It's all a ruse to maximise profits and minimise expenses. They'll do anything to protect the status quo — they've used the tragedy of the commons to manufacture dangerous chemicals on an industrial scale for decades, and banning them now would impact entire industries and product segments; probably to the tune of tens or hundreds of billions.

No multinational corporation is ever going to voluntarily support a change that will kill its profits.

Sooo, as a counterpoint lets say we needed to replace "water" with something else for human consumption.

What do you imagine the cost and probability of success for that would look like?

I'm not saying it's the same here - but people seem to think that "scientists" can just magic-up new chemicals for everything.

My favorite was white phosphorus, which caused Phossy Jaw in the employees making the matches. Switching to red phosphorus would mean a 1% increase in cost or reduction in profits (wasn't sure which based on the article). Doing so would mean your employees' bones wouldn't dissolve. It took regulation to force them to switch.

Asbestos is genuinely a wonderful material. It's heat-proof, it's a wonderful insulator, it's one of the best filters for gas masks, it's wonderful for use in brake pads and clutches, etc.

It's just a damn shame it causes cancer in living things.

Also back then, we didn't have massive populations. Most of the world struggled to survive. Finding food was a all-day activity. Should we go back to that?

If you want to return to a feudal experience, I’m afraid it’s not like your local renaissance faire. What was it actually like?

Well, let’s start with Yersinia Pestis, the little scoundrel..

Antibiotics? Never heard of em.

I am so not understanding all the comments on this post that are literally defending their right to be given cancer by large corporations.

Wtf are the responses to this comment? "No, I like being poisoned for profit!" Jfc.

We also survived thousands of years without any of the creature comforts our society has taken for granted. Unfortunately, all the scientific advances we've achieved for the betterment of mankind involved these forever chemicals in one way or another.

I'm not saying they're not terrible, but at least some of the voices against these restrictions aren't in bad faith. It just speaks to the importance of finding alternatives, and we have to accept the fact that some things might not be replaceable with biodegradable solutions.

One of their uses is in firefighting chemical fires.

When an electric car is on fire, you need PFAS to stop the lithium fire. Water just can't stop it.

Of course, before batteries we used gasoline.

I imagine their might be more of these cases where modern technology relies on unsustainable practices.

If that means we'll have to forfeit the use of, for example computer systems, or some actually vital modern infrastructure - I don't think we'll agree to the ban.

On the other hand if their use is unavoidable, for any valid reason - there should be sufficient effort in recycling them...

Yes ideally they should just stop. However, there are things that have changed since the 1940s.

A lot of technology is based on plastics being available and will require a complete redesign to work without it.

Also ordinary stuff f.i. rain jackets, cookware and cleaning products. All of these could be replaced with whatever people used beforehand, but one reason why plastics has been used so widely is because it's a cheap biproduct that could replace more expensive and more energy intensive productions. F.i. imagine if we had to replace all hard plastic casing with ceramics, glass or steel. That would require a lot of furnaces to run on coal. Multiply this with the increased population since the 1940s and it might very well just cause a different environmental disaster.

It's not about survival. Manufactures are just letting people know if we ban these chemicals they will need to stop producing some products.

We powered our cars with gasoline instead of batteries.

Because without PFAS, we can't make EV batteries.

Often, the replacement will just be a derivative that isn't necessarily better. The narrative that will then go out through the media is: "We're no longer using this evil thing. Full stop." The replacement ends up just being something similar with similar problems. People stop paying attention because they assume the problem is solved, when it really isn't.

Example: there was that whole BPA plastic stink years back, now most bottles and food containers are "BPA Free"...but if you look into the chemical they used to replace BPA, it has the same synthetic estrogen problem BPA did. (Arbitrarily searched source: https://www.plasticstoday.com/study-says-bpa-free-plastics-still-show-estrogenic-activity )

In the case of replacement for water bottle or food container plastics, the best answer is to just not using them anymore, although glass and metal have their own difficulties, namely fragility and weight.

I remember the horrible transition period of the terrible "energy saving" lightbulbs back when EU banned incandescent bulbs. Expensive, took minutes to warm up, had terrible colour rendition, filled with mercury and saved barely any energy. It felt like such a moronic decision.

Now with over 50 LED bulbs all using like a tenth of the energy they used to with lifespans so long I can't even remember when I last had to replace one, it feels totally worth it. Sometimes someone has to make you suffer before it gets better.

Though with chemicals in contact with food, hopefully they take it just a bit slower to make sure they are safe first.

Expensive more like. Profit at all cost.