PFAS Regulations: Understanding the Global Impact on Products and Industries

They say “Noth­ing lasts for­ev­er”, but not for PFAS. This group of strong tox­ic chem­i­cals will the­o­ret­i­cal­ly last even if humans go extinct; unless, we do some­thing about it now. If you’re an importer, sup­pli­er, man­u­fac­tur­er or any indi­vid­ual or com­pa­ny con­cerned with PFAS, here’s some essen­tial infor­ma­tion you need to know about these “for­ev­er” chem­i­cals. At the end of your read, we’ll give you a take­away on what the PFAS ban prac­ti­cal­ly means for you and CAPLINQ.

What are PFAS?

Per- and poly­flu­o­roalkyl sub­stances (PFAS) are a large, com­plex group of man-made chem­i­cals (“for­ev­er chem­i­cals”) hav­ing one of the strongest bonds (car­bon-flu­o­rine bonds) in organ­ic chem­istry. PFAS have been used through­out our soci­ety since about the 1950s from cook­ing ware to clothes due to the unique and superb qual­i­ties they impart to the fin­ished products.

Why are PFAS regulated?

Most of the PFAS are per­sis­tent and eas­i­ly trans­port­ed in the envi­ron­ment per­pet­u­al­ly expos­ing humans and oth­er species to many detri­men­tal effects such as can­cer, repro­duc­tive and endocrine prob­lems. Because of their per­sis­tence, some con­t­a­m­i­nate ground­wa­ter and drink­ing water sources. Fur­ther­more, cer­tain PFAS tend to accu­mu­late in the human body which means that they don’t get excret­ed as much as they are tak­en in. Stud­ies show that PFAS are indeed in the blood­stream of the major­i­ty of the human pop­u­la­tion. The use of PFAS is still expand­ing and based on the numer­ous stud­ies made on its nature and its effects, PFAS have been reg­u­lat­ed for about a decade now in most countries. 

Late­ly, CAPLINQ has been receiv­ing sev­er­al requests from our Euro­pean cus­tomers to pro­vide dec­la­ra­tions that our prod­ucts are com­pli­ant with PFAS. This is under­stand­able since the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion com­mits to phas­ing out all PFAS, allow­ing their use only where they are proven to be irre­place­able and essen­tial to soci­ety. This means that the EU will put a glob­al ban on the use, place in mar­ket and man­u­fac­ture of around 10,000 PFAS. This is expect­ed to enter into force at the end of 2026 or 2027. 

Fur­ther­more, PFAS are con­tin­u­ous­ly being added to the EU REACH Can­di­date List of sub­stances of very high con­cern (SVHC) lead­ing to their restric­tion in the EU mar­ket. Once the ban is in force, com­pa­nies will be giv­en between 18 months and 12 years to intro­duce alter­na­tives to the more than 10,000 PFAS affect­ed, depend­ing on the avail­abil­i­ty of alter­na­tives, accord­ing to the draft proposal.

This mat­ters sig­nif­i­cant­ly as this will affect a lot of man­u­fac­tur­ers, importers and users of prod­ucts or mix­tures con­tain­ing PFAS in many indus­tries such as elec­tron­ics, tex­tiles and cloth­ing, cos­met­ics, food con­tact mate­ri­als, pack­ag­ing and med­ical devices.

Prod­ucts sold and man­u­fac­tured by CAPLINQ are being con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tored by our sup­pli­ers and pro­duc­tion ensur­ing com­pli­ance with PFAS-relat­ed regulations.

Besides the EU, how does the rest of the world reg­u­late PFAS?

The reg­u­la­tions of PFAS vary around the world. In the Euro­pean Union, under the Stock­holm Con­ven­tion on Per­sis­tent Organ­ic Pol­lu­tants, the use, place in mar­ket and man­u­fac­ture of per­flu­o­rooc­tane sul­fon­ic acid (PFOS), per­flu­o­rooc­tanoic acid (PFOA) and PFHxS togeth­er with their salts and relat­ed com­pounds are banned. Some of the PFAS are already includ­ed in the REACH Can­di­date List of sub­stances of very high con­cern (SVHC).

In the US, dis­cus­sions on pos­si­ble reg­u­la­tions for PFAS are still hap­pen­ing at the fed­er­al lev­el. Law passed by the state of Maine pro­hibit­ing prod­ucts made with inten­tion­al­ly added PFAS chem­i­cals will take effect in 2030. Fur­ther­more, USEPA has pro­posed a law to report PFAS in prod­ucts at any con­cen­tra­tion rather than any amount greater than 1% or 10,000 mg/kg.

On the oth­er hand, Cana­da has reg­u­lat­ed some PFAS under the “Pro­hi­bi­tion of Cer­tain Tox­ic Sub­stances Reg­u­la­tions”. There will be an upcom­ing Con­sul­ta­tion on the draft State of PFAS Report and Risk Man­age­ment Scope. Aus­tralia also plans to phase out PFAS and con­sis­tent­ly mon­i­tors some of them under the Stock­holm Con­ven­tion on Per­sis­tent Organ­ic Pol­lu­tants. PFAS reg­u­la­tions are not yet well estab­lished in Asia and Latin Amer­i­ca in gen­er­al with the exemp­tion of Chi­na and Japan. 

What does the PFAS ban prac­ti­cal­ly mean?

These are all pro­posed bans and exclu­sions. We still car­ry PFAS-con­tain­ing prod­ucts and for­mu­la­tions and we will still con­tin­ue to sup­port them until the laws take effect. 

One exam­ple is the 3M Novec alter­na­tives that were intro­duced to replace the 3M Novec elec­tron­ic coat­ings that proac­tive­ly stopped pro­duc­tion. Since these are most­ly Auto­mo­tive mate­ri­als, the qual­i­fi­ca­tion and sun­set peri­od is even longer so pro­duc­ing and sup­ply­ing Nanoproof Novec alter­na­tives will go well into the 30s. Sim­i­lar­ly, car­bon papers with MPL and PTFE lay­ers are also still man­u­fac­tured and supported.

The real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion is that this will be a long and debat­ed process that can eas­i­ly last decades. 

Until then there are two things that you need to consider:

1. You need to start qual­i­fy­ing PFAS free alter­na­tives. That’s why we have Green and PFAS free prod­ucts for most of our port­fo­lio. In the case, let’s say of elec­trolyz­ers, you are bet­ter off going for non MPL coat­ed papers since you are still in the devel­op­ment stage and you don’t want to change your design a few years later
2. Know­ing the typ­i­cal prod­uct life cycles, you also can and need to some­how con­tin­ue pro­duc­tion of your exist­ing or upcom­ing prod­ucts. Chances are your prod­uct life­cy­cle will end before the reg­u­la­tions take effect. And we are here to help you out dur­ing this process.
   

Nat­u­ral­ly, we all want a green­er, safer and bet­ter envi­ron­ment and we will con­tin­ue fol­low­ing, abid­ing and inform­ing you about all the new reg­u­la­tions and the real­is­tic steps that you have to take. 

Do you need help with REACH, and prod­uct reg­is­tra­tion? Unsure about the future of your prod­uct in the Euro­pean mar­ket or else­where? Con­tact us and our com­pli­ance team will be hap­py to help.