"The authorities currently favor one explanation for the pollution: the use of paper mill sludge as fertilizer on farmland near drinking water catchments."
You have to be incredibly greedy and stupid to use industrial waste as fertilizer
dust42 · 2h ago
Same happened in Germany: in the region of Mittelbaden, harmful per- and polyfluorinated chemicals (PFAS or PFC) have been contaminating groundwater and arable land for years. The district of Rastatt, which is particularly affected, holds a compost producer responsible for the widespread contamination. In the region, about 1,100 hectares of arable land and approximately 170 million cubic meters of groundwater are polluted. The beginning of the scandal dates back to 1999.
That's when a compost company started processing so-called paper sludges. These are waste materials from the paper industry and are believed to have contained PFAS. The company mixed these wastes with compost and spread them on fields—until a regulatory ban in 2008. According to reports, the PFAS eventually entered the drinking water via soil and groundwater.
colechristensen · 2h ago
Probably from putting PFAS in food handling products to make containers for greasy foods
kzrdude · 1h ago
It is not greedy to try to create a more circular system where waste products are reused
jonplackett · 1h ago
It is if those waste products are drastically cheaper than what you should be using
marky1991 · 1h ago
Why? Are you saying we should only do waste reduction if it's expensive?
"Should" here is doing a lot of work, it makes the argument circular imo.
arbitrary_name · 34m ago
We should only do waste reduction if it doesn't result in wide scale poisoning of aquifers and biomes. Does that sound more agreeable?
andrewstuart · 1h ago
Keep toxins out of landfill at any possible cost no matter how high, including poisoning ourselves.
Landfill is precious and sacred and must not be used.
sandy_coyote · 1h ago
The problem is not that people disagree with this, it's that people didn't know about the presence of these chemicals in biosolids until recently.
speff · 2h ago
"Industrial waste" can cover a lot of different types of materials - not all of which are worthless. It would be worse if waste products from one industry are sent to a dump when they can be re-used for other productive purposes.
hammock · 1h ago
One might argue it would not be worse for PFAS to remain in a dump rather than spread on fields of food we will eat or water we will drink
speff · 1h ago
I'm pretty sure everyone would take that position so I'm confused why you're implying I wouldn't.
"authorities currently favor one explanation for the pollution"
Tells me that they don't have proof this is the source of the PFAS pollution. If they did, they wouldn't "favor" the explanation, they would just say that's the explanation. I don't support making wide changes based on hunches. Sure - replace the fertilizer with something else for a while and see if that changes the PFAS levels. If it does, sure ban the paper products from being used as fertilizer. But there is a cost associated w/ doing that and that cost has higher-order effects.
margalabargala · 1h ago
> replace the fertilizer with something else for a while and see if that changes the PFAS levels. If it does, sure ban the paper products from being used as fertilizer.
Or, just ban things with high levels of pfas being used as fertilizer, and test the paper slurry?
speff · 1h ago
That would be a valid solution, yes. But it sounds a bit too simple? My concern here is - wouldn't someone have already tested the slurry and made the determination that's it's suitable/unsuitable? This article doesn't really go into the details there
cluckindan · 6m ago
PFAS testing is still not a common thing, except in areas where it has already caused health issues to people.
psadri · 2h ago
Similar to the source of Mad-cow disease: feeding animal remains to cattle in the UK.
dmbche · 1h ago
Animals are still fed animal remains as their diet on farms all arouns the world, including the US and Europe.
There are lots of water treatment plants that produce organic sludge, which gets dried and used as bulk fertilizer/organic material in some farms.
It's probably quite common.
nayuki · 2h ago
Why does the paper contain PFAS? It's not like wood products naturally contain fluorine. Is it like water-repellent paper used in food packaging?
dmbche · 1h ago
Paper mills produce cardbord and paper used for drinking/eating on (coffee cups for example) which have a layer of pfas to insulate them (the inside is a little slippery).
This is a big big part of the industry, as it's worth a lot by weight compared to other paper products
I'd bet there.
alejohausner · 22m ago
That’s kind of scary in itself. I’ll make a note to avoid drinking coffee from paper cups in the future!
PFAs are everywhere in food packaging too. It’s disturbing.
LunaSea · 2h ago
Might be due to lubricant that is applied to the various saws and machines.
> Toilet paper should be considered as a potentially major source of PFAS entering wastewater treatment systems
> The PFAS levels detected are low enough to suggest the chemicals are used in the manufacturing process to prevent paper pulp from sticking to machinery, Thompson said. PFAS are often used as lubricants in the manufacturing process and some of the chemicals are commonly left on or in consumer goods.
> In a statement to WSVN in Florida, a trade group representing the toilet paper industry said no PFAS is added to toilet paper. Thompson said “evidence seems to suggest otherwise” though it may be true that PFAS are not intentionally added.
> Researchers detected six PFAS compounds, with 6:2 diPAP representing the highest levels. The compound has not been robustly studied, but is linked to testicular dysfunction. The study also found PFOA, a highly toxic compound, and 6:2 diPAP can turn into PFOA once in the environment.
HPsquared · 2h ago
This is the downside of recycling. A lot of it involves trade-offs.
akkad33 · 1h ago
This title is editorialised. The actual title is "These french villages". Leaving out "these" makes it sound like no french village has drinking water
the__alchemist · 2h ago
PFAS and microplastics in general is a good candidate for the acute environmental toxicity sin of our generation. Will / when will we correct?
Nursie · 2h ago
Look at what happened with PCBs… in much of the world, nothing.
I was pretty shocked to discover quite recently that in the UK you are advised to eat two portions of oily fish per week, for your health. But no more because of the levels of PCBs in the fish. The UK isn’t the only place with this problem and (for instance) the Bay Area is pretty contaminated as well.
And PCBs were banned in the late 1970s/early 80s.
OutOfHere · 2h ago
There will be no correction. There will only be collapse and perhaps partial mitigation. Correction implies a brain, and if we collectively had one, we wouldn't have been polluting with these toxins in the first place.
Moreover, correction alone is not sufficient -- it doesn't remove the PFAS which is already in the ecosystem. It will take over ten thousand years of UV light to naturally break it apart.
integricho · 2h ago
We had a good run, now it is time to scratch this evolutionary iteration as well and start from a clean slate again. There were mass extinction events before also and life restarted in a new form. It is time now for the same to happen, we are not capable of learning and behaving. While we might have advanced further than any species on Earth before, we are an evolutionary failure nevertheless. And what do you do with bad code? You rewrite it.
phito · 2h ago
I would say most people are capable of learning and behaving. But our system is riddled with cancerous tumors that are trying to accumulate all resources to the detriment of the rest of the system.
aydyn · 1h ago
Its easy to want to blame a few villians, but the problem is the collective consumption habits and preferences of us all.
phito · 24m ago
You're not wrong. I think both are bad and the former is enabling the later.
also I want to clarify that my analogy was more about companies than about billionaires
koiueo · 1h ago
> collective consumption habits and preferences of us all
... in the first-world bubble
aydyn · 21m ago
Not at all, its more like human nature. For example, illegal logging in Brazil: it isn't mega corporations with evil billionaires at the helm, its small every day people who just want to make a better life for themselves.
There's a hypothetical from an Oxford debate that I am struggling to find that was something like this:
If you are poor family and starving and for every day you could press a button and giant plume of CO2 would get released, but your child would not starve, would not get disease and would lead a fulfilled life, would you press that button?
Every parent would smash that button until their hand bled.
In the first world bubble, we have this button (more or less) but every person on earth would want this button too.
OutOfHere · 1h ago
I blame the "debt fueled " economy, basically our whole financial system, where companies can take big debts to do anything at the expense of the environment. Banks especially love funding fossil fuel projects. This financial system will have to collapse under its own weight of its exponential debt.
Once we return to a more grounded concept of money, perhaps gold based, where debts are a lot more controlled due to an absence of uncontrolled moneyprinting, growth can then slow down, allowing us more time to digest what's actually good for us and what's not.
the__alchemist · 2h ago
It might be the Great Filter; something intrinsic to evolution. I hope you're right.
eulgro · 2h ago
How is the chemical industry supposed to make a profit if they have to do 50 years studies on people and the environment when they manufacture a new compound? Think about the shareholders.
OutOfHere · 2h ago
It was already clearly known at the time that PFAS was originally engineered that it's harmful and that it accumulates in the environment. This data was just willfully chosen to be ignored in the name of profits.
collingreen · 2h ago
Plus all the slight variants made to avoid legislation and to spread the stats of the contamination problem around.
The PFAS story is a pretty nasty one.
accrual · 2h ago
Has anyone here had experience using plasma donation as a way to reduce their blood PFAS concentration? I know it's an imperfect solution but I feel like it's the only way to have a measurable impact on ones levels beyond replacing all the plastic in the kitchen, being cautious of water and food sources, etc.
jsutter909 · 2h ago
There has got to be a less zero-sum solution than donating to someone else your own PFAS contaminated plasma
m3047 · 19m ago
Human biological products (esp incl blood products) are a significant export product from the USA. Won't help Europe though because EU is one of the biggest importers.
kzrdude · 1h ago
Bloodletting comes to mind, then
foobarian · 1h ago
I guess the ancients were on to something when they used to let out the bad humors
bell-cot · 1h ago
They are not receiving plasma (or plasma products) because their short-term future looks so rosy - by their metrics, it's almost certainly positive-sum.
lapetitejort · 1h ago
If they survive they can just donate their own plasma and PFAS later. One of the rare instances where a pyramid scheme makes sense. Every generation has a larger pool of untouched blood in which to hold our PFAS.
fredley · 2h ago
Do plasma donations remove more PFAS than other types of blood donation? I donate whole blood regularly, but have never measured my PFAS levels. As far as I know there isn't great data yet on whether it makes a big difference.
Mistletoe · 2h ago
The firefighter study seemed pretty conclusive that plasma donation lowered it much more.
Do we know if it's possible to filter plasma for PFAS to avoid transfering it to others?
Mistletoe · 2h ago
I tried it to lower PFAS repeatedly and I can’t say I felt any better or worse from doing it. I don’t have any measurements though of PFAS before and after. Giving plasma repeatedly definitely made me feel like crap until I stopped though.
mykarakus · 2h ago
I think this assumes you would feel the effect of PFAS in the first place. What's scary to me is we're just not evolved to feel PFAS at all.
wood_spirit · 2h ago
In Sweden, areas near airbases have been suffering from health complications from pfas which was used in firefighting exercises. There have been long running court cases trying to get compensation.
PlatinumHarp · 2h ago
The Canadian forces have also caused contamination due to the same reason. The Department of Defense have been testing the wells around the bases and notifying residents. There are also court cases pending as it seems like the Military was very slow to react.
red-iron-pine · 1h ago
it's same in the US. lots of AF and USN aviation have issues with water quality near airfields -- plenty are consider EPA superfund sites. or were, since the GOP is doing everything it can to dismantle the EPA.
"All of the under-sink reverse osmosis and two-stage filters achieved near-complete removal of the PFAS chemicals we were testing for,” Stapleton said. “In contrast, the effectiveness of activated-carbon filters used in many pitcher, countertop, refrigerator and faucet-mounted styles was inconsistent and unpredictable. The whole-house systems were also widely variable and in some cases actually increased PFAS levels in the water.” -
https://nicholas.duke.edu/news/not-all-home-drinking-water-f...
sidewndr46 · 2h ago
I was thinking the same thing. The chamber holding the activated carbon is probably lined with plastic
thfuran · 2h ago
But probably not one with PFAS
OutOfHere · 2h ago
Note that the multistage RO filter can be a countertop one. It doesn't need to be an under-sink one. Just remember to change the filters on time.
Another thing that people overlook about RO is that it's critically essential to remineralize it safely and to normalize its pH. Drinking demineralized or acidic RO filtered water is harmful!
nayuki · 2h ago
> Drinking demineralized or acidic RO filtered water is harmful!
What is the evidence for that? I drink homemade distilled water without any remineralization steps and it's perfectly fine.
They can and do. However I believe RO filters, which are made from plastic, leach microplastics into the water they filter.
You need a evaporation/condensation system to get guaranteed pure drinking water.
OutOfHere · 2h ago
A multistage RO unit has an activated carbon layer after the RO layer. This AC layer is intended to capture the nanoplastics leaked from the RO layer. Moreover, if the RO layer gets replaced on time, the nanoplastic leakage is more limited. Certainly though I could use studies about how well or poorly this works.
shswkna · 2h ago
I would believe so. But someone that better understands the PFAS molecules should confirm.
fsckboy · 2h ago
title! "These French villages have no more drinking water"
"Nearly 3,500 residents across 16 rural villages have been unable to drink tap water since July 10"
and "At this stage, statistically, there are no adverse health indicators demonstrating a health consequence for the populations of these villages."
permo-w · 2h ago
>French villages have no more drinking water
it's not unreasonable to expect a reader to glean that it means that the villages have no more water drinkable from the ground. the alternative is deeply unlikely
necovek · 2h ago
I would suggest simply "French villages with no drinking water due to PFAS pollution".
SirFatty · 2h ago
It's a growing problem here in the US as well (speaking about Illinois specifically. My understanding is that PFAS can be filtered with active carbon filtration/reverse osmosis filtering.
Night_Thastus · 2h ago
Reverse osmosis filtering is brutal though. I think the most efficient ones are still like what, 1:2? 2 parts waste per one part clean water produced? It's a lot of wasted water. Even if it was 1:1 it would be terrible, that's doubling water usage.
Fine for drinking water, but showing/toilets/machines it's a lot.
yetihehe · 1h ago
They are 1:2 parts when filtering out salt water, because they need to clean out a lot of salt being concentrated before membrane. When filtering clean drinking water containing promiles of pollutants, the ratio would be much better.
Night_Thastus · 9m ago
Home units, just filtering tap water, get about 1:2 with pressurization - and worse without a dedicated pump.
SirFatty · 1h ago
Agreed... I have one in the kitchen for a while, but the constant water going down the drain sound drove me nuts, not to mention what a waste it is.
bell-cot · 1h ago
Sadly, this reminds me of St. Kilda - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Kilda,_Scotland#Evacuation_... - a tiny, remote island north-west of Scotland - which was completely evacuated in 1930. The locals had long spread peat ash and seabird carcasses on their fields - not knowing that those were badly contaminated with lead and other old-fashioned pollutants.
oulipo · 2h ago
The reason is PFAS *and* a competent administration which monitors waters and has laws to protect citizens...
I'm wondering how many localities in the US have dangerous water and citizens are not even informed
This is pretty fascinating. Where did the PFAS come from? How long has it existed in the drinking water?
Yet here, just half an hour from Sedan, the region's second-biggest town,
there is no chemical plant. Only fields of corn and rapeseed, few cattle
farms, and small wooded hills.
[...]
Contacted by Le Monde, the ARS and the prefectures of the Ardennes and Meuse
departments sought to reassure: "At this stage, statistically, there are no
adverse health indicators demonstrating a health consequence for the
populations of these villages." The authorities based their response on the
results of a national epidemiological study titled "Esteban" which dates back
to 2016.
[...]
The authorities currently favor one explanation for the pollution: the use of
paper mill sludge as fertilizer on farmland near drinking water catchments.
sharpshadow · 1h ago
Wind turbines release PFAS into the environment from coatings and lubricants. For a renewable energy source to help the planet this feels deeply wrong.
Y-bar · 1h ago
> In Sweden, other false claims (the latest dating back to August) suggested that there is a connection between the presence of wind farms and high levels of PFAS (also known as “forever chemicals”) in livestock. It all came from an episode in Denmark in the fall of 2022, when it was discovered that 180 cows grazing on coastal meadows had levels of PFAS in their bodies too high to be sold as food. A Swedish newspaper claimed that the high levels came from wind farms west of Denmark, saying that PFAS were a component of the paints used to cover the blades of wind turbines. Although both authorities and researchers denied that the substances found in the cows could have come from the wind turbines, the claims spread on social media and entered the political debate.
You have to be incredibly greedy and stupid to use industrial waste as fertilizer
That's when a compost company started processing so-called paper sludges. These are waste materials from the paper industry and are believed to have contained PFAS. The company mixed these wastes with compost and spread them on fields—until a regulatory ban in 2008. According to reports, the PFAS eventually entered the drinking water via soil and groundwater.
"Should" here is doing a lot of work, it makes the argument circular imo.
Landfill is precious and sacred and must not be used.
"authorities currently favor one explanation for the pollution"
Tells me that they don't have proof this is the source of the PFAS pollution. If they did, they wouldn't "favor" the explanation, they would just say that's the explanation. I don't support making wide changes based on hunches. Sure - replace the fertilizer with something else for a while and see if that changes the PFAS levels. If it does, sure ban the paper products from being used as fertilizer. But there is a cost associated w/ doing that and that cost has higher-order effects.
Or, just ban things with high levels of pfas being used as fertilizer, and test the paper slurry?
Just more carefully.
And of course we have even added industrial waste directly to our drinking water, on purpose: https://origins.osu.edu/article/toxic-treatment-fluorides-tr...
It's probably quite common.
This is a big big part of the industry, as it's worth a lot by weight compared to other paper products
I'd bet there.
PFAs are everywhere in food packaging too. It’s disturbing.
> Toilet paper should be considered as a potentially major source of PFAS entering wastewater treatment systems
> The PFAS levels detected are low enough to suggest the chemicals are used in the manufacturing process to prevent paper pulp from sticking to machinery, Thompson said. PFAS are often used as lubricants in the manufacturing process and some of the chemicals are commonly left on or in consumer goods.
> In a statement to WSVN in Florida, a trade group representing the toilet paper industry said no PFAS is added to toilet paper. Thompson said “evidence seems to suggest otherwise” though it may be true that PFAS are not intentionally added.
> Researchers detected six PFAS compounds, with 6:2 diPAP representing the highest levels. The compound has not been robustly studied, but is linked to testicular dysfunction. The study also found PFOA, a highly toxic compound, and 6:2 diPAP can turn into PFOA once in the environment.
I was pretty shocked to discover quite recently that in the UK you are advised to eat two portions of oily fish per week, for your health. But no more because of the levels of PCBs in the fish. The UK isn’t the only place with this problem and (for instance) the Bay Area is pretty contaminated as well.
And PCBs were banned in the late 1970s/early 80s.
Moreover, correction alone is not sufficient -- it doesn't remove the PFAS which is already in the ecosystem. It will take over ten thousand years of UV light to naturally break it apart.
also I want to clarify that my analogy was more about companies than about billionaires
... in the first-world bubble
There's a hypothetical from an Oxford debate that I am struggling to find that was something like this:
If you are poor family and starving and for every day you could press a button and giant plume of CO2 would get released, but your child would not starve, would not get disease and would lead a fulfilled life, would you press that button?
Every parent would smash that button until their hand bled.
In the first world bubble, we have this button (more or less) but every person on earth would want this button too.
Once we return to a more grounded concept of money, perhaps gold based, where debts are a lot more controlled due to an absence of uncontrolled moneyprinting, growth can then slow down, allowing us more time to digest what's actually good for us and what's not.
The PFAS story is a pretty nasty one.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8994130/
Addendum: It turns out that a linked article from Le Monde answers that: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/our-times/article/2025/03/09/can-t... , https://archive.is/RFNe9
Another thing that people overlook about RO is that it's critically essential to remineralize it safely and to normalize its pH. Drinking demineralized or acidic RO filtered water is harmful!
What is the evidence for that? I drink homemade distilled water without any remineralization steps and it's perfectly fine.
Also note that pure water becomes slightly acidic from absorbing carbon dioxide in the air, producing carbonic acid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_acid#In_biological_so...
You need a evaporation/condensation system to get guaranteed pure drinking water.
"Nearly 3,500 residents across 16 rural villages have been unable to drink tap water since July 10"
and "At this stage, statistically, there are no adverse health indicators demonstrating a health consequence for the populations of these villages."
it's not unreasonable to expect a reader to glean that it means that the villages have no more water drinkable from the ground. the alternative is deeply unlikely
Fine for drinking water, but showing/toilets/machines it's a lot.
I'm wondering how many localities in the US have dangerous water and citizens are not even informed
* Vox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZHuZkUUYM4
* MinuteEarth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3aFzQdWQTg
* MinuteFood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1hbV3EzOD4
* LastWeekTonight (John Oliver): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W74aeuqsiU (2021)
* LastWeekTonight (John Oliver): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHzCRkt1f6c (2024)
* DW (Deutsche Welle) Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfVW65gRPgQ
https://edmo.eu/publications/wind-turbines-and-poisoned-anim...