It's Literally Raining 'Forever Chemicals', And The Storm Could Last For Decades

The earth is being overrun by humans, yet not all of our garbage is readily apparent.

While it is simple to see plastic waste on the beach, microplastics and "forever chemicals" have spread far without our knowledge.

These days, these types of pollution are so pervasive in the environment that they fall with the rain. While the threat posed by microplastics is frequently discussed, some experts contend that the proliferation of other persistent manmade chemicals is generally underappreciated.

Scientists in Europe are increasingly concerned that we have crossed a crucial threshold. They contend that we have reached a dangerous operating area from which there is almost no return due to the presence of pollutants that are present permanently in our hydrosphere at levels that surpass important criteria.

Following another cautionary report that claimed the globe had beyond the acceptable planetary limit for synthetic chemicals, this one comes as a warning.

Long-lasting per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) may have adverse health impacts, much like microplastics.

Although some PFAS types have been linked to potentially dangerous consequences, such as cancer, thorough study is lagging and official safety criteria in the US are frequently ignored.

European researchers worry that it won't be too late if some everlasting chemicals do turn out to have hazardous consequences in the future.

PFAS levels in rainwater "often substantially exceed" US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommendation standards, and also frequently exceed Danish guidelines, according to a worldwide examination of PFAS levels during the previous 10 years (which, after the US, is the most strict, globally).

Even in isolated regions like the Tibetan Plateau, where researchers discovered certain pollutants surpass EPA criteria by a factor of 14, the pollution remains persistent.

Environmental chemist Ian Cousins from Stockholm University in Sweden claims that rainfall worldwide would be deemed dangerous to drink based on the most recent US criteria for PFOA in drinking water.

Although drinking rainwater is uncommon in the modern world, many people believe it to be safe to do so and it is the source of many of our drinking water sources.

For instance, a countrywide mapping of PFAS in Sweden indicated that over 50% of municipal drinking waters were beyond permissible levels.

Furthermore, not just water is affected. Additionally, PFAS are seeping into soils, and in Europe, this ground pollution often surpasses recommended amounts.

In fact, Dutch businesspeople found it so challenging to uphold previous safety requirements that the Dutch government simply loosened its regulations.

Meanwhile, as scientists discover more about the effects that these chemicals have on human health, PFAS regulations in the US are growing harsher.

Due to the fact that several PFAS types proved to be more hazardous than anticipated, the US EPA recently revised its safety threshold for them.

A federal monitor, the Environmental Working Group, issued a warning in 2020 that several sources of drinking water in the US have dangerously high amounts of PFAS. However, this organization has a history of exaggerating the negative effects of certain chemicals on human health, and at the time, EWG's safety thresholds for PFAS in drinking water were far lower than the EPA's recommendations.

no more. For two chemical groups known as PFOA and PFOS, the EPA health recommendation in 2020 was 70 parts per trillion. Now, it is incredibly low—0.004 parts per trillion for PFOA and 0.02 parts per trillion for PFOS, respectively.

According to EWG research, at these new, hardly perceptible levels, over half of the US population will be exposed to potentially hazardous substances.

In the previous 20 years, "there has been an astonishing reduction in guideline values for PFAS in drinking water," claims Cousins.

One well-known PFAS chemical that may cause cancer has supposedly dropped by 37.5 million times below the US drinking water guideline limit.

That doesn't bode well. It shows that several long-lasting manmade compounds made by the military and used in items like Teflon, Scotchguard, and foam have concerns that regulators have been ignoring or underappreciating.

Whether or not one agrees with our conclusion that the planetary boundary for PFAS has been exceeded, the authors write that it is "highly problematic" that the recently proposed health advisories cannot be implemented everywhere on Earth where humans live without significant investment in advanced cleanup technology.

Although one of the largest manufacturers (3M) phased out PFOS and PFOA 20 years ago, it will take decades for levels in land-based water and precipitation to get close to low picogram per liter levels.

These findings are most likely the tip of the iceberg because the latest investigation only took into account four different forms of PFAS. At the same time, hundreds of additional persistent compounds are also leaking into the environment, the majority of whose dangers remain unknowable.

The size of the issue is just not being kept up with by federal rules.