What we can do about PFA's.

As the final edits were being made on this edition, a story broke in the Boston Globe of groundwater contamination by PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) from a non-member company named Mass Natural. The company has accepted a wide range of feedstocks, and when tests confirmed a high level of PFAs in their groundwater, they were ordered by the state to stop selling compost. This is tragic for this family-run business and for the compost industry as well. While the detective work to figure out the contributing source of PFAs is underway, the owners are considering the reality of having to cease operations.
 
This comes on the heels of the of a bill passed in Maine this spring that disallows land application or distribution of biosolids compost unless it is tested and does not exceed state-set limits. 
 
As the compost industry, USCC’s mission is to provide ecosystem benefits—so we are as distressed by these reports as anyone. For that reason, we have been supporting a variety of bills in Congress and states such as California and Vermont banning use of PFAs in everything from cosmetics to ski wax to the compostable packaging where we first encountered the problem. (Note that the Biodegradable Products Institute no longer certifies packaging containing PFAS, and the Food and Drug Administration engineered a voluntary agreement by the largest packagers in the US in 2020 to cease using PFAS in packaging, which would be codified by the federal bills we are supporting. The Compost Manufacturing Alliance (CMA), a federally registered full-fledged certifier, also excludes PFAS packaging from its ASTM +field testing certification program and requires that strict lab methods are used to screen for total fluorine. The PFAS banning legislation is significant because when a ban was put on another chemical in the fluorinated chemicals family, PFOS, its occurrence dropped dramatically and quickly. A full ban is the answer for PFAS and the family of related compounds.

The reality is, that PFAs is found in all our bloodstreams, from the many products in which PFAS is endemic. We must urge our employees, families, customers, and communities to speak up to stop use of PFAS if we really want to put an end to this forever chemical showing up—whether it is in landfill leachate, incinerator ash, digestate or compost.

Meanwhile, USCC has been requesting that research dollars at US EPA (and in the Compost Research & Education Foundation) be directed towards determining the harmful levels of PFAS, so that regulators set standards at levels that are scientifically quantified. We will work on increasing testing availability and provide opportunities for our members and your networks to support legislation banning PFAS.

We are not the culprits or the villains in these stories, but we must do everything we can to be part of the solution.

See our PFAS Resource page here.