#bigchem — Public Fediverse posts

Inside America’s carpet capital: an empire and its #toxic legacy

Covering the world in carpet came with a cost no one wants to pay

By Dylan Jackson, Jason Dearen and Justin Price, February 5, 2026

"Bob Shaw glared at the executives from the chemical giant #3M across the table from him. He held up a carpet sample and pointed at the logo for Scotchgard on the back.

" 'That’s not a logo,' fumed Shaw, CEO of the world’s largest #carpet company, one attendee later recalled. 'That’s a target.'

"Weeks earlier, 3M Company announced it would reformulate its signature stain-resistance brand under pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency because of human health and #environmental concerns.

"Mills like Shaw’s had been using Scotchgard in carpet production, releasing its chemical ingredients into the environment for decades. And on a massive scale: The shrewd CEO built Shaw Industries from a family firm in Dalton, Georgia, into a globally dominant carpet maker worth billions.

“I got 15 million of these out in the marketplace,” Shaw told his 3M visitors. 'What am I supposed to do about that?'

"A 3M executive replied that he didn’t know. Shaw threw the sample at him and left the room.

"The answer to Shaw’s Scotchgard question from that moment in 2000 would be the same as that of the broader industry. Carpet makers kept using closely related chemical alternatives for years, even after scientific studies and regulators warned of their accumulation in human blood and possible health effects. Customers expected stain resistance; nothing worked better than the family of chemicals known as PFAS.

"A lack of state and federal regulations allowed carpet companies and their suppliers to legally switch among different versions of these stain-and-soil resistant products. Meanwhile, the local public utility in Dalton responsible for ensuring safe drinking water coordinated with carpet executives in private meetings that would effectively shield their companies from oversight.

"Year after year, the chemicals traveled in water discarded during manufacturing from mills across northwest Georgia, eventually reaching a river system that provides drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people in #Georgia and eastern #Alabama.

"The #pollution is so bad some researchers have identified the region as one of the nation’s PFAS hot spots. Today, the consequences can be found everywhere. PFAS, often called forever chemicals because they can take decades or more to break down, are in the water and the soil.

"They’re in the dust on floors where children crawl, the local #fish and #wildlife, and as ongoing research has shown, the people.

"Doctors have few answers for those like Dolly Baker who live downriver from Dalton’s carpet plants. She recently learned her blood has extraordinarily high PFAS levels.

" 'I feel like, I don’t know, almost like there’s a blanket over me, smothering me that I can’t get out from under,' she said. “It’s just, you’re trapped.' "

Read more:
https://apnews.com/projects/pfas-forever-stained/

#PFAS #Scotchguard #ThreeM #3MKnew #3MLied #BigChem #Accountability #WaterIsLife #CancerCausing #EnvironmentalPollution #ForeverChemicals #Carpeting #WoolRugs #HempRugs #DontTrustBigChem #PFASPollution

A Month After #Trump Doubles Down on #Atrazine, #WHO Dubs It ‘Probably #Carcinogenic to Humans’

“It is outrageously irresponsible that we still allow use of this dangerous #poison in the United States,” said the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health science director.

Jessica Corbett
Nov 21, 2025

"Just a month after the Trump administration doubled down on the alleged safety of atrazine, a United Nations agency said on Friday that the pesticide—which is banned by dozens of countries but commonly used on #corn, #sugarcane, and #sorghum in the United States—probably causes #cancer.

" 'It is outrageously irresponsible that we still allow use of this dangerous poison in the United States,' said Nathan Donley, the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health science director, in a Friday statement. 'This finding is just the latest indictment of the industry-controlled US #pesticide oversight process that is failing to protect people and #wildlife from chemicals linked to numerous health harms.' "

https://www.commondreams.org/news/atrazine-herbicide

#CommonDreams #EPAFail #Bayer
#ToxicPesticides #Monocrops
#Monocrap #BigAg #BigChem #Poison #USPol #WorldPol #Pesticides #CenterForBiologlicalDiversity

Not surprising...

#Trump DOJ Sides With #Roundup Manufacturer Over #Cancer Victims in Supreme Court Case

An attorney at Food & Water Watch said the DOJ sent a “clear message... to sick Americans harmed by toxic pesticides: Trump has Bayer’s back, not theirs.”

by Stephen Prager, Dec 02, 2025

"The Trump administration is pushing for the US Supreme Court to shield the manufacturer of Roundup from thousands of state lawsuits alleging that its widely used herbicide product causes cancer.

"On Monday, US Solicitor General D. John Sauer recommended that the high court agree to hear a challenge to a Missouri jury’s verdict in 2023 that awarded $1.25 million to a man named #JohnDurnell, who claimed that the product caused him to develop #NonHodgkinLymphoma.

"Bayer, the agribusiness giant that purchased the manufacturer of Roundup, the #Agribusiness giant #Monsanto, in 2018, immediately challenged the verdict.

"In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (#IARC) classified glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, as 'probably #carcinogenic to humans' based on 'limited evidence.'

"That evidence became less limited in 2019, when a prominent meta-analysis by a team of environmental health researchers found that people exposed to glyphosate at the highest levels had a 41% higher risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma than those who weren’t.

"There are nearly 4,500 Roundup claims currently pending in federal court, and at least 24 cases have gone to trial since October 2023. They make up just a fraction of the more than 170,000 claims filed.

"According to Bloomberg, Bayer has already been forced to pay out more than $10 billion in verdicts and settlements over the product, which has caused a massive drain on the company’s stock price.

"In what it said was an effort to 'manage litigation risk and not because of any safety concerns,' Bayer removed glyphosate-based #herbicides from the residential market in 2023 [BUT NOT THE COMMERCIAL MARKET], switching to formulas that 'rely on alternative active ingredients.' [I wonder what environmental damage those do!]

"That didn’t stop the lawsuits from coming. Durnell’s victory was the first successful case brought against Bayer outside California, the only state that labels the product as carcinogenic. That in Missouri opened the floodgates in other states, and plaintiffs subsequently won sizable payouts in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

"But now the Trump administration is trying to help the company skirt further accountability. Sauer, who is tasked with arguing for the government in nearly every Supreme Court case, filed a 24-page brief stating that there is a lack of clarity on whether states have the authority to determine whether Bayer and Monsanto violated the law by failing to warn customers about potential cancer risks from Roundup.

"Bayer argues that these cases are preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (#FIFRA), which forbids states from enacting labeling requirements more stringent than those recommended by the federal government. [WELL WHAT CAN WE DO WHEN OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOESN'T DO ITS JOB?!!]

"Sauer agreed with Bayer, stating in the brief that the US Environmental Protection Agency 'has repeatedly determined that glyphosate is not likely to be carcinogenic in humans, and the agency has repeatedly approved Roundup labels that did not contain cancer warnings.'

"In 2016 and again in 2020, the EPA indeed classified glyphosate as 'not likely to be carcinogenic to humans' following agency assessments. However, in 2022, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals voided this assessment, finding that the agency applied 'inconsistent reasoning” in its review of the science.' " [Imagine that! The EPA fails us again!!!]

Read more / listen:
www.commondreams.org/news/trump-backs-bayer-monsanto-roundup

#MAHA #EPAFail #FoodWaterWatch #Glyphosate #Bayer #ToxicPesticides #Monocrops #Monocrap #BigAg #BigChem #Corruption #Poison #Crapitalism #CapitalismKills #RoundUpKills #USPol #WorldPol