this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2025
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Plastic gotta be this age's lead/quicksilver.
It is. Along with PFAS.
The PFAS/PFOA controversy, is mostly about banning these commodity products so that the proprietary, non-commodity alternatives by western companies can become the only high temperature dry lubricant on sale.
Maybe in another 60 years we'll have the same controversy about them !
No it isnt, its about the production precursors being literal poison for anything they get into with no chance of breaking down. Its a unusually harmful and persistive compound.
And the current goal is to ban them all
https://www.wcl.org.uk/transitioning-to-a-pfas-free-economy.asp
Leaving us only able to buy the proprietary alternative of an oligopoly, instead of regulating the production of this commodity.
End result, we pay for it all and get a degradation in quality.
Hey friend you know the chemicals they make those things from are like WILDLY carconogenic right? And that PFAs and their cousins last forever and don't break down in the environment?
These chemicals are being banned because humans got too good at making super stable fuck-you-big molecules that just so happen to be wildly incompatible with anything that has DNA. These chemicals are literally everywhere with water treatment facilities having acceptable limits 2ppb or less. Yea, B, Billon. The thing with that amount though, is even THAT isn't safe, its just regulable. Here's an oversimplified video on the subject by Veritasium, the clickbait headline is just that. I believe this is also on nebula if you'd prefer to avoid youtube.
They should stop dumping it in the rivers
You should really watch that video. It addresses that point exactly. In short, they mostly aren't, that isn't the problem.
Dude it's literally poison what do you want??? It also leeches into the environment extremely easily.
What's the proprietary alternative?
More PFAS, but with a secret formula so nobody has to worry
some ptfe/ceramic/titanium/diamond metamatrial that tolerates way high temperatures, which you can use metal utensils on and is not as good as regular ptfe at stopping eggs from sticking to the pan.
But PTFE is used for more than nonstick pans.
Did you at some point read about how some of them, such as the ones used in frying pans, are unlikely to cause problems in the human body, and then completely stopped looking into it further?
It's a massive group of compounds, some of which currently look to be quite safe, but a significant number of which also have fully verified dangers (especially some compounds required for production).
Yes, I read about it and the teflon on frying pan is explicitely NOT the problem. I understand that pointing to frying pans and saying "PTFE !!" is the attention grabbing thing to do. But there is no danger here.
The problem is the manufacturing plants leaking PFOA/PFAS into their surrounding environment !
Maybe lead with that, instead of the conspiracy angle.
That's been well known for over 50 years, why do you think now, all of a sudden, this is becoming an issue now ? This is because there are new coatings, silicon based PTFE-free coatings and PTFE-based metamaterial that combine titanium, ceramic and/or PCD.
As the manufacturer invest in this new technology, they either restrict PTFE commodity manufacturers out of their market or merely stop funding lobbying that protects the PTFE.
This is not a conspiracy theory, simple emergent interests that do not require a coordination.
Abestos was used for millenias, and was known the miners a thousands years ago would succumb to a mysterious illness after working years in the mines... and it was just banned in the US in checks notes. Last year. Must've been big fiberglass behind it!
Cool.
But the reason you're being downvoted, is that instead of commenting this, you made a comment that sounded like you were dismissing the dangers of PFAS, and dismissing it as the modern-day equivalent to lead, asbestos, and the like.
Which is what it is, and you clearly agree that it is.
The difference with leaded gasoline and asbestos, is that everyone everywhere was being exposed to those.
And the current trajectory regarding PFAS is, a complete ban https://www.wcl.org.uk/transitioning-to-a-pfas-free-economy.asp
But they're not a problem everywhere, they're a problem of containment at the manufacturer.
This is what sloppy statements like plastics and teflon are tantamount to the widespread lead and mercury poisoning. That's just not the case but acting like it is, is exactly how industry initiate regulatory capture.
I see it the same as the big tech giants pushing hard FOR regulation, because ultimately the rules, written with their impetus will become their motes and we will all pay for it.
So screw the local environment and the people that live there? If the manufacturer could capture and destroy pfoa's before release, why havent they done so? If they could and didnt, then they brought the ban unpon themselves.
This is like arguing "oh, but the oil spill was in a remote part of the ocean and would never effect my house, so keep on drilling baby!"
Or make sure they don't have spills again, doesn't seem that hard.
Right... like how hard is it not crash a ship into a bridge? Even good stewards have accidents. So if there something better and less destructive to the environment, it should be strongly prefered.