Ecological Overshoot
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Glass Found in Food Chain for First Time
Published Jul 08, 2024 at 2:11 PM EDT Updated Jul 08, 2024 at 3:43 PM EDT
By Pandora Dewan
Senior Science Reporter
Scientists have issued a warning after finding worryingly high levels of fiberglass inside oysters and mussels. This is the first time the tiny glass fragments have been identified in the marine food chain, raising concerns for both human and environmental safety.
Fiberglass is a reinforced plastic material embedded with extremely fine fibers of glass. The material is lightweight and durable and is frequently used in the manufacture of boats. However, scientists have shown that, over time, this material can break down in seawater and contaminate coastlines.
Bivalve species like oysters and mussels are particularly vulnerable to these particles due to their filter-feeding style of eating—to access nutrients, these animals take in water from their surroundings and pass it over their gills, which effectively filter out particles of food. However, if the water is contaminated, toxic particles can easily enter into their bodies too and accumulate in their tissues.
"Through their filter feeding they are ingesting huge number of particles they mistake for food," Corina Ciocan, principal lecturer in marine biology from the University of Brighton in the U.K., told Newsweek.
Oysters are filter feedings, which makes them vulnerable to accumulating polluting particles from their surroundings. Ilja Enger-Tsizikov/Getty
In a new study, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, researchers from the Universities of Portsmouth and Brighton in the U.K. analyzed oysters and mussels collected from in front of an active boatyard to determine whether their soft tissues had been infiltrated by glass fibers. The samples were collected from Chichester Harbor on the south coast of England.
The team found as many as 11,220 glass particles per kilogram in the oysters and 2,740 particles per kilogram in mussels. "Our findings show a disturbing level of glass reinforced plastic contamination in marine life," Ciocan said.
Glass particle accumulation was particularly pronounced during the winter months, which the researchers attribute to a peak in boat maintenance activities at that time of year. "Through repair work, the release of glass fibers in the environment is more likely," the researchers wrote.
Abandoned fishing boats may also contribute to the rise in fiberglass pollution.
While the study focused on bivalves, Ciocan said that they identified fiberglass particles in other organisms as well: "We identified fiberglass embedded in other organic material floating in the water, like seagrass and seaweed fragments, small snails etc," she said.
"These particles tend to behave like spears [and] due to the currents and waves they can impale organisms present in water column."
The study is the first of its kind to document such extensive contamination in natural populations of these filter-feeding shellfish populations.
"It's a stark reminder of the hidden dangers in our environment," Ciocan said.
The researchers emphasize that more work needs to be done to understand the extent of this contamination, and its potential consequences. However, they suggest it may affect the animals' ability to digest their food, and potentially increase inflammation and reduce reproductive capacity.
"The fiberglass particles can have a powerful impact because they act like splinters," Ciocan said. "They enter the soft flesh, the organism is not able to excrete them and they start a process of inflammation potentially leading to other pathologies and even death."
The findings not only raise concerns for the health of the animals and their surrounding ecosystems, but they may also have important implications for human health, specifically the health of humans consuming contaminated shellfish.
"Glass-reinforced plastic has been previously compared to asbestos," the researchers wrote. Asbestos can cause a range of lung disorders as well as increase our risk of certain cancers. Clearly, more work is needed to confirm whether these fiberglass particles also pose a threat to humans.
"We're just starting to understand the extent of fiberglass contamination," Fay Couceiro, one of the study's co-authors and a professor at the University of Portsmouth, said in a statement.
Ciocan added: "We have to address this issue head-on to protect our marine ecosystems and ensure a healthier future for our oceans.
"I hope that more researchers will start looking for fiberglass contamination in the coastal environment so that the industry and regulators can take it very seriously and start investing in recycling strategies and natural materials to replace glass-reinforced plastic."
https://www.newsweek.com/glass-food-chain-pollution-seafood-1922314
Published Jul 08, 2024 at 2:11 PM EDT Updated Jul 08, 2024 at 3:43 PM EDT
By Pandora Dewan
Senior Science Reporter
Scientists have issued a warning after finding worryingly high levels of fiberglass inside oysters and mussels. This is the first time the tiny glass fragments have been identified in the marine food chain, raising concerns for both human and environmental safety.
Fiberglass is a reinforced plastic material embedded with extremely fine fibers of glass. The material is lightweight and durable and is frequently used in the manufacture of boats. However, scientists have shown that, over time, this material can break down in seawater and contaminate coastlines.
Bivalve species like oysters and mussels are particularly vulnerable to these particles due to their filter-feeding style of eating—to access nutrients, these animals take in water from their surroundings and pass it over their gills, which effectively filter out particles of food. However, if the water is contaminated, toxic particles can easily enter into their bodies too and accumulate in their tissues.
"Through their filter feeding they are ingesting huge number of particles they mistake for food," Corina Ciocan, principal lecturer in marine biology from the University of Brighton in the U.K., told Newsweek.
Oysters are filter feedings, which makes them vulnerable to accumulating polluting particles from their surroundings. Ilja Enger-Tsizikov/Getty
In a new study, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, researchers from the Universities of Portsmouth and Brighton in the U.K. analyzed oysters and mussels collected from in front of an active boatyard to determine whether their soft tissues had been infiltrated by glass fibers. The samples were collected from Chichester Harbor on the south coast of England.
The team found as many as 11,220 glass particles per kilogram in the oysters and 2,740 particles per kilogram in mussels. "Our findings show a disturbing level of glass reinforced plastic contamination in marine life," Ciocan said.
Glass particle accumulation was particularly pronounced during the winter months, which the researchers attribute to a peak in boat maintenance activities at that time of year. "Through repair work, the release of glass fibers in the environment is more likely," the researchers wrote.
Abandoned fishing boats may also contribute to the rise in fiberglass pollution.
While the study focused on bivalves, Ciocan said that they identified fiberglass particles in other organisms as well: "We identified fiberglass embedded in other organic material floating in the water, like seagrass and seaweed fragments, small snails etc," she said.
"These particles tend to behave like spears [and] due to the currents and waves they can impale organisms present in water column."
The study is the first of its kind to document such extensive contamination in natural populations of these filter-feeding shellfish populations.
"It's a stark reminder of the hidden dangers in our environment," Ciocan said.
The researchers emphasize that more work needs to be done to understand the extent of this contamination, and its potential consequences. However, they suggest it may affect the animals' ability to digest their food, and potentially increase inflammation and reduce reproductive capacity.
"The fiberglass particles can have a powerful impact because they act like splinters," Ciocan said. "They enter the soft flesh, the organism is not able to excrete them and they start a process of inflammation potentially leading to other pathologies and even death."
The findings not only raise concerns for the health of the animals and their surrounding ecosystems, but they may also have important implications for human health, specifically the health of humans consuming contaminated shellfish.
"Glass-reinforced plastic has been previously compared to asbestos," the researchers wrote. Asbestos can cause a range of lung disorders as well as increase our risk of certain cancers. Clearly, more work is needed to confirm whether these fiberglass particles also pose a threat to humans.
"We're just starting to understand the extent of fiberglass contamination," Fay Couceiro, one of the study's co-authors and a professor at the University of Portsmouth, said in a statement.
Ciocan added: "We have to address this issue head-on to protect our marine ecosystems and ensure a healthier future for our oceans.
"I hope that more researchers will start looking for fiberglass contamination in the coastal environment so that the industry and regulators can take it very seriously and start investing in recycling strategies and natural materials to replace glass-reinforced plastic."
https://www.newsweek.com/glass-food-chain-pollution-seafood-1922314
Taking An AI Approach To Combating Climate Change
According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), the U.S. is warming faster than the rest of the world from human-induced climate change, and we’re missing the mark on critical climate goals. According to the report, warming across the earth is being caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere caused by fossil fuels, as well as industrial processes, deforestation and agricultural practices. Because of human-induced activities, the effects of global climate change could include more wildfires, drought, greater wind speeds and rising rainfall, among other things.
While many of the causes of climate change are caused by humans, machines, in the form of artificial intelligence (AI), are rising to the challenge and helping to solve them. AI’s ability to analyze huge amounts of data, conduct predictive modeling and automate traditional processes makes it a key enabler for gaining greater insights into the impact of climate change and how to remedy it. From optimizing energy usage to predicting environmental changes, AI offers key applications that could significantly mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes...g-an-ai-approach-to-combating-climate-change/
According to the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), the U.S. is warming faster than the rest of the world from human-induced climate change, and we’re missing the mark on critical climate goals. According to the report, warming across the earth is being caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere caused by fossil fuels, as well as industrial processes, deforestation and agricultural practices. Because of human-induced activities, the effects of global climate change could include more wildfires, drought, greater wind speeds and rising rainfall, among other things.
While many of the causes of climate change are caused by humans, machines, in the form of artificial intelligence (AI), are rising to the challenge and helping to solve them. AI’s ability to analyze huge amounts of data, conduct predictive modeling and automate traditional processes makes it a key enabler for gaining greater insights into the impact of climate change and how to remedy it. From optimizing energy usage to predicting environmental changes, AI offers key applications that could significantly mitigate the adverse effects of climate change.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes...g-an-ai-approach-to-combating-climate-change/
How AI is helping us tackle the climate crisis
It is reasonable to keep the energy use of AI systems under scrutiny, but so often the discussion of the topic feels overblown AI drive brings Microsoft’s ‘green moonshot’ down to earth in west London, 29 June. The reason is that the emissions that are likely to be generated by powering AI are so much smaller than those created by other sectors such as construction or transport.
So the current debate is framed in the wrong way. AI is already proving to be a critical enabler in helping to tackle the climate and nature crises. And, in some cases, the power use for AI is much lower than the traditional computing that it replaces – for example, in energy-intensive advanced climate models.
Meanwhile, AI can unlock significant decarbonisation opportunities. In my own sector – the built environment – it can help enable the shift away from polluting materials such as concrete, reduce the carbon impact of energy and transport systems, and support the reuse and repurposing of existing buildings.
We need to keep improving the efficiency of AI development and ensure that it is developed safely and responsibly. But as important is harnessing AI to help accelerate the green transition.
Dr Will Cavendish
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ow-ai-is-helping-us-tackle-the-climate-crisis
It is reasonable to keep the energy use of AI systems under scrutiny, but so often the discussion of the topic feels overblown AI drive brings Microsoft’s ‘green moonshot’ down to earth in west London, 29 June. The reason is that the emissions that are likely to be generated by powering AI are so much smaller than those created by other sectors such as construction or transport.
So the current debate is framed in the wrong way. AI is already proving to be a critical enabler in helping to tackle the climate and nature crises. And, in some cases, the power use for AI is much lower than the traditional computing that it replaces – for example, in energy-intensive advanced climate models.
Meanwhile, AI can unlock significant decarbonisation opportunities. In my own sector – the built environment – it can help enable the shift away from polluting materials such as concrete, reduce the carbon impact of energy and transport systems, and support the reuse and repurposing of existing buildings.
We need to keep improving the efficiency of AI development and ensure that it is developed safely and responsibly. But as important is harnessing AI to help accelerate the green transition.
Dr Will Cavendish
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...ow-ai-is-helping-us-tackle-the-climate-crisis
"CO2 is plant food!"
"Not if it's too hot."
Extreme heat is wilting and burning forests, making it harder to curb climate change
High temperatures, droughts and wildfire last year caused some forests to wilt and burn enough to degrade the ability of the land to lock away carbon dioxide.
4 min
(A helicopter battles the McDougall Creek wildfire as it burns in the hills of West Kelowna, British Columbia, on Aug. 17, 2023. (Darren Hull/AFP/Getty Images)
By Dino Grandoni
July 26, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Earth’s land lost much of their ability to absorb the carbon dioxide humans pumped into the air last year, according to a new study that is causing concern among climate scientists that a crucial damper on climate change underwent an unprecedented deterioration.
Temperatures in 2023 were so high — and the droughts and wildfires that came with them were so severe — that forests in various parts of the world wilted and burnedenough to have degraded the ability of the land to lock away carbon dioxide and act as a check on global warming, the study said.
The scientists behind the research, which focuses on 2023, caution that their findings are preliminary. But the work represents a disturbing data point — one that, if it turns into a trend, spells trouble for the planet and the people on it.
“We have to be, of course, careful because it’s just one year,” said Philippe Ciais, a scientist at France’s Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences who co-authored the new research.
But the results, he added, are still “worrying.” If extreme warming continues, society risks losing “the best friend of humanity” in Earth’s land.
Earth’s continents act as what is known as a carbon sink. The carbon dioxide that humans emit through activities such as burning fossil fuels and making cement encourages the growth of plants, which in turn absorb a portion of those greenhouse gases and lock them in wood and soil. Without this help from forests, climate change would be worse than what is already occurring.
“This is a significant issue, because we are benefiting from the uptake of carbon,” said Robert Rohde, chief scientist for Berkeley Earth, who was not involved in the research. “Otherwise, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would rise even faster and drive up temperatures even faster.”
Ciais and his colleagues saw that the concentration of CO2 measured at an observatory on Mauna Loa in Hawaii and elsewhere spiked in 2023, even though global fossil fuel emissions increased only modestly last year in comparison. That mismatch suggests that there was an “unprecedented weakening” in the Earth’s ability to absorb carbon, the researchers wrote.
The scientists then used satellite data and models for vegetative growth to try to pinpoint where the carbon sink was weakening. The team spotted abnormal losses of carbon in the drought-stricken Amazon and Southeast Asia as well as in the boreal forests of Canada, where record-breaking wildfires burned through tens of millions of acres.
The paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was posted last week on the science preprint site arXiv. The researchers plan to present their findings next week at a scientific conference in Brazil.
One big question overhanging this research is whether the results represent a one-year blip — or the start of troubling long-term trend.
“If it’s the new normal, then climate mitigation will be even harder than it is now,” said Rob Jackson, a climate scientist at Stanford and author of the book “Into the Clear Blue Sky,” who also was not involved in the research. “We expect the land sink to slow eventually, but I hoped it wouldn’t happen so soon. If it slows this early, we’re in trouble.”
Another key question, Jackson said, is whether the drop is due to the start last year of El Niño, a naturally occurring climate pattern that has been associated with carbon losses on land.
Ciais, the researcher behind the study, said the tropical rainforests of South America and Asia have a better chance to bounce back than the snowy woodlands in North America, given how slowly those northern forests grow.
“We have a strong buildup of evidence to predict that this northern sink is not going to become very strong again anytime in the future as this extreme warming continues,” Ciais said.
(Vehicles cross the Macuxis bridge on the Branco riverbed in Boa Vista, Brazil, in March. Drought in the Brazilian Amazon pushed the flow of the Branco River, one of the region's largest tributaries, to historic lows. (Raphael Alves/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
The lost ability of some northern land to lock away carbon may also be a sign that a significant amount of organic material frozen in permafrost is thawing, according to Woodwell Climate Research Center ecologist Richard Houghton. Scientists have long worried about potentially catastrophic releases of greenhouse gases from thawing in and around the Arctic Circle.
“It has always amazed me that the fraction of global carbon emissions taken up by land systems has remained so stable,” he said.
Computer models disagree on when land will cease acting as a carbon sink, Rohde added — whether it will be soon, or well past the end of this century.
“The worry is that we are approaching a level at which the ecosystem is getting harmed by our temperature changes to such a degree that it’s no longer helping us out by absorbing carbon,” Rohde said. “Because we don’t know when that is, something like this where we see it declining in real time is worrisome.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/07/25/forest-fire-heat-carbon-absorb/
"Not if it's too hot."
Extreme heat is wilting and burning forests, making it harder to curb climate change
High temperatures, droughts and wildfire last year caused some forests to wilt and burn enough to degrade the ability of the land to lock away carbon dioxide.
4 min
(A helicopter battles the McDougall Creek wildfire as it burns in the hills of West Kelowna, British Columbia, on Aug. 17, 2023. (Darren Hull/AFP/Getty Images)
By Dino Grandoni
July 26, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Earth’s land lost much of their ability to absorb the carbon dioxide humans pumped into the air last year, according to a new study that is causing concern among climate scientists that a crucial damper on climate change underwent an unprecedented deterioration.
Temperatures in 2023 were so high — and the droughts and wildfires that came with them were so severe — that forests in various parts of the world wilted and burnedenough to have degraded the ability of the land to lock away carbon dioxide and act as a check on global warming, the study said.
The scientists behind the research, which focuses on 2023, caution that their findings are preliminary. But the work represents a disturbing data point — one that, if it turns into a trend, spells trouble for the planet and the people on it.
“We have to be, of course, careful because it’s just one year,” said Philippe Ciais, a scientist at France’s Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences who co-authored the new research.
But the results, he added, are still “worrying.” If extreme warming continues, society risks losing “the best friend of humanity” in Earth’s land.
Earth’s continents act as what is known as a carbon sink. The carbon dioxide that humans emit through activities such as burning fossil fuels and making cement encourages the growth of plants, which in turn absorb a portion of those greenhouse gases and lock them in wood and soil. Without this help from forests, climate change would be worse than what is already occurring.
“This is a significant issue, because we are benefiting from the uptake of carbon,” said Robert Rohde, chief scientist for Berkeley Earth, who was not involved in the research. “Otherwise, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would rise even faster and drive up temperatures even faster.”
Ciais and his colleagues saw that the concentration of CO2 measured at an observatory on Mauna Loa in Hawaii and elsewhere spiked in 2023, even though global fossil fuel emissions increased only modestly last year in comparison. That mismatch suggests that there was an “unprecedented weakening” in the Earth’s ability to absorb carbon, the researchers wrote.
The scientists then used satellite data and models for vegetative growth to try to pinpoint where the carbon sink was weakening. The team spotted abnormal losses of carbon in the drought-stricken Amazon and Southeast Asia as well as in the boreal forests of Canada, where record-breaking wildfires burned through tens of millions of acres.
The paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was posted last week on the science preprint site arXiv. The researchers plan to present their findings next week at a scientific conference in Brazil.
One big question overhanging this research is whether the results represent a one-year blip — or the start of troubling long-term trend.
“If it’s the new normal, then climate mitigation will be even harder than it is now,” said Rob Jackson, a climate scientist at Stanford and author of the book “Into the Clear Blue Sky,” who also was not involved in the research. “We expect the land sink to slow eventually, but I hoped it wouldn’t happen so soon. If it slows this early, we’re in trouble.”
Another key question, Jackson said, is whether the drop is due to the start last year of El Niño, a naturally occurring climate pattern that has been associated with carbon losses on land.
Ciais, the researcher behind the study, said the tropical rainforests of South America and Asia have a better chance to bounce back than the snowy woodlands in North America, given how slowly those northern forests grow.
“We have a strong buildup of evidence to predict that this northern sink is not going to become very strong again anytime in the future as this extreme warming continues,” Ciais said.
(Vehicles cross the Macuxis bridge on the Branco riverbed in Boa Vista, Brazil, in March. Drought in the Brazilian Amazon pushed the flow of the Branco River, one of the region's largest tributaries, to historic lows. (Raphael Alves/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
The lost ability of some northern land to lock away carbon may also be a sign that a significant amount of organic material frozen in permafrost is thawing, according to Woodwell Climate Research Center ecologist Richard Houghton. Scientists have long worried about potentially catastrophic releases of greenhouse gases from thawing in and around the Arctic Circle.
“It has always amazed me that the fraction of global carbon emissions taken up by land systems has remained so stable,” he said.
Computer models disagree on when land will cease acting as a carbon sink, Rohde added — whether it will be soon, or well past the end of this century.
“The worry is that we are approaching a level at which the ecosystem is getting harmed by our temperature changes to such a degree that it’s no longer helping us out by absorbing carbon,” Rohde said. “Because we don’t know when that is, something like this where we see it declining in real time is worrisome.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/07/25/forest-fire-heat-carbon-absorb/
Carry on, consumatrons!
US landfills are major source of toxic PFAS pollution, study finds
New research shows toxic ‘forever chemicals’ gas may escape landfills and threaten the environment
Tom Perkins
Fri 9 Aug 2024 13.00 BST
Last modified on Fri 9 Aug 2024 13.01 BST
Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” that leach from landfills into groundwater are among the major pollution sources in the US, and remain a problem for which officials have yet to find an effective solution.
Now new research has identified another route in which PFAS may escape landfills and threaten the environment at even higher levels: the air.
PFAS gas that emits from landfill waste ends up highly concentrated in the facilities’ gas treatment systems, but the systems are not designed to manage or destroy the chemicals, and much of them probably end up in the environment.
The chemicals are probably used in condoms to help latex repel moisture and liquid.
Some condom and lubricant brands contain alarming levels of PFAS – study
Read more
The findings, which showed up to three times as much PFAS in landfill gas as in leachate, are “definitely an alarming thing for us to see”, said Ashley Lin, a University of Florida researcher and the lead author of the study.
“These findings suggest that landfill gas, a less scrutinized byproduct, serves as a major pathway for the mobility of PFAS from landfills,” the paper’s authors wrote.
PFAS are a class of about 16,000 compounds used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and have been found to accumulate in humans. The chemicals are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems.
As researchers have begun to understand the chemicals’ dangers in recent years, the focus has largely been on water pollution, and regulators have said virtually all leachate from the nation’s 200 landfills contain PFAS. But scientists are beginning to understand that PFAS air pollution is also a significant threat.
The chemicals concentrate in landfills because they are widely used across dozens of industries and are in thousands of consumer products that end up in the facilities at their lives’ end. As the products decompose, the chemicals can turn into gas and be released into the air.
Much of that can be captured by landfills’ gas collection systems. The captured gas in some cases is run through filters or burned off in a flare. However, PFAS are notoriously difficult to destroy, and flares are not an effective way to eliminate them.
Typically, flares or incineration will simply break down PFAS into smaller forms of the chemicals instead of fully destroying them, and that waste will be sent into the air. For now, there is no clear picture of the levels, or how landfills can get a handle on the problem.
“That is a good question,” Lin said. “We need to understand that management aspect and what can happen with the different types of treatment technologies in place.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/09/pfas-landfills-us
US landfills are major source of toxic PFAS pollution, study finds
New research shows toxic ‘forever chemicals’ gas may escape landfills and threaten the environment
Tom Perkins
Fri 9 Aug 2024 13.00 BST
Last modified on Fri 9 Aug 2024 13.01 BST
Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” that leach from landfills into groundwater are among the major pollution sources in the US, and remain a problem for which officials have yet to find an effective solution.
Now new research has identified another route in which PFAS may escape landfills and threaten the environment at even higher levels: the air.
PFAS gas that emits from landfill waste ends up highly concentrated in the facilities’ gas treatment systems, but the systems are not designed to manage or destroy the chemicals, and much of them probably end up in the environment.
The chemicals are probably used in condoms to help latex repel moisture and liquid.
Some condom and lubricant brands contain alarming levels of PFAS – study
Read more
The findings, which showed up to three times as much PFAS in landfill gas as in leachate, are “definitely an alarming thing for us to see”, said Ashley Lin, a University of Florida researcher and the lead author of the study.
“These findings suggest that landfill gas, a less scrutinized byproduct, serves as a major pathway for the mobility of PFAS from landfills,” the paper’s authors wrote.
PFAS are a class of about 16,000 compounds used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and have been found to accumulate in humans. The chemicals are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems.
As researchers have begun to understand the chemicals’ dangers in recent years, the focus has largely been on water pollution, and regulators have said virtually all leachate from the nation’s 200 landfills contain PFAS. But scientists are beginning to understand that PFAS air pollution is also a significant threat.
The chemicals concentrate in landfills because they are widely used across dozens of industries and are in thousands of consumer products that end up in the facilities at their lives’ end. As the products decompose, the chemicals can turn into gas and be released into the air.
Much of that can be captured by landfills’ gas collection systems. The captured gas in some cases is run through filters or burned off in a flare. However, PFAS are notoriously difficult to destroy, and flares are not an effective way to eliminate them.
Typically, flares or incineration will simply break down PFAS into smaller forms of the chemicals instead of fully destroying them, and that waste will be sent into the air. For now, there is no clear picture of the levels, or how landfills can get a handle on the problem.
“That is a good question,” Lin said. “We need to understand that management aspect and what can happen with the different types of treatment technologies in place.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/09/pfas-landfills-us
What are the potential health and environmental risks associated with PFAS gas escaping from landfills?
Carry on, consumatrons!
US landfills are major source of toxic PFAS pollution, study finds
New research shows toxic ‘forever chemicals’ gas may escape landfills and threaten the environment
Tom Perkins
Fri 9 Aug 2024 13.00 BST
Last modified on Fri 9 Aug 2024 13.01 BST
Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” that leach from landfills into groundwater are among the major pollution sources in the US, and remain a problem for which officials have yet to find an effective solution.
Now new research has identified another route in which PFAS may escape landfills and threaten the environment at even higher levels: the air.
PFAS gas that emits from landfill waste ends up highly concentrated in the facilities’ gas treatment systems, but the systems are not designed to manage or destroy the chemicals, and much of them probably end up in the environment.
The chemicals are probably used in condoms to help latex repel moisture and liquid.
Some condom and lubricant brands contain alarming levels of PFAS – study
Read more
The findings, which showed up to three times as much PFAS in landfill gas as in leachate, are “definitely an alarming thing for us to see”, said Ashley Lin, a University of Florida researcher and the lead author of the study.
“These findings suggest that landfill gas, a less scrutinized byproduct, serves as a major pathway for the mobility of PFAS from landfills,” the paper’s authors wrote.
PFAS are a class of about 16,000 compounds used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and have been found to accumulate in humans. The chemicals are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems.
As researchers have begun to understand the chemicals’ dangers in recent years, the focus has largely been on water pollution, and regulators have said virtually all leachate from the nation’s 200 landfills contain PFAS. But scientists are beginning to understand that PFAS air pollution is also a significant threat.
The chemicals concentrate in landfills because they are widely used across dozens of industries and are in thousands of consumer products that end up in the facilities at their lives’ end. As the products decompose, the chemicals can turn into gas and be released into the air.
Much of that can be captured by landfills’ gas collection systems. The captured gas in some cases is run through filters or burned off in a flare. However, PFAS are notoriously difficult to destroy, and flares are not an effective way to eliminate them.
Typically, flares or incineration will simply break down PFAS into smaller forms of the chemicals instead of fully destroying them, and that waste will be sent into the air. For now, there is no clear picture of the levels, or how landfills can get a handle on the problem.
“That is a good question,” Lin said. “We need to understand that management aspect and what can happen with the different types of treatment technologies in place.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/09/pfas-landfills-us