Ocean spray emits more PFAS than industrial polluters, study finds

[Nevilledog]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/19/ocean-spray-pfas-study

No paywall link
https://archive.li/6qohq

Ocean waves crashing on the world’s shores emit more PFAS into the air than the world’s industrial polluters, new research has found, raising concerns about environmental contamination and human exposure along coastlines.

The study measured levels of PFAS released from the bubbles that burst when waves crash, spraying aerosols into the air. It found sea spray levels were hundreds of thousands times higher than levels in the water.

The contaminated spray likely affects groundwater, surface water, vegetation, and agricultural products near coastlines that are far from industrial sources of PFAS, said Ian Cousins, a Stockholm University researcher and the study’s lead author.

“There is evidence that the ocean can be an important source [of PFAS air emissions],” Cousins said. “It is definitely impacting the coastline.”

PFAS are a class of 15,000 chemicals used across dozens of industries to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. Though the compounds are highly effective, they are also linked to cancer, kidney disease, birth defects, decreased immunity, liver problems and a range of other serious diseases.

*snip*

[marybourg]

1. I thought it was going to be a story about cranberry sauce!

[senseandsensibility]

2. I almost posted the same thing

except I was going to say cranberry juice. Still, a very serious topic and kind of depressing.

[OAITW r.2.0]

3. Spent 65 years of my life down on the Me coast, a few hundred yards from the ocean.

I wonder how much PFA's I have absorbed over this time?

[Igel]

8. Two + responses.

1. Can't know.

2. Not sure it matters. See next paragraph.

PFAS have their potency because of their molecular configuration (or lack thereof ... they;'re "linked" but causality is entirely unclear, per a a nih.gov survey from, I think, last year). Fewer than a dozen (as of the same survey I'm not going to look up--your Google works as well as mine) had been investigated, leading to the wuss "linked" as opposed to the powerful "causes." .

Shift your goalposts, and getting over the 25-yard line is a go-o-o-o-l!

I think it's obnoxious to put the 100s of PFASes through a rigorous process. at the same times, some are so isomerically incongruent with mammalian cell receptor morphology that they can't be assumed to be the same. Square peg 1" long, screw-cork hole 2.5" long. Sure, they have a fit. Ahem.

They're all PFAS. Because, you know, they all look alike to ... um ... their foes.

3. I'm agnostic. If the square peg fits, you must acquit. But if it doesn't? :Allow it, we mustn't"? Based on what fact.

I'm anti-precautionary principle. Sex yields pregnancy which yields maternal death. It's dangerous and should be outlawed?

Got day-6 work tomorrow. Report for duty, day 6, by 7:30. Want down-time.

Chow. Uh ... Ciao.

[OAITW r.2.0]

9. When I die, science can can use my cadaver to see the damage that they did.

AFAIK, and I'm in the medical system orbit, PFAs haven't been a diagnosed problem, yet.

Now, those creatures living in the ocean, that's what the science should be focused on. Because, we eat a lot of those creatures and that might have a negative correlation to a long human life.

[SunSeeker]

4. I've always lived near the ocean. Already had stage III cancer. Sucks.

[RockRaven]

5. Key words "into the air"

Those industrial polluters are releasing PFAS into the ground and water... which get into the ocean, which then get into the air as noted.

[Think. Again.]

6. Is this article trying to pretend...

...that PFAScs are natural and that industrial polluters aren't to blame for HOW THE PFAS's GOT INTO THE OCEAN SPRAY IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?

Because the headline sure seems like that's the conclusion they want the reader to come to.

[Celerity]

7. No.

I suggest a re-read.

It is a very short article.

[marybourg]

10. Very poorly developed story. It doesn't make any attempt

to clarify the fact that the chemicals are not a natural part of the “ocean spray”, as a reader might think.