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Dangerous ‘forever chemicals’ called PFAS contaminate drinking water, food and air.
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It may be impossible to avoid PFAS completely, but there are a few simple ways to reduce your exposure.
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Eating at home, throwing away non-stick pans and unnecessary carpets and filtering your water can help.
Dangerous, long-lasting ‘forever chemicals’ are everywhere in our everyday environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency just announced the first rules to remove chemicals from tap water forever, but that won’t eliminate them from your home.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a class of thousands of man-made substances that are commonly found in everyday objects. Peer-reviewed studies have linked them to certain cancers, reduced fertility, thyroid disease and developmental delays, among other things.
That’s bad news, since PFAS can last for decades without breaking down, earning them the nickname “forever chemicals.” Researchers have found them in drinking water, house dust, rainwater and soil across the planet, in the oceans, at both poles, and floating through the atmosphere.
Ian Cousins, an environmental chemist who studies PFAS at Stockholm University, fears it may be impossible to avoid the chemicals.
“I’m not worried,” Cousins told Business Insider in 2022, adding, “It’s almost an impossible mission. You can’t actually do it.”
Even though you can’t avoid PFAS completely, there are a few simple ways to reduce exposure in your daily life.
Eating at home, with minimal grease-resistant packaging
PFAS were developed in the 1940s to resist heat, grease, stains and water. That means they ended up in a lot of food packaging. That includes pizza boxes, microwave popcorn bags, some wrappers and greaseproof paper.
Restaurants and fast food chains may use such packaging more often than supermarkets. A 2019 study found that people had lower levels of PFAS in their blood after eating at home, and higher levels after eating fast food or at restaurants.
Still, Cousins said, “All food is contaminated with PFAS.”
Be careful with non-stick pans
The coating used in nonstick cookware usually contains PFAS, and these can easily leach into your food at high temperatures and once the coating becomes scratched.
The Washington Department of Ecology does not recommend heating nonstick cookware above 400 degrees Fahrenheit, and recommends throwing it away as soon as the nonstick coating scratches. Cast iron pans are a safe alternative.
However, Cousins said, “Scratching pans is not an exposure problem.” He added that the Teflon coating contains few harmful PFAS, but the worst of them were phased out in the early 2000s.
Throw away your stain-resistant carpet and fabrics
Water and stain resistant treatments, common on household items such as carpets and clothing such as raincoats, also contain PFAS. Some researchers don’t think the chemicals can be easily absorbed into your body through your skin, but those substances release fibers that can travel around the house as dust and eventually be swallowed or inhaled.
“You can find things that don’t have PFAS, and that in turn helps the companies that innovate,” Elsie Sunderland, who leads research on environmental pollutants at Harvard, told BI in March 2023.
Vacuum, dust and open the windows
PFAS accumulate in dust, which lingers in the air and allows people to breathe or ingest the chemicals into their lungs. By regularly dusting and vacuuming, and opening windows for air flow and ventilation, you can keep dust levels in your home low and reduce the amount of PFAS you ingest.
‘Dust can be big [PFAS] source in the indoor environment,” Sunderland said.
In fact, she added, “Many different contaminants absorb dust. So if you wipe down surfaces regularly and keep the areas clean, you actually minimize exposure.”
Test and, if necessary, treat your drinking water
You can test your water for PFAS through a laboratory certified by your state. If the water exceeds EPA or government guidelines, you may want to consider doing something about it, especially if you have children.
Even at very low levels, exposure to two of the most common PFAS – called PFOA and PFOS – has been linked to reduced vaccine response in children.
That research prompted the EPA to revise its drinking water guidelines in 2022, lowering the safe levels of those substances by a factor of 17,000. The agency then came up with a proposal to classify these two PFAS as hazardous substances. Now it strictly regulates their drinking water levels, but gives officials five years to ensure their water systems comply with the new rules.
In the meantime, some types of water filters can reduce PFAS levels, although they may not completely remove the chemicals from the water. State environmental departments recommend filtration systems that use reverse osmosis for tap water. These are usually installed under the sink and can cost several hundred dollars.
The next best option are filtration systems that use activated carbon (also called charcoal), which can be installed on faucets throughout the home or used in a table top pitcher, but a 2020 study found mixed results from those systems.
If you get your drinking water from a source, the EPA recommends testing it regularly and contacting your state environmental or health agency for certified laboratories and safety standards.
Check this before purchasing cosmetics
In 2021, a group of researchers published the results of testing 231 cosmetic products in the US and Canada for PFAS. More than half of the products contained indicators of the chemicals.
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has a public, searchable database of cosmetics and personal care products, highlighting ingredients with potential risks to human health, such as PFAS such as Teflon. They also maintain a map where you can check if you live near a PFAS contamination site.
The Green Science Policy Institute also maintains a list of PFAS-free products, including cosmetic brands.
Ultimately, Cousins said, people don’t have to be “super concerned” about exposure to low levels because there isn’t strong evidence of major health effects for the entire population. In the US, manufacturers have been phasing out the most harmful known PFAS – PFOA and PFOS – since the early 2000s. According to the CDC, levels of these substances in human blood have declined over the past two decades.
Still, reducing the use of PFAS in consumer products could prevent the problem from worsening in the future.
“I think we need to use this to get a little angry about what happened and try to make change so that we don’t keep doing this,” Cousins said. ‘Maybe we should use it [PFAS] in some cases, but only if they are absolutely necessary. And then we must also try to innovate, try to replace them in the longer term.”
This story has been updated in light of the U.S. EPA’s new limits for six PFAS in drinking water. It was previously updated to reflect disagreements in the scientific community regarding the level of PFAS exposure from Teflon. It was originally published on September 17, 2022.
Read the original article on Business Insider