The New York Public Interest Group (NYPIRG) reached out to the Clean Air Coalition this weekend because our work is focused on protecting Albany County’s public health. They asked the CAC to sign on to a letter urging New York’s congressional delegation to support the “Keep Food Containers Safe from PFAS” Act. Naturally, we did.
The Act aims to ban the use of PFAS in cookware and food containers like the sandwich wrappers, french-fry boxes, and salad bowls used at some fast-food chains. Even microwave popcorn bags and paper bags for baked goods have been found to include PFAS chemicals.
PFAS is a category of man-made chemicals that help to make food containers resistant to grease, oil, water, and heat. But, they are also toxic “forever chemicals” that have proven to be unsafe for the environment, drinking water, and the human body.
The CAC signed onto this congressional bill (S.3169/H.R.6026) because we worry about the prospect of PFAS-treated food containers (like tires) ending up at the nearby Lafarge cement company for incineration in their kilns. Our goal is to stop the possibility of anything other than coal and natural gas from being used to power the kilns for cement production.
There are safer alternatives for the fast-food industry like using
To learn more, here’s the fact sheet:
The more we learn, the more concerned we become about burning waste as fuel, for cement or other uses. Burning may keep waste out of landfills, but it is simply pushed into the air where we all breathe what they burn.