To protect our health and environment, limit use of toxic ‘forever chemical’ PFAS

A worker, at left, tends to a customer at a cosmetics shop in 2021 in Los Angeles. More state legislatures are considering banning the sale of cosmetics and other consumer products that contain the toxic industrial compounds called PFAS. (Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

It’s time to take the “forever” out of so-called “forever chemicals” in the environment.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also called PFAS, have a wide variety of uses, but they don’t break down in the environment, which is why they are called forever chemicals.