PFAS occur in more products than just firefighting foams.
Friday, 07 August 2020
Fluorinated firefighting foams were transitioned from long chain to short chain PFAS due to the US EPA Stewardship Program. "In 2006, EPA invited eight major leading companies in the PFAS industry to join in a global stewardship program."1 This change was initiated due to increasing concerns about PFAS contamination and health issues connected to PFAS.
In April 2011, IPEN called upon the fifth Stockholm Convention Conference of the Parties (COP5) to "Keep the Promise", with a series of recommendations. Among these were listing endosulfan in Annex A of the convention, tightening up oversight of DDT use and regulation, and to create evaluation processes for bromodiphenyl ethers, PFOS and related compounds, and notification forms. We also called upon members to consider elimination of brominate diphenyl ethers from the waste stream, as well as risk reduction from PFOS, its salts, and PFOSF.