Toxins

Solving the Solvent Problem | National Real Estate Investor

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Solving the Solvent Problem | National Real Estate Investor

Dry cleaners did not begin using perc until the early 1980s, when, in an ironic twist, they were forced to do so by the U.S. Office of Safety and Health Administration. Prior to that time, dry cleaners had used a hydrocarbon-based product called stoddard. Though stoddard is relatively benign environmentally, it is extremely volatile and has a very low flash point. Stoddard had, in fact, been the primary culprit in a number of serious fires. Chlorine-based perchloroethylene, by contrast, is not especially volatile.

What OSHA did not realize was that perc has the unique ability to penetrate concrete. Moreover, when freed it quickly seeks the lowest point in its environment. As a result, the chemical rapidly descends through concrete floors into the soil and eventually into the groundwater. Once there, it flows wherever the groundwater flows.

Perc was found to cause cancer not long after it was introduced to the dry cleaning industry.

PFAS Chemical Associated With Severe Covid-19

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PFAS Chemical Associated With Severe Covid-19

ELEVATED LEVELS OF a PFAS compound were associated with more severe forms of Covid-19, according to a Danish study now undergoing peer review. The research, which involved 323 patients infected with the coronavirus, found that those who had elevated levels of a chemical called PFBA were more than twice as likely to have a severe form of the disease.

PFBA is one of a class of industrial compounds, often called “forever chemicals,” that has come to contaminate soil, water, and food around the world. It has been presented as relatively safe because it stays in human blood for much less time than some of the other compounds in the class and is a shorter molecule. Both traits are thought to be indications of its innocuousness. PFBA, which was created by 3M, is based on a four-carbon chain and is gone from human blood in a matter of days. It is still in use, while PFOA, which is based on eight carbons and stays in the human blood for years, has been phased out since 2015.

SABIC violated environmental law before Selkirk leak, state says

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SABIC violated environmental law before Selkirk leak, state says

According to DEC, the SABIC plant in Selkirk, which uses the styrene to make plastic, failed to follow procedures when it stored on its property since May a loaded rail tanker car that had a frozen valve.

Officials said that is what led to the release of approximately 15,825 pounds of styrene vapor, a release could be smelled by people miles away. The gas is considered to be toxic, but it also poses a fire and explosion danger if allowed to heat up while under pressure. Although stabilizers are added to tanker cars full of styrene, those additives can wear out over time.

Once the leak was detected, state officials and local firefighters began cooling the tanker car with a steady stream of water to keep it from rupturing. Officials also closed roads near the plant.

Scientists Find Bacteria That Devours Cancer-Causing Pollutants

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Scientists Find Bacteria That Devours Cancer-Causing Pollutants

While they were trying to find ways to clean the Passaic River Superfund site, a team of scientists discovered a new bacterium that might be able too do some of the heavy lifting on similar sites.

The bacteria was found thriving in toxic mud at the bottom of the river, where it was happily munching away on cancer-causing and otherwise dangerous toxins called dioxins, according to research published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. By giving it a little boost, the Rutgers scientists believe they could set the bacteria to work cleaning up the Passaic River and other toxic waste sites around the world.

Picky Eater Specifically, the bacteria pluck chlorine atoms out of Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, regarded as the most toxic dioxin out there. Without its chlorine atoms, the dioxin, which is a byproduct of chemical manufacturing plants that operated in the area, becomes far less dangerous.

“Our results showed that although the process is quite slow, it can be enhanced and may even have the potential to remove all toxic chlorines from the compound,” Rutgers Ph.D. candidate and lead author of the new research Rachel Dean said in a press release.

Tools Of The Trade Dean and her team are now hoping to figure out what’s going on at the molecular level when the bacteria strip the dioxin of its chlorine atoms.

By identifying what enzymes are responsible, Dean and her colleagues are hoping to develop a chemical treatment that neutralizes the dioxins at other waste sites.

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS):Incineration to Manage PFAS Waste Stream

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EPA Technical Brief: Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS):Incineration to Manage PFAS Waste Stream

The effectiveness of incineration to destroy PFAS compounds and the tendency for formation of fluorinated or mixed halogenated organic byproducts is not well understood. Few experiments have been conducted under oxidative and temperature conditions representative of field-scale incineration. Limited studies on the thermal destructibility of fluorotelomer-based polymers found no detectable levels of perfluorooctanoic acid after 2 secondresidence time and 1,000oC (Yamada et al., 2005; Taylor et al., 2014). Emission studies, particularly for PICs, have been incomplete due to lack of necessary measurement methods suitable for the comprehensive characterization of fluorinated and mixed halogenated organic compounds.

The extent to which PFAS-containing waste material in the United States is incinerated is not fully documented or understood. PFAS compounds are not listed as hazardous wastes under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) nor as hazardous air pollutants under Clean Air Act regulations, so they are not subject to the tracking systems associated with these regulations.