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Poison in the Pipes: The Hidden Costs of PVC in Our Drinking Water
Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle reported:
In America, turning on the kitchen faucet for a safe glass of water should be a given, not a gamble. Yet for far too many communities already burdened by environmental hazards, that simple act comes with fear and uncertainty.
The tragedy of Flint, Michigan, is never far from mind, even here in Colorado. Every time I fill a glass, I want to trust that the water is safe. I want to trust that the taxes I pay, and the water bills I shoulder, are funding a system built to protect my health, not quietly threaten it. And I want my family, friends, neighbors, and people I fight for every day to share the same trust. But too many of us can’t.
One reason is simple: we don’t even know how many lead pipes still exist in our drinking water system. That uncertainty is the shadow of Flint, a reminder that what we don’t know can harm us. And lead isn’t the only danger. Polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, is one of the materials commonly used for pipes in drinking water systems today. PVC is promoted by the industry as a quick fix, but that convenience comes at the expense of long-term public health.
Especially because there is an ugly truth that gets buried in the sales pitch by the plastics industry: PVC contains toxic chemicals that can leach into our drinking water. And as with lead, the communities most likely to bear the risks are the same ones already overburdened by environmental hazards.
Scientists Tested 3 Popular Bottled Water Brands for Nanoplastics. The Results Are Alarming.
Evian, Fiji, Voss, SmartWater, Aquafina, Dasani — it’s impressive how many brands there are for something humans have been consuming for millennia. Despite years of studies showing that bottled water is no safer to drink than tap water, Americans are consuming more bottled water than ever, to the tune of billions of dollars in bottled water sales.
People cite convenience and taste in addition to perceived safety for reasons they prefer bottle to tap, but the fear factor surrounding tap water is still a driving force. It doesn’t help when emergencies like floods cause tap water contamination or when investigations reveal issues with lead pipes in some communities, but municipal water supplies are tested regularly, and in the vast majority of the U.S., you can safely grab a glass of water from a tap.
Now, a new study on nanoplastics found in three popular bottled water brands is throwing more data into the bottled vs. tap water choice.
Air Pollution and Nighttime Light Linked With Cardiovascular Disease
Both air pollution and nighttime light are associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD), and the relationships between air pollution and risk for heart failure (HF) and coronary heart disease (CHD) are partially mediated by nighttime light, according to study findings published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Investigators explored the possible relationships between air pollution, nighttime light, and CVD risk.
The investigators used data from the U.K. Biobank to conduct a prospective cohort study that included 416,032 participants between 2006 and 2024 and examined the possibility of relationships between air pollution and nighttime light and CVD. Briefly, the U.K. Biobank includes data covering more than half a million individuals from England, Scotland, and Wales, aged between 37 and 73 years. In the current study, individuals with CHD, HF, and arrhythmia at baseline were among those excluded.
“Joint exposure to air pollution and nighttime light was associated with increased risks of cardiovascular disease,” the investigators concluded. “Nighttime light partially mediated the association between air pollution and coronary heart disease and heart failure. Reducing nighttime light exposure may represent a novel and actionable strategy to attenuate the cardiovascular risks linked to ambient air pollution.”
University of Chicago Researchers Develop New and Highly Sensitive Test for PFAS, Or ‘Forever Chemicals’
Synthetic PFAS are known as “forever chemicals,” lingering in water, cookware, cosmetic products, clothing, and even our blood as they resist breaking down. They’re infamous for being hard to detect. But researchers from the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have devised a new method to detect minuscule levels of the synthetic compounds in water. The method involves a portable, handheld device, UChicago said.
PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. The chemicals resist grease, oil, water, and heat, and have been linked to cancers, thyroid problems, and weakening of the immune system.
According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, PFAS do not degrade easily in the environment because their molecules have one of the strongest bonds. Because of this, They break down slowly, if at all. Junhong Chen, Crown Family professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and lead water strategist at Argonne, emphasized how levels of the substances are also hard to detect.
Industry, Environmental Groups Spar Over California Bill to Ban PFAS in Cookware
As U.S. states increasingly pass laws to limit PFAS chemicals in consumer products, a debate is heating up over a California bill that proposes banning the sale of cookware with intentionally added “forever chemicals” beginning in 2030. The bill, SB 682, would also prohibit the sale of cleaning products, dental floss, food packaging and other products with intentionally added PFAS beginning in January 2028.
Nonstick cookware is often coated with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a fluoropolymer also called Teflon and one of thousands of chemicals that belong to the class of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), some of which have been linked to health impacts including cancers, immune system problems and reproductive issues. PFAS are often called forever chemicals for their persistence in the environment.
The bill’s supporters argue that PTFE from cookware adds to the flow of forever chemicals in household waste, adding to the costly public burden of treating PFAS-tainted wastewater. Further, they point to recent research on possible reproductive health harms from exposure and suggest ongoing PTFE production continues a decades-long legacy of polluting communities where Teflon is made.
The AI Boom Is Stressing the Grid — but It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
Inside a former appliance factory in South Memphis, more than 100,000 interconnected computer chips are working hard to train and run xAI’s new chatbot, named “Grok.”
xAI founder Elon Musk promises that this 785,000-square-foot “Colossus” facility will become one of the world’s largest AI supercomputers. He’s less quick to note that since opening last year, it’s already become one of the area’s top polluters.
According to the Southern Environmental Law Center, an environmental nonprofit, the facility operated for months without air pollution permits. Dozens of large methane gas turbines were keeping the supercomputer running as they spewed toxic fumes into the already smoggy local air. Colossus sits next to the historically Black neighborhood of Boxtown in southwestern Memphis, an area that has long borne the brunt of the city’s industrial pollution. Not coincidentally, residents here have the highest rate of asthma-related hospital visits in Tennessee, and cancer rates are also four times higher than the national average.
“People target this area because they think that we’re the path of least resistance. They think this area is a sacrifice zone and that people here don’t matter,” says KeShaun Pearson, a resident and director of the Memphis Community Against Pollution advocacy group. “But they’re dying. They’ve been dying.”
