All the while, PFAS continue to be manufactured, used, discarded, and circulated through the environment. Incineration-another traditional mitigation technique-risks sending undestroyed PFAS compounds up the smokestack and into the air. The filters are discarded or chemically washed for reuse, and the notoriously clingy PFAS reenter the environment through landfills and wastewater. The problem is, though, that once captured, the chemicals don’t go away. These methods work extraordinarily well to capture PFAS. Traditionally, PFAS are treated through standard water filtration methods: granular activated carbon, reverse osmosis, ion exchange resins. Though it has been years since the initial hazards of PFAS were made public, scientists and regulators have since struggled with how best to remediate the contamination and keep people safe. The health impacts of PFAS and extent to which the chemicals had pervaded the environment wouldn’t be discovered until the early 2000s, when legal action against DuPont unearthed evidence that chemical companies knew some of the risks PFAS posed to human health yet intentionally dumped them into waterways and unprotected holding ponds, where they eventually made their way into drinking water and people. Later other manufacturers, such as Chemours and Corteva, would develop and produce their own brands. Eventually, 3M began selling the material to fellow chemical companies, including DuPont, which used the material for its then revolutionary coating, Teflon. PFAS traces back to the mid-20th century, when the chemical giant 3M invented PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) to prevent nonstick coatings from clumping during production. Across the globe, researchers are developing new technologies and techniques to better understand, test, and track the chemicals-as well as identifying alternative materials-to eliminate PFAS for good. But destroying PFAS is only one step in the full remediation process. Revive’s Annihilator and other nascent destruction technologies show the first signs of promise that these “forever chemicals” can be removed from the environment permanently, limiting further human exposure and risk. And that’s only what we know about now: researchers continue to grapple with the full impacts of PFAS on human and environmental health. Studies suggest they’re in my blood and yours-the majority of Americans’, in fact-and they have been linked to increased risks of kidney and testicular cancer, decreased infant birthweights, and high blood pressure. Humans can’t break down PFAS, and our bodies struggle to clear them from our systems. Not only are PFAS everywhere around us they’re also in us. And many other technologies are still undergoing laboratory research. Other companies are actively running pilot programs, many with various divisions of the US Department of Defense and other government agencies. ![]() These span the gamut from established processes like electrochemical oxidation and supercritical water oxidation to emerging techniques relying on ultraviolet light, plasma, ultrasound, or catalyst-driven thermal processes. The Annihilator represents just one of several technologies now vying to break down and destroy PFAS. ![]() A few yards in front of me sits the company’s PFAS “Annihilator” in a white shipping container. The jar of PFAS concentrate in my hand is part of a demonstration arranged by my hosts, Revive Environmental, during a tour of the company’s PFAS destruction site, one of the first in the country to operate commercially and at scale. ![]() The quest to reduce the amount of PFAS in the environment is what led me to an industrial park in a southern suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan. They accumulate, are transferred throughout the watershed, and ultimately persist. PFAS are called forever chemicals because once present in the environment, they do not degrade or break down. The compounds are ubiquitous in drinking water and soil, even migrating to Arctic sea ice. Firefighting foams, waterproof hiking boots, raincoats, nonstick frying pans, dental floss, lipstick, and even the ink used to label packaging-all can contain PFAS. PFAS stands for “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances,” a family of upwards of 15,000 or more human-made and incredibly durable chemical compounds that have been used in countless industrial and consumer applications for decades. Except that’s exactly what I find myself doing. We may hear about them in the headlines, consider them when we turn on the tap for a glass of water or a shower, but we don’t see them. In the environment, PFAS are clear and odorless. For many, these toxic so-called “forever chemicals” amount to something of a specter, having crept into our lives-and bodies-quietly for more than half a century. ![]() The PFAS sample slides around the inside of the plastic jar when I swirl it, dark and murky, like thin maple syrup.
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