Environmental PFOA contamination and outdoor gear
Posted: March 7th, 2016, 7:23 pm
With recent long-form news articles detailing just how bad, ubiquitous, and non-biodegadeable perfluorinated chemicals (PFOAs) are (they're used to make Teflon and nonstick/waterproof coatings), it's sobering to consider how much outdoor gear must be coated in them - gear we then take outside into "wild" places...
DuPont used to produce C8 PFOAs in the manufacture of Teflon. This was phased out once their adverse health effects came to light.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magaz ... .html?_r=0
These chemicals have been replaced with "new" shorter chain C6 PFOAs, but the new chemicals exhibit many of the same properties and are not being subject to environmental health and safety testing before their implementation.
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/03/how ... lon-toxin/
Greenpeace had people ask a number of outdoor companies to disclose their use of PFOAs, and it turns out almost all of them use such chemicals. (Columbia notably refused to answer...)
http://www.greenpeace.org/international ... log/54178/
Patagonia has discussed PFOAs on their blog. (Note that only the first section is relevant, and the rest is basically promotional distraction.) While I don't doubt that there is definitely an engineering consideration of durable gear features (like water repellency) vs avoiding the toxic chemicals that provide such features, it is still disconcerting considering how water resistant everything is these days compared with gear from 20 or even 10 years ago.
http://www.thecleanestline.com/2015/09/ ... dated.html
Anyway, some interesting and troubling reading if you have some time to kill...
DuPont used to produce C8 PFOAs in the manufacture of Teflon. This was phased out once their adverse health effects came to light.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magaz ... .html?_r=0
These chemicals have been replaced with "new" shorter chain C6 PFOAs, but the new chemicals exhibit many of the same properties and are not being subject to environmental health and safety testing before their implementation.
https://theintercept.com/2016/03/03/how ... lon-toxin/
Greenpeace had people ask a number of outdoor companies to disclose their use of PFOAs, and it turns out almost all of them use such chemicals. (Columbia notably refused to answer...)
http://www.greenpeace.org/international ... log/54178/
Patagonia has discussed PFOAs on their blog. (Note that only the first section is relevant, and the rest is basically promotional distraction.) While I don't doubt that there is definitely an engineering consideration of durable gear features (like water repellency) vs avoiding the toxic chemicals that provide such features, it is still disconcerting considering how water resistant everything is these days compared with gear from 20 or even 10 years ago.
http://www.thecleanestline.com/2015/09/ ... dated.html
Anyway, some interesting and troubling reading if you have some time to kill...