By Chloe Johnson, Star Tribune
ROSEMOUNT, MINN – The white trailer blends into the winter landscape at SKB Environmental’s landfill, but inside, machinery is working to capture one of the most pervasive environmental pollutants of our time.
The landfill is the final stop for industrial waste, incinerator ash, and demolition garbage, where all of that material is mixed into massive, lined cells. Like in every landfill, moisture in the trash that’s trucked in mixes with rainfall and collects into a polluted soup known as leachate.
SKB is experimenting with filtering PFAS chemicals out of that liquid. The leachate is pumped inside the trailer, where it travels through several tanks that repeatedly froth it up. These chemicals bubble into a super-concentrated foam – much like soap would. Then that foam is siphoned off, and the cleaned water continues on to a sewage plant.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are thousands of chemicals used to make frying pans nonstick, clothes and carpets stain resistant, and even to snuff out dangerous fires. The chemicals’ almost unbreakable carbon-fluorine bonds make them useful but also ensure they don’t break down. They have been found in the environment across the globe, including in the bodies of people and animals.
Growing research also shows that these chemicals are toxic, and linked to some cancers and reproductive, developmental, and immune system issues.
In the past few years, regulation of these chemicals is finally starting to catch up – the EPA set new limits for six PFAS in drinking water last year, and private startups are racing to find a way to destroy them. But decades’ worth of the compounds are sitting in landfills right now – presenting a new contaminant for waste handlers who didn’t create the pollution, but now find themselves awash in it.
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