Paper mills produce cardbord and paper used for drinking/eating on (coffee cups for example) which have a layer of pfas to insulate them (the inside is a little slippery).
This is a big big part of the industry, as it's worth a lot by weight compared to other paper products
Also, I believe that heat is one of the big factors when thinking about pfas - meaning coffee in a coffee cup is not ideal.
But I'm personally not too worried about ingesting pfas from pfas lined products!
First off - the water cycle has already been infiltrated by them, you can look it up, but rainfall all over the world contains significant pfas, I think the strong image people keep is that it's raining pfas in the Himalayas. This has been going on a few years if I recall right.
So it's already pretty bad - you're ingesting them in water( water treatment does treat those away in most of the US and Canada (from what I'm aware of)) But also in everything that ingests that water, like plants and the ground. This also means that any food that is transformed has a good chance of concentrating PFAS into itself.
Second reason is that the reason we use PFAS is because they are very strong and hard to break down. It's unlikely that your coffee cup will infuse a large amount of pfas in the coffee because it was put there to be a barrier, if it shed material easily it wouldn't be a good surface treatment.
The issue is what the article talked about : PFAS in waste breaking down into very small particles that are tough to handle and are very mobile in the environnement. By using more and more PFAS in manufacturing, we're creating more waste that will emit PFAS particles into the environnement - meaning the water cycle, and then we poison the whole world.
We need regulation! People don't even know they are participating to the problem.
> But I'm personally not too worried about ingesting pfas from pfas lined products!
The fact that we've poisoned the rain wouldn't make me feel any better about the PFAS I'm getting from packaging. There's research showing that the chemicals do leach into food from packaging and that it causes significant increases in the amount found in people's blood. Look up the findings on PFAS and microwave popcorn for example. It not looking good for coffee cups either https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03043...
> Toilet paper should be considered as a potentially major source of PFAS entering wastewater treatment systems
> The PFAS levels detected are low enough to suggest the chemicals are used in the manufacturing process to prevent paper pulp from sticking to machinery, Thompson said. PFAS are often used as lubricants in the manufacturing process and some of the chemicals are commonly left on or in consumer goods.
> In a statement to WSVN in Florida, a trade group representing the toilet paper industry said no PFAS is added to toilet paper. Thompson said “evidence seems to suggest otherwise” though it may be true that PFAS are not intentionally added.
> Researchers detected six PFAS compounds, with 6:2 diPAP representing the highest levels. The compound has not been robustly studied, but is linked to testicular dysfunction. The study also found PFOA, a highly toxic compound, and 6:2 diPAP can turn into PFOA once in the environment.
