAS, let alone measured its discharges into water or air. As a result, 3M was able to dump huge quantities of ultra-short PFAS into the Scheldt unhindered for years.
1 comment
>We have no idea how many PFAS companies like 3M are actually dumping into the environment. Extensive research exposes the existence of something like ‘dark PFAS’: countless variants of the forever chemical that no one knows about and no one measures, but that are harmful to the environment and health.
>
>Ultra-short PFAS in particular, the toxic littlest brothers of the family, occur en masse in the environment. Scientific publications, court evidence and government data indicate that the industry is deliberately creating a fog curtain about how they get there.
>
>The industry therefore has a bad tradition in terms of lobbying, influencing science and lack of transparency.
>
>Chat cake
>
>“Science fiction, nonsense, total nonsense.” The CEO of chemical company DuPont did not shy away from harsh words when he expressed his opinion in the industry magazine Chemical Weekly on July 16, 1975, about the theory that the ozone layer is being damaged by CFCs, chemicals that were used massively in the second half of the last century. as a coolant or as a propellant in aerosol cans.
>
>Coincidentally, the brazen swipe from DuPont’s CEO was anything but. The chemical company was at that time an important producer of CFCs. Since the early 1970s, scientific evidence has grown that CFCs are rapidly depleting the ozone layer. That knowledge posed a fundamental threat to DuPont and other CFC manufacturers.
>
>What happened next reads like a blueprint for today’s climate deniers. DuPont and other companies invested millions in lobbying and “research” designed to counter the growing scientific consensus. For years, the impact of CFCs on the ozone layer has been systematically misunderstood, despite hard scientific evidence.
>
>Even when the most successful international environmental treaty ever was signed in Montreal, Canada in 1987 and CFCs were banned, the industry continued to struggle.
>
>Ultimately, the lobby around DuPont had to give up, but at the end of the 1980s the goal of the organized campaign had long been achieved: the production and distribution of CFCs were extended by more than a decade, despite scientific knowledge about the harmful impact of the chemical substances on the environment.
>
>Fluor
>
>Apache, Follow The Money and Investigative Desk tell how that story is repeating itself today: once again the scientific evidence about the environmental and health hazards of PFAS is growing, but again we see the industrial counter-lobby, the scientific fog being spewed and the techniques to remove crucial to keep information out of the debate.
>
>The essential difference with forty years ago is in one atom. The industry switched from the chlorine atom, an important building block of CFCs, to the fluorine atom. This intervention provided the industry with a new cash cow. Or better, three dairy cows: fluorine-containing gases, PFAS liquids and fluoropolymers (such as Teflon).
>
>We now know that fluorine-containing gases [ play a detrimental role in global warming ](https://www.apache.be/nl/2021/06/15/3m-stootte-ongemerkt-gigantische-hoeveelheden-zwaar-broeikasgas-uit) . Flanders became aware of the impact of PFAS liquids on the environment and health in the aftermath of the PFAS affair.
>
>The story is inevitably technical. Together with the withholding of data about production processes and measurement results, organized complexity seems to be a conscious part of the business strategy of manufacturers and processing companies such as DuPont (now **Chemours** ) and **3M** . Because governments that do not know, cannot measure and hardly impose standards, let alone enforce them adequately.
>
>Poison slowly
>
>The PFAS bomb exploded in Flanders in the spring of 2021. Before then, hardly anyone had heard about *forever chemicals* and their detrimental impact on the environment and health. Without the study work of environmental activists **Thomas Goorden** and **Frank Vanhoutte,** this would probably still be the case today.
>
>Initially, the focus was on PFOS, which is a molecule within the PFAS group with a long carbon chain that was used, for example, as the basic ingredient of “Scotchguard” to make clothing waterproof. Not only the 3M business premises themselves, but also the wider area around Zwijndrecht contains far too high concentrations of PFOS in the soil and in the groundwater. The fact that **Lantis** , the developer of the Oosterweel connection on behalf of the Flemish Government, is building the new Scheldt tunnel precisely there and is therefore moving massively contaminated soil and pumping up polluted (ground) water, does not make the problem any smaller.
>
>What has received little attention so far are PFAS with an even shorter chain: the ultra-short PFAS that are built around two or three carbon atoms.
>
>It gradually became clear that it is not only PFOS that poses a major problem. are also [ PFAS with a shorter carbon chain ](https://www.apache.be/2021/09/27/problematische-pfas-uitstoot-lucht-door-3m) problematic for the environment and health. 3M stopped producing PFOS in 2002 and replaced it with the production of shorter-chain PFAS liquids, such as PFBA and PFBS. These substances also appear to occur in high concentrations in groundwater in the wider vicinity of 3M. They are not only discharged into the Scheldt, they are also exhaled through the factory chimney to settle further down the line. Ultimately, 3M was forced to largely stop these production processes and even to announce a complete production stop for fluorine-containing products.
>
>However, what has received little attention until now are PFAS with an even shorter chain: the ultra-short PFAS that are built around two or three carbon atoms. Last year, Apache reported for the first time about how the smallest brothers from the PFAS family are [ slowly poisoning Flanders ](https://www.apache.be/2022/09/16/3m-en-indaver-vergiftigen-vlaanderen-met-ultrakorte-pfas) while the government does nothing: ultra-short PFAS are not measured anywhere and the substances do not appear in any environmental permit.
>
>The latter is particularly significant because anyone who dumps substances into the environment must, in principle, apply for an environmental permit. Nothing may be discharged without an environmental permit. But as mentioned, no one seemed to know about the existence of the ultra-short PFAS, let alone measured its discharges into water or air. As a result, 3M was able to dump huge quantities of ultra-short PFAS into the Scheldt unhindered for years.