I don’t know enough about the risks to confidently say whether or not a ban is a good idea. (But what I do know leads me to keep using nonstick pans.) However, what jumped out at me in this article was this:
“Whether or not California passes a ban, Pfas is on the way out because consumers are demanding it,” Salter added. “If lawmakers represent their constituents then they’ll pass a ban, and if they represent billion dollar companies then they will oppose it.”
People freely choose whether or not to use nonstick pans, so how can passing a ban possibly represent constituents even in principle? A law regulating the negative externalities of pollution makes sense as something that constituents might want, but is the concern here really about the harm done to one person by a different person in a different house using nonstick cookware? It seems to me that laws like this are about protecting constituents from themselves, which is often justifiable but not really representative.
(A ban on pfas in other contexts where people don’t expect to find it does make sense as something that could represent constituents.)
Teflon(PTFE) being one of the most common sources of PFAS is notably dirty to make and Dupont has had more than one major lawsuit or incident involving byproducts polluting the environment. I could see laws getting passed to reduce overall manufacturing capacity. -That said, Teflon is kind of a miracle material that can do what almost no other material can with it’s chemical stability which also happens to be it’s greatest flaw but i think it would be a mistake to completely ban that.
The article mostly focuses on cookware but they do mention a few other goods that would be affected by the proposed ban.
I don’t know enough about the risks to confidently say whether or not a ban is a good idea. (But what I do know leads me to keep using nonstick pans.) However, what jumped out at me in this article was this:
People freely choose whether or not to use nonstick pans, so how can passing a ban possibly represent constituents even in principle? A law regulating the negative externalities of pollution makes sense as something that constituents might want, but is the concern here really about the harm done to one person by a different person in a different house using nonstick cookware? It seems to me that laws like this are about protecting constituents from themselves, which is often justifiable but not really representative.
(A ban on pfas in other contexts where people don’t expect to find it does make sense as something that could represent constituents.)
Teflon(PTFE) being one of the most common sources of PFAS is notably dirty to make and Dupont has had more than one major lawsuit or incident involving byproducts polluting the environment. I could see laws getting passed to reduce overall manufacturing capacity. -That said, Teflon is kind of a miracle material that can do what almost no other material can with it’s chemical stability which also happens to be it’s greatest flaw but i think it would be a mistake to completely ban that.
The article mostly focuses on cookware but they do mention a few other goods that would be affected by the proposed ban.