If you caught my talk last Friday (watch again at @lost_social_ltd on Instagram) you might remember I spoke about the synthetic chemicals industry and how, after the second world war, it began focusing on creating chemical compounds with properties that would make life easier - from fire retardants, stain and water repellents to waterproof clothes and products that were ‘non-stick’ and ‘easy-clean’. Even personal care products and food packaging such as pizza boxes and take-out containers had (and still do have) chemicals embedded within. As the advancements being made were touching most people’s lives, the general public tended to view the chemical giants as something of a wonder. One of the largest giants, DuPont, even created a slogan to reflect this - “Better things for better living, through chemistry”.

However, the war in Vietnam brought a vast change to the way many American people viewed their own Government and the media. This had a huge impact upon consumer optimism and by the 1960’s there was a rift in their post world war two economic expansion. In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote ‘Silent Spring’ which warned about the dangers of improper pesticide use and the need for better controls on synthetic chemicals. For consumers, these product inventions really did make life much easier but they were now beginning to consider the impact these chemical giants were making on the environment and whether the products were affecting their health.

It seems these chemical giants have been operating unethically for decades with profit driving their decisions. Thankfully there are people out there determined to expose such shady practises and to hold these companies to account.

Dark Waters is a chilling true story. It is set in 1998, in Ohio, United States and highlights the wide variety of illnesses and cancers a small town is suffering due to their drinking water wells being polluted by American chemical giant DuPont. The film follows the real-life story of Rob Bilott, a lawyer who spends two decades trying to expose the malpractice of DuPont while seeking compensation for the residents of the town. After DuPont is forced to show its internal data, it is discovered that they have been knowingly polluting drinking water with PFOA - perfluorooctanoic acid. PFOA is part of a class of compounds called perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS - of which there are over 4,700!).

These are known as the Forever Chemicals as they do not readily break down in the environment and can be dispersed through air and water. Instead they are persistent and toxic, and build up within both the environment and the body causing serious harm. These synthetic compounds provide a series of benefits for industrial usage, most importantly, they are resistant to water and lipids. Due to their capacity to deter water and grease, they have been used in a wide range of global consumer products most notably within Teflon (the coating used on pots and pans to stop food sticking). As the chemical bioaccumulates within human and animal tissue, people began to realise this was more than one town’s issue - this was a serious global issue.

The chilling truth that Dark Waters unveils is that there has been little regulation regarding the use of these chemicals since their introduction over seventy years ago. When the question first arose over the town’s water contamination in 1998, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) in the US was relying on DuPont to collect their own data and to rigorously test their own chemicals. They had been doing this from the 1970’s even though they had created and were producing vast quantities of consumer goods containing poisonous chemicals from the 1960’s. This was effectively self regulation. DuPont’s own internal data showed that PFOA-C8 was possibly life threatening to human health and they knew they were poisoning the wells at least 10 years prior to the court case beginning, yet they chose to ignore it and actively sought to deny it.

Thankfully with the dedication of Rob Bilott this serious issue was brought to the attention of both the EPA and the media, and an independent scientific panel was established to review PFOA-C8 through medical monitoring. This panel was set the task to determine whether the members of the class (ie the townsfolk affected) were in fact suffering from increased incidents of disease in that region. The film is fascinating and horrifying in equal measure and brings home just how vulnerable we all are when it comes to synthetic chemical exposure. It also underlines just how unethical the large chemical giants are as they put profit ahead of everything else.

Sadly, twenty years on, chemical giants are still causing immense harm and our governments are often beholden to them. Rob Bilott still works as an Environmental lawyer and continues his fight against DuPont and other chemical giants today.

And do the facts check out in the film? Well according to Slate, a well reputed online current affairs magazine, they do. They consulted a variety of sources and to Hollywood’s credit they were for the most part all chillingly accurate.

So what happened as a result of the news that PFOA (contained within Teflon!) was bad for our health? Well a regulation was finally introduced in 2004 by the UN under the Stockholm Convention Treaty. It seeks to protect both human health and the environment through specific control measures on Persistent Organic Pollutant chemicals (POPs - don’t be misled by the word organic). PFOA and PFOs were largely phased out voluntarily at the start of the 21st century but surprisingly they were not added to the POP list until 2019! (The top twelve POPs are known as the ‘Deadly 12’.). It is really best to cook with ceramic, stainless steel or cast iron kitchenware and avoid conventional non-stick pots as there are still many health and environmental issues related to these type of products.

Although unrelated to the film, I thought I would mention another chemical - the pesticide DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloro-ethane). It took 10 years after the book Silent Spring was written (in 1962), for the US Environmental Agency to issue a cancellation of the use of DDT across America in 1972. The UK did not follow suit until the 1980’s! Only then was its adverse effects on both wildlife and human health finally recognised world wide, however, irreparable damage had been done and we are all living with its legacy today. Surprisingly DDT is still in use in some African, Asian and South American countries for agricultural use and control over malaria. As if carcinogenic chemicals were not enough, there are even chemicals that can interfere with the hormone (endocrine) system. They are known as the Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and we are already seeing the impact these are having in both humans and wildlife. However, I will be blogging about them at a later date.

So even in today’s consumer product market there are thousands of chemicals being used to make our lives better - ‘stay pressed’, ‘showerproof’, ‘easy care’, ‘non-slip’, ‘fire retardant’ - the list is endless. And by being exposed to these invisible chemicals day-in, day-out, year-in, year-out we are all slowly building a toxic burden within our own bodies. Research is starting to link certain chemicals with certain diseases but the data is sporadic and it is difficult to pinpoint one certain chemical as we all have varying levels of exposure. In addition to this story of chemical build up, we have decades of disposability and over production of consumer goods creating mountains of waste. So all in all it is not a pretty picture. But do watch the film if you can. It is a real-life thriller that is both chilling and absorbing with a great cast. It is available on Netflix under their ‘critically acclaimed’ section.

But we can all make a positive difference to our own lives and this is why Beautiful Healthy Home exists. We believe there is no place for these toxic chemicals in our home and we want consumers to know what chemicals are out there so they can make informed choices. This is a journey and we want to thank you for joining us on it. If you’d like to subscribe to our newsletter just add your email address to the button on our website or send me a DM. We will keep you updated with our research and the exciting non-toxic products we will be adding to our range.

Together we can all start creating our own beautiful healthy home.

Zoë x

References:

https://www.environmentalpollutioncenters.org/news/what-are-pfoa-and-pfos-and-how-dangerous-are-they/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html

https://slate.com/culture/2019/11/dark-waters-accuracy-fact-vs-fiction-teflon-dupont.html

https://www.endocrine.org/topics/edc/what-edcs-are/common-edcs

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

Film: Dark Waters, 2020

Images © Twitter and Netflix

This blog, website and its content are copyright of Beautiful Healthy Home Ltd - © Beautiful Healthy Home Ltd 2021. All rights reserved.

Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited other than you may print or download to a local hard disk extracts for your personal and non-commercial use only

You may not, except with our express written permission, distribute or commercially exploit the content. Nor may you transmit it or store it in any other website or other form of electronic retrieval system.