Countries prohibit chemicals forever. The industry is fighting

In 2021, James Kenny and his wife were in a big store to buy a piece of furniture when he asked the sales colleague if they wanted to add fabric protection. Kenny, Secretary of the Cabinet of the Environment Department in New Mexico, requested to see the product data paper. He and his wife, a chemical engineer, were shocked to see chemicals forever listed as ingredients in protection.

“I think about the regular New Mexican, the daily that you try to get, make their furniture lasts a little longer, and they think,” Oh, it’s safe, wonderful! “It is not safe.” “It only happens that they tried to sell it to the Minister of Environment.”

Last week, the New Mexico Legislative Council approved a pair of bills that Kenny hopes to help protect consumers in his term. If the ruler falls, the legislation will eventually prohibit the consumer products that added PFAS- alkelele materials that suffer from multiple breeds, known as colloquially as “chemicals forever” because of their stability in the environment- from selling them in New Mexico.

With the installation of health and environmental concerns about chemicals forever at the national level, New Mexico joins a small but increasing number of countries that move to limit – and in some cases, PFAs in consumer products. New Mexico is now the third country to pass a PFAS ban through the legislative body. Ten other states have a ban or boundaries on PFAS added in some consumer products, including cooking tools, carpets, clothes and cosmetics. This year, at least 29 states-a record number-draft laws related to PFAs before the state legislative bodies, according to analysis One of the safest bills of countries, a network of state -based preaching organizations, works on issues on unsafe chemicals.

The chemical and consumer products industries have noticed this new wave of regulations and an anti -attack escalating, pressing the state’s legislative councils to defend the safety of their products – and in one cases, the laws are granted effectively. Some of the main exemptions made in New Mexico highlight some of the big battles that industries hope to win in governmental areas throughout the country: the battles they already take to the recently friendly American Environmental Protection Agency.

PFAS is not just a single chemical but a group of thousands. It was the first PFAS sophisticated In the thirties of the twentieth century; Thanks to its non -adhesive characteristics and unique durability, its popularity has grown in industrial uses and consumers in the post -war era. The chemicals were present everywhere in American life, coating of cooking tools, preventing furniture and carpets from staining, and acting as a flat force in fire foam foam.

In 1999, a man in West Virginia was presented suit Against the American chemical giant Dubont, claiming that pollution from its factory was killing its livestock. The lawsuit revealed that Dubont had hidden evidence of the negative health effects of PFAs on workers from the government for decades. In the following years, the chemical industry paid billions of dollars in settlement fees on PFAS claims: in 2024, 3M 3M Agree to pay Between 10 billion dollars and 12.5 billion dollars for American public water systems that discovered PFAs in their water supplies to pay for treatment and future tests, although the company did not recognize responsibility. (Dupont and separate Chemours continue to deny any violations of the lawsuits involved, including the original West Virginia suit.)