🌱 PFAS use in the United States 🧪

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or "forever chemicals," are a group of manmade chemicals found in consumer, commercial and industrial products, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Trace amounts of these substances can be found in people, animals, water, soil, air and food across the world because components of these chemicals break down incredibly slowly and stay in the environment for decades.

PFAS enter the environment through soil, air and water. Manufacturing and industrial processes that create PFAS can release these substances into the air, which leads them to enter household products such as paints and sealants.

Landfills can also cause PFAS to enter the soil through products coated in the chemicals and when firefighting foam with the contaminants is used after waste incineration. Rainwater can soal soil with these chemicals as well, according to TRC Companies, an engineering consulting firm.

One of the most common ways is through chemical spills and fire suppressant foams, according to the company.

One of the largest single confirmed sites of PFAS in the environment from the past 20 years occured after a tanker truck that left a Chemours plant in Fayetteville, North Carolina, spilled liquid onto the street in Bladen County, North Carolina, in 2018. The truck was filled with rainwater from dikes by at the plant, North Carolina Health News reported in 2019. The truck driver estimated a gallon or less had spilled, but the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality found 17,000 times the safe amount of the carcinogen GenX in samples from neighbors near the spill.

According to data from PFAS Exchange and the PFAS Project Lab, the spill resulted in PFAS levels of over 33.5 million ppt in the environment. The EPA's maximum contaminant levels of PFAS in drinking water range from 4 ppt to 10 ppt, depending on the chemical.

💧 The U.S. EPA requires public water systems to monitor for six types of PFAS — PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA and mixtures of two or more of these chemicals. EPA data shows that some public water systems that produced samples at or above the maximum contaminant levels for these chemicals served as many as 2.3 million people in 2024.

Based on the EPA's National Primary Drinking Water Regulation, which was announced last April, public water systems must begin to give the public information about PFAS levels in their drinking water starting in 2027, and have until 2029 to implement solutions that reduce PFAS levels if they are above the maximum contaminant level.

In 2029, these water systems must also notify the public if they violate the contaminant maxiumums and take action to reduce PFAS levels.

🏭 EPA data on sites suspected to use PFAS shows that oil and gas manufacturers make up a significant majority of the total suspected sites from 1975 to 2021.

Drilling and fracking fluids often contain PFAS due to the chemicals' ability to repel water and oil, as well as their resistance to heat, according to SCS Engineers, an environmental consulting and construction company.

🛢️ PFAS are often used commercially to prevent food from sticking to pans and make materials resistant to stains.

In industrial use, these chemicals prevent evaporation, fires and corrosion, and are particularly useful for technologies that require high temperatures, such as semiconductor manufacturing as well as refrigerant fluid for heat transfer and lubrication, according to the Interstate Technology Regulatory Council.