Tldr;
In 2022, a team at University of California at Riverside discovered that blasting wastewater with special “short-wave” ultraviolet rays causes PFAS chemical bonds to break down without creating harmful byproducts.
Tell me when they have a way to remove it from my cell supply
They do leave the body over time, but the half life is very long, like 3-10 years depending on the specific one.
Blood levels of many of them have fallen a lot since the year 2000ish as some were phased out, though of course there’s dangers of more being made.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/health-effects/us-population.html
There’s also new rules going in effect 2025 to require them to be removed from tap water if present, using a different process called ion exchange. The method described in the article is a way of destroying them once they’re removed, so a way to treat high pfa level waste basically.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/pfas/health-effects/us-population.html
Horrible how multiple companies like 3M and Dupont were covering up their dangers for years. $10 billion doesn’t seem like nearly enough in damages.
https://time.com/6289893/3m-forever-chemical-pfas-settlement/
Especially when the costs of keeping it out of affected drinking water systems alone is expected to be $1.5 billion, per year.
Give blood.
Or plasma which you can donate more often
Or platelets every two weeks, woo!
Does that remove pfas, though?
Looks like that one hasn’t been specifically researched. But where I go they do “Platelets Plus,” so as you’re eligible they take an additional bag of either red cells or plasma. So, unless the all toxins are all in the white cells, it should do the job.
donate blood. Firefighters (who train with hazardous PFAS foam/liquids) were shown to have lower levels in their blood stream if they donated blood regularly.
This is very interesting. Currently, most ion exchange systems that remove PFAS have to dispose of their brine as hazardous waste, which is very costly and doesn’t necessarily destroy PFAS - in Florida, for example, they inject the brine into a deep aquifer.
A lot of novel technologies target PFAS destruction in these concentrated waste streams, but often further concentration is required before you can effectively destroy PFAS with advanced oxidation processes. If they could use low-UV to destroy it without further concentration or additional chemicals (beside the salt already used to regenerate the resin), ion exchange would become a much better solution for treated PFAS contaminated water.
deleted by creator
PFAS last a hell of a long time without our intervention
Nothing lasts forever.
Our collective love of Dolly Parton?
Nothing.
It’s “forever” in the environmental sense that they don’t break down naturally (or at least very, very slowly). That said, “forever chemicals” is more of a media buzzword than a term that scientists use.
Indefinite chemicals.
