Must-read recap: The New Lede's top stories

PFAS in plastic containers lawsuit; pesticide exposure as risky as smoking, study finds; PFAS in pesticides; farmers fight carbon capture pipeline; the perils of plastics extend to our pets.

EPA has failed to protect consumers from PFAS-laced containers, lawsuit alleges

US regulators have failed to protect the public from millions of plastic containers that contain toxic PFAS chemicals, which can leach into pesticides, condiments, household cleaners, and many other products, alleges a lawsuit filed last week by environmental groups.

The lawsuit, filed July 25 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) by neglecting to demand that manufacturers stop making containers using a fluorination process that results in per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).

When the EPA proposed drinking water regulations for six PFAS chemicals in March 2023, the agency stated it had determined there is no safe level of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and that this type of PFAS is likely to cause cancer. Under the TSCA, the agency had six months to start addressing PFOA’s presence in plastic containers but failed to do so, allege the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). (Read the rest of the story.)

Pesticide exposure as risky as smoking, study finds

People who don’t farm, but live in US agricultural communities where pesticides are used on farms, face an increased cancer risk as significant as if they were smokers, according to a new study.

The study, published July 25 in the journal Frontiers in Cancer Control and Society, analyzed cancer incidence data from nearly every US county and looked at how that data corresponded to federal data on agricultural pesticide use. Researchers reported that they found the higher the pesticide use, the higher the risk for every type of cancer the researchers looked at.

“Agricultural pesticide usage has a significant impact on all the cancer types evaluated in this study (all cancers, bladder cancer, colon cancer, leukemia, lung cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and pancreatic cancer); and these associations are more evident in regions with heavy agricultural productivity,” the study states.

“Pesticide-associated cancers appear to be on par for several smoking-associated cancer types,” the study states. It has been well established that smoking increases cancer risk, with at least 70 of the thousands of chemicals in tobacco smoke considered carcinogens. (Read the rest of the story.)

PFAS increasingly added to pesticides, study finds

Despite widespread alarm about the health and environmental impacts of toxic PFAS, the chemicals are increasingly being added to pesticides applied in homes and crops across the US, according to a new study.

The findings, published July 24 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, add to growing concerns about PFAS contamination in the US food system and waterways and highlight pesticides’ “underappreciated” role in the problem, said David Andrews, a senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group and an author of the study

The study revealed that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) account for 14% of all active ingredients in pesticides used in the US, including almost one-third of active ingredients approved in the last decade. Even when PFAS are not added to these products as active ingredients, pesticides are at risk for being contaminated unintentionally, primarily through PFAS leaching from the fluorinated containers in which they are stored, the study concluded. (Read the rest of the story.)

A battle in rural Midwest as farmers fight carbon capture pipeline

Kathy Stockdale and her husband have spent almost 50 years working the land in central Iowa. As a family farmer raising corn and soybeans, Stockdale knows how to deal with harsh weather, poor crop prices, and an array of other challenges that come with making a living in agriculture.

But the operation she has spent a lifetime cultivating now faces a threat unlike any Stockdale has previously faced: Developers are planning to carve through her property with a pipeline carrying hazardous CO2 from ethanol plants, and there is little she can do to stop them.

The pipeline would run a mere 700 feet from Stockdale’s front doorstep and would create a barrier between the home she shares with her husband and the nearby home where her son lives. The farm’s soils and wetlands would be forever altered by the pipeline intrusion, and if the pipeline were to rupture, the damage could be catastrophic, Stockdale fears.

“It consumes your thoughts. You don’t sleep. You ask any of the landowners who have been fighting this, it’s been hard, it’s been stressful,” she said. (Read the rest of the story.)

The perils of plastics extend to our pets

(Opinion columns published in The New Lede represent the views of the individual(s) authoring the columns and not necessarily the perspectives of TNL editors.)

By now, you’d practically have to be living on Mars not to have heard about the health risks associated with plastics and the toxic chemical cocktail used to produce them.

Almost all plastics are derived from fossil fuels and have been found to contain over 16,000 chemicals, many of which are considered hazardous. Shockingly, despite evidence of harm, the US regulates only six percent of chemicals used to produce plastic, leaving potential health risks from most of the chemicals unchecked.

To bring attention to these dangers, EARTHDAY.ORG released a report last November, Babies VS. Plastics, highlighting infants’ heightened plastics exposure and vulnerability to  health risks.

Writing that report, I discovered that crawling on the floor puts babies at increased risk of inhaling microplastics in household dust. And since babies chew on everything, they are also more likely to ingest microplastics. The report made me wonder about my own plastics exposure, and about my two rescue dogs, Buzz and Sally. Since dogs and cats crawl on the floor and chew on everything their whole life span, are pets, like babies, especially vulnerable to microplastics? (Read the rest of the opinion piece.)