#pfaspollution — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #pfaspollution, aggregated by home.social.
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#CommunityVoicesForChange on #WMPG!
Topics include:
#PFASPollution in Maine
#TransgenderYouth
#FoodInsecurity
#AISurveillance
#VotersRights
#NuclearWeapons
And much, much more!Stream on demand:
https://www.wmpg.org/wmpg-podcasts/community-voices-for-change/ -
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
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#WTF! #CorruptSCOTUS HAS GOT TO GO!!
#USAirForce avoids #PFAS water cleanup, citing #SupremeCourt’s #Chevron ruling
#EPA says Tucson’s drinking water is contaminated but air force claims agency lacks authority to order cleanup
by Tom Perkins
Mon 12 Aug 2024"The US air force is refusing to comply with an order to clean drinking water it polluted in Tucson, Arizona, claiming federal regulators lack authority after the conservative-dominated US supreme court overturned the 'Chevron doctrine'. Air force bases contaminated the water with toxic PFAS '#ForeverChemicals' and other dangerous compounds.
"Though former US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials and legal experts who reviewed the air force’s claim say the Chevron doctrine ruling probably would not apply to the order, the military’s claim that it would represents an early indication of how #polluters will wield the controversial court decision to evade responsibility."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/12/air-force-epa-water-pfas-tucson
#ImpeachJusticeThomas #ChevronDoctrine #SCOTUSIsCompromised
#ImpeachJusticeAlito #TuscanArizona #WaterIsLife #PFASPollution