While these limits are steps in the right direction towards raising awareness about PFAS and shielding consumers from some of the overwhelming exposure to these substances, they only apply to four – albeit four of the most common – in a group of around 4,700 man-made chemicals.
Are you climbing Mount Everest, or just going to work?
Are you climbing Mount Everest, or just going to work? I’ve spent a lot of time discussing the importance of chemical substitution at different meetings and conferences, and pretty much heard all the arguments. But one thing I heard an...
Hell and gore: High levels of PFAS in crayfish yet another sign of an intoxicated world
A new test study shows that Swedish crayfish are loaded with PFAS, yet another sign that we have exceeded the limit for how much PFAS the planet can take.
The bitter truth about sour herring
The Baltic Sea, home of the sour herring, is heavily polluted, making the fatty fish loaded with hazardous chemicals.
The five stages of chemical grief
ChemSec’s Communication Officer Karin Forslund recounts her first steps as a new employee with the NGO and likens the experience to a grieving process.
The huge problem of microplastics
Microplastics are a growing concern, and they are everywhere: in oceans and on mountain peaks, in food chains and ecosystems, in the most remote locations – even in our lungs and blood.
9 out of 10 items in EU’s new product database contain lead
7.5 million articles containing hazardous substances have so far been submitted to the SCIP database. Out of these, 94 percent contain lead. A substance that even the ancient Greeks knew to be highly harmful to humans.
Will plastic – the super-villain of chemical products – cause the climate and human health to snap?
Plastic is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and the additives used to enhance this deceptively versatile material are often hazardous to human health. All the while, the plastics industry makes sure the demand – that they invented in the first place – keeps growing.
The Teflon chemical PTFE is often touted as a safe cousin of toxic PFAS. But is it really?
As regulators and growing public awareness have put the screws on some of the more well-known PFAS chemicals, other variants are marketed as safe and are rarely scrutinised. One such chemical is PTFE – an unregulated chemical in the PFAS family – which is used in a plethora of consumer products, giving materials that desired non-stick function. The question is – is PTFE really as safe as manufacturers claim?
Webinars: H&M and IKEA reveal findings from their extensive study on hazardous chemicals in used textiles
Why is collaboration key in a circular economy? Which hazardous chemicals can be found in used textiles? And how are these chemicals hampering material recycling?