Read the full article by Brooks Johnson and Chloe Johnson
“Over the past two years, 3M sold nearly 25,000 different products that contain PFAS, the ‘forever chemicals’ that will soon be largely illegal in Minnesota.
While the company has reformulated nearly one-third of those products — mostly sandpaper and tape that didn’t use much to begin with — 3M expects to lose out on more than $1 billion in annual sales as it phases out PFAS production by the end of next year.
Even as regulations and litigation drive PFAS toward extinction, there are no replacements for all its uses. Companies are sprinting to find suitable substitutions in thousands of consumer products, including dental floss and raincoats, that rely on the highly functional chemicals.
‘Safe, economically-feasible alternatives are not there; they’re not readily available,’ said Allison Lange Garrison, a product liability and complex litigation attorney at Nilan Johnson Lewis. ‘So to say PFAS could simply be swapped out — that’s a really tall order.'” …