What Chemists and Academics Say We Need for a Full PFAS Phase-out
Six years ago, investigators uncovered an environmental catastrophe in North Carolina. A team of researchers from North Carolina State University had been studying the Cape Fear River watershed, an area in the central and southeastern part of the state that provides drinking water for around 1.5 million people. As they tested water from the river, as well as groundwater, they found unusually high concentrations of a short-chain organofluorine chemical compound known as GenX.
The chemical had been created by the DuPont-owned Chemours facility located in Fayetteville, N.C., as a replacement for perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, which has been found to cause cancer and other diseases. But GenX, which is one of many synthetic organofluorine compounds collectively known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, has been found to cause some of the same issues as PFOA.
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North Carolina’s GenX contamination served as a startling worst-case scenario during a meeting of chemists, academics and other stakeholders at the recent American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists PFAS in textiles summit.
Dr. Detlef Knappe, professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at N.C. State, worked on the study of the Cape Fear River watershed that discovered GenX contamination. He said that this kind of environmental disaster should serve as a warning and catalyst for companies to dial back their use of PFAS chemicals.
“The impacts on the lifestyle of this community are dramatic,” he said. “They can no longer drink their water without additional treatment, they no longer feel safe eating food they grow in their garden, they can no longer fish in their lakes. If you must use PFAS, I implore you to use pollution control equipment so that it doesn’t go into the environment.”
PFAS is an umbrella term for a large class of compounds that are used in a variety of products to provide water- and stain-repellency. In apparel, PFAS can be found in outdoor clothing such as raincoats, footwear and athletic apparel, among other uses. Many PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” because of their persistence in the environment and even the human body. While some PFAS such as GenX have been identified as toxic, others are still regularly used and haven’t been found to be harmful.
“There’s toxicity that’s associated with certain PFAS that are well-understood in terms of their toxicity, but others are not well-understood,” Knappe said. “Impacts associated with PFAS exposure are immuno-toxicity, liver toxicity and cancer.”
Those PFAS that aren’t well-understood seem to be the tipping point, with some states and companies proposing outright bans for all PFAS while chemical makers and others insist there isn’t have enough information available to write off every compound in the class.
“Because PFAS is an umbrella term, and it’s a subjective term and not an objective one, it’s difficult to define,” said Frank Adamsky, regulatory affairs manager, Daikin, which produces fluorochemicals used in textiles. “We have a legacy environmental contamination issue. The sooner we focus on the actual issue, the greater ability we have to solve it.”
According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, there are around 9,000 PFAS chemicals in existence. And a University of Toronto study from September 2022 found that 65 percent of clothing products tested contained PFAS, with school uniforms containing the highest concentrations.
Stain resistance on clothing, furniture upholstery and home textiles has proven the most difficult issue to resolve without PFAS. While PFAS-free durable water repellents (DWR) exist, a solution that repels oil-based stains remains elusive.
“We are quite far away from getting a non-fluorinated solution that will repel oil,” said Dr. Luka Kovacevic, senior technical and business development manager, German chemical manufacturer, Rudolf.
Kovacevic said the next generation of PFAS-free water repellants will use plant-based building blocks and small molecules, extending and polarizing them to make polymers that meet repellency requirements better. But even using natural sources, chemists have to be careful with how they make these alternatives.
“The trend is to move to more sustainable solutions, and we have started looking into renewable, plant-based materials,” he said. “When you start doing that, you must be sure you’re not competing with feed or fuel because that’s reducing the sustainability.”
As consumers become more aware of PFAS, the backlash against use of the chemicals has grown. Class-action lawsuits against apparel makers REI and Thinx have raised the profile of PFAS concerns.
“There is this visceral reaction that members of the public are having,” said Sean M. Sullivan, partner, environmental and natural resources group, Williams Mullen. “Sooner or later, PFAS will become a consumer differentiation criterion.”
In response to those growing concerns about PFAS, several states—California, Colorado, New York, Maine and Washington—have passed legislation banning or limiting the use of the chemicals in products sold within their borders. And according to the American Chemistry Council, a total of 276 bills were introduced by states on PFAS in the 2023 legislative session, although not all of them apply to textiles.
As states legislate the use and sale of PFAS and products containing them, companies are finding it harder to maintain compliance.
“Some wish the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] could enact a national solution to this problem, but even so, these state regulations will still exist, so we’ll still have this patchwork,” Sullivan said.
In the meantime, several apparel and footwear companies have taken proactive measures to eliminate or significantly reduce the use of PFAS in their products. Levi’s was one of the first to phase out PFAS, and H&M also has made a commitment to remove the chemicals from its products. Keen, the footwear brand, also made the move to ban PFAS chemicals from its supply chain.
“Keen inventoried product categories and determined that a sandal designed to get wet didn’t need PFAS,” said Amanda Cattermole of Cattermole Consulting. “That one decision reduced the company’s use of PFAS by 80 percent.”
Cattermole said apparel and footwear brands must first determine if the use of PFAS is necessary, and if so, can an alternative substance be used. The other key is for brands and retailers to fully understand and monitor their supply chains, where exposure to PFAS can happen in unexpected places due to the pervasive nature of the chemicals.
“Even with the most robust manufacturing systems in place in the supply chain, products may still contain PFAS even if they haven’t been treated with the chemicals,” said Debbie Chronicle, senior sales executive, textile testing company Hohenstein Institute America.
Chronicle said completely removing PFAS from clothing and shoes is possible, but it will take time and cooperative work across global supply chains.
“Successful phase-out of PFAS in the entire apparel and footwear value chain will only be possible by eliminating their use from all relevant manufacturing processes,” she said. “Considering the persistence of PFAS, this is a really ambitious goal, and it’s going to require international collaboration and a sufficient amount of time to achieve it.”
