For decades, 3M — a multibillion-dollar chemical company based in Minnesota — sold its firefighting foams as safe and biodegradable, while having knowledge that they contained toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), according to newly uncovered documents, reported The Guardian.
Starting in the 1960s and continuing until 2003, 3M’s firefighting foams contained perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), two types of PFAS “forever chemicals.”
The synthetic chemical compounds have been linked to a variety of health problems like thyroid disease, hormonal and fertility problems, high cholesterol and cancer. They are called “forever chemicals” because it can take thousands of years for them to break down in the environment.
The Guardian and Watershed Investigations discovered that evidence of the inability of PFOS to naturally biodegrade began to surface as early as 1949. However, 3M continued to publish brochures and information for customers that said the firefighting foams would break down in the environment until the 1990s.
3M firefighting foam brochures from 1979 described the foams as “environmental neutral” and “biodegradable, low in toxicity, and… can be treated in biological treatment systems,” The Guardian reported.
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In 1993, 3M data sheets were still claiming that the foams were “treatable in a biological wastewater treatment system,” though they admitted some elements might persist in treated wastewater.
PFAS expert professor Ian Cousins with Stockholm University described the disposal of foams in sewer systems as “disastrous,” since the chemicals would have gone “straight through the wastewater treatment process, either ending up in the effluent from the wastewater treatment plant or in the sludge,” as reported by The Guardian.
From there the effluent was released into rivers, while the sludge was frequently applied to crops.
In 1949, a piece in Scientific American stated that fluorocarbons — which include PFAS — “do not burn, corrode, mold or decay. Neither rodents nor insects nor fungi can find any nourishment in them.”
By 1964, it had been determined by HG Bryce, an employee of 3M, that fluorocarbons were “physiologically inert,” meaning they did not biodegrade.
Lab tests conducted in 1983 showed that PFAS did not degrade, specifying that biodegradation could not be expected “in an aquatic environment.”
In 2018, 3M paid $890 million in settlements following a lawsuit by Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson against the company for PFAS pollution.
Five years later, 3M paid over $10 billion in settlements for suits concerning contamination of numerous public drinking water systems without admitting liability.
In addition to the evidence of 3M having early knowledge that toxic PFAS did not degrade, company meeting minutes from 1978 reviewing studies inflicted upon rats and monkeys said PFOA and PFOS “should be regarded as toxic although the degree of toxicity was left undefined.”
The misleading information 3M provided to customers for decades has resulted in an unknown quantity of firefighting foams having been misused globally, contaminating water, soils and human bloodstreams with PFAS.
“When you have a contaminated site, you can clean it up,” Elsie Sunderland, a Harvard University environmental chemist, told ProPublica. “When you ubiquitously introduce a toxicant at a global scale, so that it’s detectable in everyone… we’re reducing public health on an incredibly large scale.”
3M announced in 2000 that certain PFAS compounds, including PFOA and PFOS, would be phased out in products like Light Water Brand aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF). The company said it has “long since phased both materials out of its operations and also permanently discontinued production of AFFF,” The Guardian reported.
Two years later, 3M said it would stop the manufacture of all PFAS worldwide “by the end of 2025 and are on schedule to do so… We have engaged in site remediation at our facilities and have invested in state-of-the-art water treatment technologies at sites where we have historically manufactured PFAS.”
The PFOS-laden foams were finally banned in the UK in 2011, but foams that contain PFOA will not be totally phased out until July of this year. Foams made with other PFAS compounds are still being used by the company.
PFAS pollution is now found in water, soils, animals and humans all over the world.
“PFAS chemicals have been used extensively for over 70 years and their persistence once in the environment unfortunately means there are no quick fixes. We have already begun investigating whether to restrict PFAS in firefighting foams and will set out more detail in due course,” said a UK government spokesperson, as reported by The Guardian.
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