News Coverage
3M to slash use of toxic chemical
Published March 16, 2005
3M Co. said a chemical that federal regulators say has the potential to cause cancer will be removed almost entirely from polymers used to make nonstick coatings.
3M's Dyneon unit will remove 98 percent of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, from a type of paint-like polymer by the end of 2006, Bill Nelson, a spokesman at Maplewood-based 3M, said Tuesday. 3M buys PFOA to help make polymers that coat nonstick cookware and industrial metals, Nelson said.
DuPont Co., the world's largest producer of fluoropolymers used in nonstick cookware and electrical coatings, said Monday it plans to remove PFOA from Teflon coatings and other dispersion polymers by the end of next year. 3M stopped making PFOA, which can cause cancer in animals, in 2000 after scientists said the chemical was in the blood of almost all people at very low levels.
"While there are no known human health hazards associated with PFOA, we in the industry are committed to reducing the exposure people have from emissions from our plants and products," Don Duncan, president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, a Washington-based trade group, said.
The reduction in PFOA use stemmed from agreements that DuPont, 3M and others made with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in February.
3M started phasing out production of PFOAs in 2000 and had completed that process by the end of last year, though it still uses small amounts of the product in the manufacturing process, Nelson said. He emphasized that the reductions noted Tuesday are in one class of chemicals and that 3M still makes other perfluoro polymers.
While it's good that both Dupont and 3M are reducing their use of PFOAs in the manufacturing process, both still have problems with PFOAs being in their final products, said Tim Kropp, senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, a group that's lobbying the EPA to eliminate or ban the chemicals.
Scientists think that the chemicals can break down once they're in the products and get into the environment.
Staff writer John Welbes contributed to this story.