3M Will Cease Manufacturing PFAS In 2025

After years of legal battles with environmentalists and state attorney generals over so-called forever chemicals’ potential effects on the environment and the health of consumers, 3M announced it will stop producing so-called forever chemicals and work to stop their use across its extensive product line by the end of 2025.

The Minnesota-based company, which manufactures tens of thousands of consumer and business products, claimed that its choice to stop using per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, was influenced by a number of factors in an evolving environment, including “accelerating regulatory trends” aimed at reducing the chemicals’ presence in the environment and shifting stakeholder expectations.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 3M was one of the first businesses in the country to produce and use PFAS, and it began discharging the chemicals in the 1970s.

PFAS are a class of hundreds of compounds that are frequently used to give materials water, grease, and stain resistance as well as nonstick qualities. They are found in a wide variety of consumer and cleaning products. According to statistics from the EPA, the chemicals are well-known for their durability and persistence in the environment as well as, increasingly, for the health dangers they provide, such as an increased risk of certain cancers, a weakened immune system, and developmental delays.

Two of the most extensively studied per- and polyfluoroalkyl compounds, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), were the subject of nonbinding drinking water advisories issued by the EPA in 2022.

California sued 3M and more than a dozen other chemical manufacturers for allegedly continuing to produce and use the chemicals and downplaying their risks despite knowing about their toxicity for decades. California banned PFAS in food packaging with a law that went into effect on January 1, 2023.

A number of other states and cities, including Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Philadelphia, have filed cases against 3M and other businesses for allegedly poisoning land and water with harmful chemicals. A number of parties have also charged 3M and other businesses in South Carolina’s multidistrict litigation for poisoning groundwater with PFAS found in specialized film-forming foams used to put out fires.

In 2018, 3M and Minnesota negotiated an $850 million settlement after Minnesota claimed the firm dumped PFAS into drinking water and wildlife habitats close to Minneapolis.

3M said it has already reduced its usage of PFAS over the last three years and will continue to remediate PFAS and defend itself as necessary in court or through negotiated settlements. The company also maintains that its products are safe for their intended uses. 3M’s has noted its current annual net sales of PFAS are over $1.3 billion.

According to environmental officials, the announcement from 3M is fantastic news for clean water and officials will pressure other manufacturers to follow suit for the sake of the public health and ecosystems around the world.