What is PFAS?

Chances are, every one of us has encountered a chemical compound in the PFAS class today. Probably, in the last hour. PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, is a class of chemicals commonly used in consumer goods to waterproof or repel stains, grease, and dirt.

Not only have we encountered them, but the CDC reports that “nearly all people in the United States have measurable amounts of PFAS in their blood.”

PFAS bioaccumulate, meaning they mass in the environment and animals’ bodies. PFAS can lead to health concerns like “kidney cancer, liver disease … ulcerative colitis, thyroid disorders, impacts to children’s immune systems, and probable or possible links to breast cancer, testicular cancer,” Adam Nordell, Campaign Manager – Maine Farmland Contamination at the environmental nonprofit Defend Our Health, said in an interview with me. “There’s a longer list there, but not illnesses that anybody wants to fool around with.”

Daily items like non-stick pans, couches, cosmetics, food packaging, and foam used in car washes likely contain PFAS chemicals. Even our outdoor gear.

The PFAS chemical class (also nicknamed “Forever Chemicals”) is characterized by carbon and fluorine bonded molecules – the strongest bond in the periodic table. This unnatural bond takes an enormous amount of energy to create, and because of this “nothing in the natural world is capable of breaking that bond,” Nordell said, which means that in the last 70-plus years PFAS have been used heavily in consumer goods, our environment has been filled exponentially with these chemicals.

Nordell has first-hand experience with this. He and his wife owned Songbird Farm in Maine until they found out that a PFAS-contaminated sludge from a local wastewater treatment plant flooded the farmland in the early 1990s –– years before they purchased the land. More than 20 years later, their crops still tested positive for PFAS with results that Nordell called “quite bad.”

It wasn’t just their commercially sold produce; Nordell and his wife discovered that the levels of PFAS in their blood were “so far beyond what the toxicologists and doctors anticipated, and so far beyond the medical guidance of when you need to be concerned about,” he said. They pulled their produce from stores and shut down operations, but he says that there may be many more farms that are affected by this.

Another issue is that there are an estimated 14,000 chemicals in this class that might show up under a myriad of names and there is no federal regulation to label products made with PFAS. Product descriptions with “perfluoro” or “fluoro” refer to a chemical in the PFAS class. “When it comes to naming PFAS, most in the outdoor industry just call it PFAS,” Meghan Carney, Author and Host of the Outdoor Minimalist podcast, said via email to me. “But they used to be referred to as PFCs. If you see listings for PFOS, PFOA, PTFE, or GenX, those are just types of PFAS chemicals.”

“The pattern that’s emerging is that as increasing data comes to light publicly about the dangers of specific chemicals, manufacturers will slightly reformulate them and give them a new chemical name, a new brand name, and then they’ll skirt regulation that way,” Nordell said. “And so a recent development was the switch from PFOA to the chemical GenX … it’s a different chemical. It moves through the environment in slightly different ways. But there’s a ton of evidence coming out that, yes, this has all of the attributes that made PFOA dangerous.”

When it comes to regulating PFAS, Nordell said, “We’re basically playing whack-a-mole.”

Scientists still have a lot to learn about this class of chemicals, in all of their iterations, there is movement to remove them from the environment. “There are technologies that are removing PFAS from drinking water,” Nordell explains, though admits “they’re expensive.”

Scientists are also discovering ways to break the carbon and fluorine bond once the molecules are pulled from water. Though, journalist Britt E. Erickson states in a March 2024 Chemical & Engineering News article (“Competition to destroy ‘forever chemicals’ heats up”) that “complete destruction of all PFAS, including short-chain PFAS and precursors, is a stretch for some techniques” and that it is “too soon to tell which technologies will succeed in the marketplace.”

The sludge that contaminated the Songbird Farm originated in two wastewater treatment plants in Maine that treat waste from industrial PFAS users and civilian homes. When we wash our Teflon pans or waterproof jackets, we send PFAS chemicals down the drain that accumulate at wastewater treatment plants. “There’s no model for containing PFAS at wastewater treatment districts. So unfortunately, no water treatment district is removing PFAS from sludge anywhere in the country, even to this day,” Nordell said.

Understanding Current Regulations

2024 was a monumental year for proposed PFAS regulations, with 36 states proposing PFAS regulations to varying degrees. Before 2024, Maine (2021) and Minnesota (2023) were the only states to pass legislation banning the selling or buying of products with intentionally added PFAS. Now, other states, like California, are putting forth similar proposals.

Gretchen Lee Salter, Strategic Advisor at Safer States, believes this uprising is spurred by frustrations and financial burdens of trying to clean up PFAS from water. “State legislators are understandably fed up and are understandably done with having to pay exorbitant amounts of money to try to clean PFAS out of water, out of soil, and yet it keeps getting dumped back in because they’re still in products,” she says. “So I think you’re seeing this momentum to not just try to clean up PFAS, but really to try to turn off the tap as well.”

Some states are working on legislation using the “listing approach” as Salter calls it, meaning that they are not proposing a total elimination of PFAS in consumer goods, rather specific categories. “What Minnesota and Maine have taken on is something that really requires a dedicated state agency and requires funding,” Salter said, “and so not all states are really in a position to take on a program that big, but they are in a position to eliminate PFAS from products where they can.”

Bills proposed in 2024 have yet to pass, but. Salter predicts that maybe by the end of May, “we’ll start seeing some movement.”

At the federal level, the EPA proposed a drinking water standard to limit PFAS contamination. It would be the first big federal move to regulate PFAS. “It absolutely needs to happen,” Salter says, applauding the action. “But like I said, we’re going to keep cleaning it up and pouring billions of dollars into cleanup unless we turn off the tap.” She emphasizes the importance of solving the problem at the source: eliminating PFAS.

Also important to note that passing a bill or committing to new regulations does not mean that PFAS will immediately be eliminated. Maine aims to have the ban go in effect in 2030; Minnesota, 2032. California and New York clothing bans are effective in 2025.

What does this regulation mean for outdoor brands?

“There had been a market push for several years to try to get a number of different outdoor retailers and outdoor clothing manufacturers to eliminate PFAS,” Salter said. “Some had made that commitment, but others hadn’t, but then all of a sudden, California and New York passed this bill [in 2022] eliminating PFAS from clothing, and these commitments were then made.”

REI is one of these companies. In February, 2023, REI announced a PFAS ban for all textiles. In February of this year, the company released version 3.1 of their Product Impact Standards. Within it, the company claims that since version 2.0 of this report, it “established elevated expectations requiring the phaseout of PFAS from additional product categories.” Version 3.1 requires all companies to supply PFAS-free cookware and textile products by fall 2024, except outdoor apparel for “severe wet conditions” which have a deadline of fall 2026.

L.L. Bean is another heritage company making changes. Based in Maine, a state that has spearheaded PFAS regulations, the company has pledged to be forever-chemical-free by the end of 2024. The tides are even turning for GORE-TEX, a brand with a long PFAS history. In 1958, Wilbert (Bill) Gore left DuPont –– the manufacturer of Teflon and a company that made PFAS chemical pervasive in consumer goods since 1951 despite known health risks –– to found GORE-TEX. The company website says that Bill “believes [in] the untapped potential of the PTFE (polymer polytetrafluoroethylene).”

However, in 2022, GORE-TEX launched ePE, a waterproofing method that is “PFC free” or PFAS-free. Brands like Patagonia and Arc’teryx jumped on board, releasing products like Arc’teryx’s Ralle and Coelle jackets and Patagonia’s Storm Shift ski and snowboard shell kits. Adidas, Salomon, Dakine, Reusch, and Ziener also use ePE. Since then, “our portfolio of customers using the new GORE-TEX Products with ePE membrane continues to expand each season,” a rep from GORE-TEX said. “More than 20 brands globally launched garments products with ePE membrane in AW23 (Autumn/Winter 2023).”

Patagonia declined to respond how the recent regulations will affect their product offerings. However in a blog post (“Say Goodbye to ‘Forever Chemicals’”), Patagonia states: “As of Spring 2024, about 96 percent of Patagonia’s materials by weight with water-repellent chemistries are made without PFAS. By 2025, all our DWR finishes—except those for waders, which we’re still rigorously fine-tuning—will be made without PFAS or PFCs.”

Salter attributes the “hesitation” by clothing manufacturers to go PFAS free to companies’ guarantees to customers. To remain relevant in the marketplace, and keep up with customers’ demands for high-quality, high-performance outdoor gear has edged out the need to protect environmental and public health. “For a while, they thought that the only way to meet those performance standards was with PFAS,” she said. “However, we now know that a number of clothing manufacturers are saying, ‘We don’t need it now, and that we can get out of it. We found an alternative.’”

Some outdoor brands, like Keen and Nixwax have been on the anti-PFAS wagon prior to the pushback from state legislation (2014 and 1983, respectively), proving that alternatives have been available. A rep from Keen said: “we actively ban all PFAS chemical compounds from our supply chain. We say our products are 97% PFAS-free — there’s no way that we can guarantee being 100% PFAS-free. We test for contamination regularly, and we consider this an endless journey of constant vigilance.”

What to Expect from non-PFAS Treated Gear

In the fifth episode in the “Forever Chemicals” series of the Outdoor Minimalist Podcast –– Did We Ever Need PFAS in Our Outdoor Gear? –– Carney speaks with Brian Davidson, CEO of Global Business at Nixwax, and Alex Lauver, Senor Director of Materials, Innovation, and Sustainability at Outdoor Research, about what consumers should expect from PFAS-free gear.

Davidson said Nixwax is finding success testing their industrial waterproofing –– like textiles and fills –– against industry standards. “We’ve met those standards as well as some others and shown that you can do it with PFAS-free chemistry, the same performance levels as PFAS-based chemistry.”

However, non-PFAS treatments don’t protect against grease, like the natural oils of our skin. These oils can break down the waterproof barrier. Bryan Ormond, North Carolina State University (NCSU) Assistant Professor of Textiles Complex, confirms this In an NCSU article (“Study Tests Firefighter Turnout Gear With, Without PFAS”): “In our tests, turnout gear without PFAS repelled water but not oil or hydraulic fluid.”

“We’re going to [need to] figure out a solution to make an oleophobic treatment that is
non-fluorinated,” Lauver said to Carney. “That’s not something we’ve really uncovered yet.”

Lauver and Davidson agree that PFAS-free treatments will have to be reapplied to maintain the integrity of a garment’s waterproofing. “Eventually, most things need to be replenished just like our cars need their oils,” Davidson said to Carney.

Where To Go From Here

PFAS is slowly leaving the market place. Until it does completely, watch out for products that claim waterproofing but do not disclose their treatment method. Look instead for C), PFAS-free or free of intentionally added PFAS, phrases Carney said “most companies that have phased out the chemistry will refer to their products as.” When in doubt, sites like PFAS Central keeps a list of PFAS-free brands to help you shop safer.

As for the gear with PFAS that is currently in your closet, Carney advises to use it as normal. “My opinion on PFAS in textiles is that they already exist, and we should use them until the end of their life,” she said. “Since many PFAS applied to rain jackets are going to be a DWR coating of some kind that wears off over time, the best option is to wash the jackets and reapply a non-toxic coating to replace it (something like Nikwax). There’s no reason to throw away clothing containing PFAS because it will enter the leachate in landfills.”

As policies against PFAS use and contamination are being pushed mainly at a state level, do your part to vote and reach out to local representatives to show your support.