By: Karen Melton, Member, Southeastern Pennsylvania Group; Sylvanian Volunteer
At the EPA, news and science reports about PFAS (which stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) also known as ‘forever chemicals’ because they are practically indestructible once in the environment, continue to abound, and as you might expect, with a substance that pits the chemical industry against human health, it’s often not good news, but there is some.
In September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) kept in place regulations passed during the Biden administration that are being challenged. The regulations designated two specific PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances, making pollution producers responsible for cleanup. An industry court challenge is ongoing, as well as opposition from a former industry attorney who is now a high-level EPA appointee - Steven Cook.
It turns out, however, that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who we do not necessarily think of as someone standing up for environmental protection, is a former Long Island congressman whose district was impacted by PFAS contamination of water supplies and has brought that experience to the EPA.
In California, also in September, although not yet signed into law by the governor as of this writing, the state legislature passed a bill prohibiting PFAS in a number of products, such as plastic food packaging, dental floss, and cleaning products. It also prohibits the sale of cookware using PFAS by 2030 -- PFAS are often the operative substances in non-stick pots and pans.
California has previously passed legislation prohibiting PFAS in other consumer products such as paper food packaging, cosmetics, and fire-fighting foam, and it is not the first state to take such steps. Colorado, Connecticut, and Minnesota have PFAS bans in place for some of the same products.
In New Jersey, in August, the state of New Jersey reached a $2 billion settlement with DuPont and 3M, paid out over a number of years, to clean up and address damages around four different factories where PFAS were used, contaminating the surrounding environment and groundwater.
The Bad News: The stories above are hopeful – maybe public policy can move in the direction of protecting people ahead of economic interests. But so much damage is already done. We all have PFAS in our bloodstreams, leached from water, cookware, cleaning products, cosmetics, and more; we all have glyphosate (a component of Roundup weed killer) in our bloodstreams that has been absorbed by plants we eat and the soil it grows in. The industry fiction about glyphosate is that it quickly breaks down – turns out it just breaks down into smaller toxic elements. We all have a growing accumulation of microplastics in our bodies and brains from the air we breathe, the food we eat that was stored in plastic, and the plants and animals we eat that have themselves ingested microplastics. The body of science on how these toxins impact human health is growing, but the results are all ominous – cancers, infertility, respiratory disease, the list goes on.
In conclusion, although some countries do a better job of policing product safety than the U.S., consumers around the world are being exposed to vast, unchosen, and mostly unavoidable chemical experiments in our food, air, and water supplies. We trust that the air is safe to breathe, our water is safe to drink, and our food is safe to eat. But it turns out that much is not safe, and it takes either enormous public pressure campaigns or years of litigation to take on such billion-dollar products as PFAS, plastics, or Roundup and achieve even the small wins in this article.
This blog was included as part of the October 2025 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!