Pac NW brands at forefront of nationwide charge to phase out ‘forever chemicals’

Some products with PFAS—a common treatment for water and stain resistant outdoor apparel—will soon be illegal to sell in many states

From aluminum waste to pesticides to microplastics, Columbia Insight has always emphasized reporting on toxins in the Columbia River Basin. This includes recent news about the State of Washington’s legal fight with the U.S. Army over the disposal of so-called “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, and the broader national awareness of problems associated with these chemicals with multiple industrial applications. So, it caught our eye when we saw the article below, originally published by Environmental Health News and reprinted here with permission, that chronicled the leading role taken by Pacific Northwest businesses and other organizations to eradicate PFAS from much of the clothing and shoes we unknowingly take with us into the outdoors. —Editor

By Tatum McConnell, Environmental Health News. May 18, 2023. The outdoor footwear company KEEN, headquartered in Portland, made a discovery about their shoes in 2014: they were rife with stain- and water-resistant chemicals known to harm human health called PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals.”

Laces, buckles, interior textiles and more were receiving a PFAS treatment before becoming part of a sandal or hiking boot.

“PFAS were being applied to styles that were meant to go in the water, and a water shoe doesn’t need to be waterproof,” Lauren Hood, KEEN sustainability manager, told Environmental Health News (EHN).

The company started by asking suppliers to stop using unnecessary PFAS, which removed about 65% of this type of chemicals in their products. It took four years for KEEN to phase out PFAS in all products, through finding and testing chemical water-proofing alternatives.

Now apparel companies will need to follow KEEN’s example to comply with upcoming bans on PFAS in consumer products, including outdoor clothing, passed in at least three U.S. states.

With varying timelines, the bans apply to all types of PFAS chemicals (researchers have documented more than 9,000), and cover industries specified in each state’s bill, such as food packaging or textiles.

PFAS is short for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a family containing thousands of chemicals with at least one strong carbon-fluorine bond. The bonds allow PFAS to repel water from clothing, but it also makes the chemicals extremely persistent in humans and the environment.

Research has linked PFAS to health harms including reproductive issues, cancers and developmental delays in children, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

California and New York are first up—both states banned PFAS in food packaging starting in 2023, and have a 2025 deadline for removing PFAS from apparel. Maine has targeted 2030 to ban PFAS from nearly all products sold in the state.

The bans in California and New York will have a wide impact, Avinash Kar, senior director of the National Resources Defense Council’s Health and Food, People and Communities Program, told EHN.

“Larger states can drive the overarching marketplace,” he said. Companies are likely to make uniform changes for their product line, so that the same items can be sold in states with or without PFAS bans, Kar added.

Some companies are ahead of the regulatory curve and have already phased out all PFAS from their products.

Others have voluntary policies to phase out PFAS ahead of the 2025 deadline, including REI, headquartered near Seattle, which announced in February it won’t carry products included in the California PFAS ban starting in the fall of 2024. This standard applies to hundreds of outdoor brands that sell items through the co-op.

The REI move followed an October 2022 consumer fraud class action lawsuit filed in Washington against REI over alleged PFAS content in some waterproof clothing sold by the company.

“The REI PFAS consumer fraud lawsuit is but the latest in a growing line of PFAS lawsuits that allege that certain consumer goods contain PFAS, that the products or company’s values were marketed as healthy or environmentally friendly, and that consumers would not have purchased the products if they knew that the products contained PFAS,” wrote the The National Law Forum when the suit was filed.

Since 2005, more than 6,400 PFAS-related lawsuits have been filed in U.S. courts, with companies potentially facing billions of dollars in damages.

“With Thinx settling a class-action lawsuit citing the presence of PFAS in their underwear and 3M’s long-awaited announcement to discontinue the use of PFAS by 2025, consumer awareness and media attention on this class of chemicals is reaching an all-time high,” wrote Sway (dedicated to healthy home furnishings) in January 2023.

PFAS are often applied to products like raincoats and other water-resistant items used outdoors, so the upcoming bans will have a big impact on the outdoor apparel industry.

To comply with the law, companies need to hunt down and remove the chemicals from their products. This means having conversations with suppliers and testing materials, then redesigning items if PFAS are present.

These changes will likely ripple out to places beyond current PFAS-ban adopters, as companies remove PFAS across their supply-chain.

Experts say this will cut down on people’s exposure to PFAS beyond the states enacting the bans, from factory workers and communities surrounding production sites, to consumers across the globe.

State by state bans

Enacted and proposed PFAS bans across U.S. states target different industries and include varying enforcement methods, but most cover a broad range of consumer products.

In March, New York amended its law to better align with California’s regulation timeline and broadened the ban to include outdoor apparel and other industries.

The synced timeline “makes planning much easier for companies,” James Pollack, an attorney who specializes in consumer product regulation at Marten Law, which has offices in Boise, Portland and Seattle, as well as Boston and Washington, D.C., and calls itself one of the largest environmental and energy law firms in the West.

One-at-a-time bans create a patchwork of regulation that can be difficult for companies to comply with, Pollack said. For the outdoor apparel industry, “the design phases for this [gear] are often years in advance,” he pointed out.

In addition to California, New York and Maine, there are enacted PFAS bans in Vermont, Maryland and Colorado, though apparel is not included in these states. PFAS bans for some products have been proposed in Minnesota and Rhode Island, and Vermont and New York are considering bills to expand theirs.

Washington state’s legislature directed its department of ecology to create a PFAS ban for aftermarket fabric treatments, carpets and indoor furniture as early as 2025, and has set a later date for banning PFAS in apparel. The European Union is also considering a measure to ban all uses of PFAS.

“I’ve been doing this work for a long time. It is powerful how bipartisan PFAS is,” Sarah Doll, national director of Oregon-based Safer States, told EHN.

This month Vermont’s senate unanimously approved the bill that expands the range of consumer products included in its PFAS ban, which will now move to the state’s house. PFAS bans have seen bipartisan support in other states as well.

PFAS exposure isn’t seen as an urban or rural issue, said Doll. PFAS can be found in products nearly all Americans come into contact with from food packaging to furniture, so many want to see them phased out.

At the U.S. federal level, however, there’s been less action on PFAS in consumer products. A bipartisan bill introduced to the U.S. House and Senate in 2021 to ban PFAS in food packaging never reached a vote in either body.

Getting PFAS out

Outdoor apparel brands and companies in other industries are now tasked with tracking down PFAS added to products and taking it out of their supply chain.

“In many cases, brands have no idea what’s in the products that they sell,” said Mike Schade, director of Mind the Store at Seattle-based Toxic-Free Future.

Figuring out what chemicals are present can involve working through layers of suppliers to learn what is added to components of a product. Companies can also test their products to look for fluorine, a component of PFAS, or specific PFAS chemicals out of the thousands in the family.

For some products, like KEEN’s water shoes, PFAS simply isn’t needed and companies can work with their suppliers to remove it from production.

For others, like wet weather gear, brands have to find and test alternative chemicals to find new options that perform well outdoors.

“As companies move away from PFAS, we think it’s important … to evaluate the safety of alternatives to ensure they’re not moving from one bad actor chemical to another. We don’t want to repeat mistakes of the past,” Schade said.

Those mistakes include a transition from long-chain PFAS to short-chain PFAS, which contain fewer carbon atoms. Many companies transitioned their apparel to short-chain PFAS, including Patagonia, in 2016. But researchers say these chemicals still pose risks to the environment and health.

In addition to use for water and stain repellency, PFAS can end up in textiles and products unintentionally. Machine lubricants and other materials used in manufacturing can contain PFAS and contaminate the items produced in factories.

In these instances, textile producers and brands may not be aware that PFAS are present. Removing those sources of the toxic chemicals could require testing and finding alternative materials to use during manufacturing.

KEEN has removed all intentionally added PFAS chemicals from their products, explained Hood. But, “the work is sort of never done,” she said, “nothing is really PFAS-free. It’s in the ice in the Arctic and it’s in our bodies. It’s just everywhere now.”

PFAS-free ripple effect

KEEN’s work to remove PFAS from products has created a bigger supply-chain impact, said Hood. Some manufacturers KEEN worked with to phase out the chemicals now sell PFAS-free components to other companies as well.

Brands that have phased out PFAS are able to share resources and information, such as a guide KEEN published that includes alternative water-proofing recommendations.

Tracking down intentional uses of PFAS and removing them from products is a good start at reducing the presence of this harmful class of chemicals, said Schade. But preventing unintentional PFAS contamination will be a challenge that could take industries longer to solve.

Ultimately, “unless we cut off the manufacturing of PFAS, they’re going to continue to show up as a contaminant,” Schade said.

Originally published by Environmental Health News. Reprinted with permission. Sections on PFAS lawsuits added by Columbia Insight.