MINNEAPOLIS — 3M will stop making the toxic "forever chemicals" known as PFAS by the end of 2025, the Maplewood, Minnesota-based company announced Tuesday.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, used for their nonstick and water-resistant properties, are a key part of many products but do not break down in the environment, which has led to numerous contamination issues.
"While PFAS can be safely made and used, we also see an opportunity to lead in a rapidly evolving external regulatory and business landscape to make the greatest impact for those we serve," CEO Mike Roman said in a statement.
3M will also "work to discontinue use of PFAS across our product portfolio by the end of 2025," according to a news release.
PFAS accounts for $1.3 billion in sales for 3M, or about 3% of total revenue. The chemicals are manufactured in Illinois, Alabama, Germany, Belgium and Cottage Grove.
The company has faced a number of legal challenges involving PFAS over the years, including an $850 million settlement with the state of Minnesota.
"3M will continue to remediate PFAS and address litigation by defending ourselves in court or through negotiated resolutions, all as appropriate," 3M said in a news release.
The avalanche of litigation facing 3M centers on PFAS chemicals that the company stopped making in the early 2000s. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) noted in 2000 that one particular PFAS chemical, PFOS, has a "strong tendency" to accumulate in human and animal tissue.
PFOS and PFOA — the chemicals 3M stopped making years ago — have been linked to cancer, liver damage, decreased fertility and other maladies. Those chemicals were known as "long-chain" PFAS because they had a chain of eight perfluorinated carbon atoms.
The "short-chain" PFAS chemicals that 3M has been making since the early 2000s have four perfluorinated carbon atoms. The company says the short-chain PFAS are less toxic, though there is research indicating they might carry environmental and health risks.
"After telling everyone — their neighbors, their workers and their regulators — that PFAS are safe while poisoning the entire planet, 3M is now pledging to slink out the back door with no accountability," Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs for the Environmental Working Group, which has long campaigned against PFAS chemicals.
"Congress and the courts cannot allow this happen, and no one should trust 3M's commitment to the do the right thing," he said. "They never have before."
Regulators in the United States and Europe have in recent years upped scrutiny of PFAS chemicals — including those currently in production.
In October 2021, the EPA released its "PFAS Strategic Roadmap," aimed both at remediating PFAS contamination and reducing PFAS-related discharges into the environment.
The EPA is proposing to deem all PFAS compounds as "chemicals of special concern," which would increase reporting requirements for PFAS makers. Chemicals of special concern are generally toxic, accumulating in the environment and in humans and animals.
In Belgium, 3M in has faced a crackdown by regulators over past production of long-chain PFAS chemicals and current manufacturing of short-chain PFAS. To resolve its dispute with Belgian regulators, 3M has pledged to spend $600 million in PFAs remediation, including $300 million in July.
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