Read the full article by James Bruggers (Inside Climate News)
“In advance of a United Nations meeting this week where pollution is on the agenda, a U.N. human rights team has called out a PFAS manufacturing plant in North Carolina as a poster child for irresponsible behavior.
Nine independent U.N. human rights advisors put blame for widespread contamination in the area from a Chemours plant near Fayetteville, a Dupont spinoff, and said ‘even as DuPont and Chemours had information about the toxic impacts of PFAS on human health and drinking water, the companies continued to produce and discharge PFAS.’
The experts also rebuked state and federal regulators, alleging lax enforcement and arguing that regulatory bodies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, had been ‘captured’ by the plant’s current and past owners, a term implying the regulators were inappropriately doing the companies’ bidding.
At issue are the PFAS chemicals made at the Fayetteville plant, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They are known as ‘forever chemicals’ because they last a very long time in the environment. Various PFAS are used to make certain kinds of plastics, and are found in a wide array of consumer products, such as shampoo, dental floss, nail polish, eye makeup, fast food containers and stain-resistant coatings on fabrics.” …