the chemicals may interfere with the body’s hormones, raise cholesterol levels, affect fertility and increase the risk of certain cancers, according to the EPA."
the chemicals may interfere with the body’s hormones, raise cholesterol levels, affect fertility and increase the risk of certain cancers, according to the EPA."
You do realize, many of those “forever chemicals” have no alternative? PFOA for example is essential for modern production, because there is no other material known to withstand the temperatures and pressures needed in the production processes? So the alternative is either not to use them at all, with ALL the consequences - or we have use a proper way to dispose them.
Purification Plants are the same
argumentanalogy.Is there really no alternative in shampoo & disposable coffee cups?
I understand that these chemicals do have some outstanding properties but that doesn’t mean unfettered production & use. Any risk assessment of a potential use really should include 100% resource recovery & disposal or recycling. This could have been done years ago but if industry can’t self regulate then bans it is.
These chemicals make silent spring look like, um, er, weekend at Bernie’s?
There is - but i personally think it’s up to customers to not just grab what’s on the shelf and do at least some basic research, because PFAS generally have to be marked on the bottle. Disposable coffee cups are just stupid all together.
I get the sentiment, but why not regulate stuff, before just banning it? And while we’re at it, how about educating the customer?
You’re just shifting responsibility to the population that has no real control over the matter. That’s completely unethical.
And you are arguing that customers become mindless drones that don’t need to think about any consequences when they consume. Which is exactly why we have fucked up the climate.
Coming back to the purification plant, that’s the same thing if everyone would go shit in the Neighbors garden and flushing down anything down the toilet. We don’t do that, because we know it would fuck up the purification plant, clogg the toilet and turn the garden in to a literal dump.
Choosing what you buy is also the same thing as choosing what to eat. Sure, if you don’t know any better you may just eat junk food all day long. But the consequences are going to haunt you very much.
You want everyone to know all of the ethical concerns involved in every kind of product, from its contents to its manufacture, transportation, packaging, et cetera? We’ll all be full-time students for decades before being allowed into a Walmart, I guess. Maybe that’ll bring back smaller shops, with only a Master’s degree in Ethical Shopping required.
For reference, a quick search turns up estimates of 120,000+ product SKUs on Walmart shelves. Kindof a lot to keep track of, no? And no, you’re not permitted to respond with some “Oh, just don’t be stuck in a shitty life/place where you’re stuck buying corporate ‘products’” crap or else I will post a vomiting emoji at you.
There’s a lot of stuff to keep track of and “free” time is intentionally kept minimal so maybe don’t blame people for not knowing their shampoo is environmentally unethical whilst they’re worrying about their car that’s in the shop because the airbags are more lethal than most crashes, they’re just now learning to avoid potatoes in their diet ( 😭 ), their boss is making them work asinine hours, and they’re still busy researching the sixty thousand products from the left half of the only shop in their area.
tl;dr: How the roasted goat bollocks is anyone supposed to “know better” for absolutely everything in life? Maybe it’s fair to hope for some help on these things.
Customers are already mindless drones lol wtf are you talking about?
Maybe in the U.S., but not in Europe. We got the Nutri-Score, we got the animal wellfare labeling and we have open source databanks where you scan the barcode and get all the information about a product so you can actually make a decision.