{"id":67556,"date":"2024-04-25T15:33:26","date_gmt":"2024-04-25T20:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67556"},"modified":"2024-04-25T15:33:26","modified_gmt":"2024-04-25T20:33:26","slug":"ocean-waves-contain-more-forever-chemicals-than-industrial-pollution-thats-bad-news-if-you-live-on-the-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=67556","title":{"rendered":"Ocean waves contain more \u2018forever chemicals\u2019 than industrial pollution. That\u2019s bad news if you live on the coast"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ocean waves contain more \u2018forever chemicals\u2019 than industrial pollution. That\u2019s bad news if you live on the coast<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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New research found that ocean spray spreads PFAS into the air and onto land, creating a vicious cycle of forever chemicals that never disappear.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"Ocean<\/p>\n

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[Photo: Fer Nando\/Unsplash<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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PFAS, or\u00a0forever chemicals<\/a>, are ubiquitous in our environment. In the U.S. alone, there are more than\u00a057,000 sites<\/a>\u00a0contaminated with these chemicals. They\u2019re in our\u00a0drinking water<\/a>, our soil, our products\u2014and our ocean. And according to new research, when waves crash onto shores around the world, they spray hundreds of thousands of PFAS particles into the air, creating a cycle in which these chemicals go from land to sea and back again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a class of synthetic chemicals largely used to make products stain-, grease-, and water-resistant. They\u2019ve been dubbed \u201cforever chemicals\u201d because they don\u2019t easily break down and so stay in our environments for thousands of years. They\u2019re linked to harmful effects to health, including cancer, decreased fertility, developmental delays, and more.<\/p>\n

When forever chemicals contaminate land, they get into waterways and eventually into the ocean. Scientists used to think that once there, the particles would sink and dilute in the ocean depths. But researchers have found that isn\u2019t true. Instead, a recent study from Stockholm University, published in\u00a0Science Advances<\/a><\/em>, details a boomerang effect in which sea spray spreads forever chemicals back into the air and onto land.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a concerning cycle from land to the sea and back to land,\u201d said Ian Cousins, the study\u2019s lead author and an environmental science professor at Stockholm University, over email. \u201cThe PFAS were emitted on land and then washed into the sea. They then cycle back to land with sea spray aerosols, and so the cycle continues. It puts a new dimension to the term \u2018forever chemicals.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ocean waves contain more \u2018forever chemicals\u2019 than industrial pollution. That\u2019s bad news if you live on the coast New research found that ocean spray spreads PFAS into the air and onto land, creating a vicious cycle of forever chemicals that never disappear. [Photo: Fer Nando\/Unsplash] PFAS, or\u00a0forever chemicals, are ubiquitous in our environment. In the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34359,33672,34357,34358,638],"class_list":["post-67556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-fast-company","tag-forever-chemicals","tag-kristin-toussaint","tag-ocenas","tag-pollution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67556"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67557,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67556\/revisions\/67557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}