The video investigates the severe environmental and health impacts caused by pfas, also known as "forever chemicals," produced by the 3M company. Residents near 3M's factories, particularly in Antwerp, Belgium, face significant pollution, with these chemicals infiltrating air, soil, water, and eventually human bodies. The alarming levels of pfas in the environment have been linked to various health issues, raising concern among the affected communities.

Residents' health concerns spotlight the inadequacy of corporate responsibility as they gripple with pollution's impact on their wellbeing and their children's future. The contamination has led to increased local activism, revealing shocking levels of pfas in environmental and human samples, prompting public outcry and legal action against 3M.

Main takeaways from the video:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. pfas [piːˈfæs] - (n.) - An abbreviation for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of man-made chemicals used in various industrial and consumer products known for being environmentally persistent. - Synonyms: (forever chemicals, perfluorinated chemicals, polyfluorinated chemicals)

pfas is the umbrella term for thousands of different kinds of chemicals.

2. umbrella term [ʌmˈbrelə tɜːrm] - (n.) - A word or phrase that covers a broad category of related things. - Synonyms: (category, grouping, heading)

pfas is the umbrella term for thousands of different kinds of chemicals.

3. conglomerate [kənˈɡlɒmərət] - (n.) - A large corporation composed of several companies engaged in different business activities. - Synonyms: (corporation, group, amalgamation)

Three M is a global corporation, a conglomerate that makes wide range of products.

4. biochemistries [ˌbaɪoʊˈkɛmɪstriz] - (n.) - The chemical substances and processes that occur within living organisms. - Synonyms: (chemical processes, biological chemistry, organism chemicals)

Children are incredibly vulnerable to contamination because their organs are still developing, their biochemistries are still evolving.

5. contamination [kənˌtæmɪˈneɪʃən] - (n.) - The presence of an unwanted substance, often harmful, in something. - Synonyms: (pollution, tainting, impurity)

And children are incredibly vulnerable to contamination because their organs are still developing, their biochemistries are still evolving

6. sanitation [ˌsænɪˈteɪʃən] - (n.) - Measures designed to protect public health, including the safe disposal of waste and sewage. - Synonyms: (hygiene, cleanliness, health measures)

In the middle of this environmental report on the sanitation report for three m, I find what's pretty much a photocopy of groundwater measurements from 2000.

7. activists [ˈæktɪvɪsts] - (n.) - People who campaign for social or political change. - Synonyms: (campaigners, advocates, agitators)

The decision to move all this soil to other parts of Flanders led activists to start scrutinizing whats in the soil.

8. toxic [ˈtɒksɪk] - (adj.) - Containing or being poisonous material that can cause harm or damage. - Synonyms: (poisonous, venomous, harmful)

They try to project a, you know, societal, you know, corporate responsible view, you know, but in the end, they've known since the eighties how toxic this product was.

9. scrutinizing [ˈskruːtənaɪzɪŋ] - (v.) - Examining something closely and thoroughly. - Synonyms: (inspecting, examining, investigating)

activists to start scrutinizing whats in the soil.

10. implicate [ˈɪmplɪkeɪt] - (v.) - To show or suggest someone or something is involved in or responsible for an action, especially a harmful one. - Synonyms: (involve, incriminate, connect)

But it began doing studies in the seventies that made them realize that these chemicals were highly toxic.

The Toxic Legacy of 3M's 'Forever Chemicals'

This is our garden. My father is cultivating some stuff, like tomatoes, pumpkins, a lot of potatoes. And this is all polluted. Heavily polluted. How does it make me feel being a neighbor of three M company? I don't like them being my neighbors, but they are. I use stuff of dVm, which I don't want to, but it's just like that. I have no other option. They are everywhere. My entire family is highly affected by that stupid chemical.

You may not realize it, but almost everyone has some level of pfas in their bloodstream because these products are everywhere in our everyday environment. pfas is the umbrella term for thousands of different kinds of chemicals. They're known as forever chemicals. They are manmade chemicals used in thousands of different kinds of products. They are miraculous chemicals. You can't find a better coating, for instance, to make your jacket waterproof. They've made our lives convenient in many ways, from the food you eat to the sofa you sit on to the rain jacket you put on when you go outside. But the problem is they don't degrade in the environment, and they're almost impossible to get rid of. They accumulate in soil, rivers, drinking water, and in the bloodstream of people who are exposed to them.

And now pfas chemicals are associated with a range of health problems, problems, hormone and immune disorders, thyroid malfunctions, but as well, high cholesterol and diabetes, kidney problems, and even a diminished vaccine efficacy. Three M maintains that these chemicals are not harmful to human health in the levels detected in the environment. But of course, that really depends on where you're talking about. In some areas, particularly around the factories that they have, the levels detected in the environment are incredibly high.

Three M is a global corporation, a conglomerate that makes wide range of products. Everything from its flagship product, Scotchgard, to protect fabric and your sofa. It makes post it notes, it makes n 95 masks, but it also makes everyday products that are not branded. Three M has billions in sales and factories in different parts of the world. Three M's factory is located on the banks of the river Scheld in the city of Antwerp. It is part of Europe's biggest chemical cluster. A highway separates that chemical cluster from what is a suburban farming community. Three M began operating in Belgium in the 1970s and started making pfas there in 1976. Now, it stopped making pfas there in 2002, but in those intervening years, it contaminated the surrounding area.

Those people living just behind the three M factory were exposed to the pfas emissions from that plant, including from the air and the soil. And the water. And it's had a really devastating impact, both on the people who live and work there. I live, let's say, 500 meters away from the chemical plant of the three M companies. I live here with my family, three children, my husband, my parents just across the door, my brother across the street, and that's me. So we live here for five generations long.

And they tell me, just like two years ago, maybe it's better that your children don't play outside and that you clean your house two times a week in a really proper way, because we know that we produce a chemical, and it's in your house, it's in your garden, and it's not good for children. I don't want to expose my children to those chemicals. So everybody was like, move, move. And I was like, why? I already exposed them in a huge amount. Just, bye. Holding. Just by being pregnant, just by feeding them, I exposed them as a mom. So I breastfeed my daughter for at least a year, six months to a year, and I was happy, it was fine, everything was fine.

And suddenly she becomes 40 years old, and I not everything was fine any longer. She has a problem. According to outside world, she's slightly disabled. Why? Because she had a shortness of oxygen in her brain and some things are not working that well anymore. Maybe the problem is caused by that chemical company. Maybe nothing. Is she dying? No. Will she get cancer? Who knows? I don't know. I don't know how bad it is, you know? And nobody knows. Nobody even Rien, they say they don't know. But I gave her a huge, huge, huge amount of that kind of chemical because I thought, yeah, it's good to breastfeed. Why not? It's easy. Nice easy. It's nature, you know, it's just like, yeah. What you supposed to do as a mom? I didn't do anything wrong.

So we eliminate pfas through loss of blood or in the urine. But one of the biggest ways of eliminating pfas is through pregnancy and breastfeeding, which is incredibly worrisome. That means that children have some of the highest exposures because mothers pass pfas from their bloodstream onto their fetuses. And children are incredibly vulnerable to contamination because their organs are still developing, their biochemistries are still evolving. Scientists described this to me as a ticking time bomb for future generations.

This contamination might never have come to light if not for a. To build a multi billion euro tunnel and highway project that was due to pop out right next to three m's factory in Antwerp. The plan required the digging up of tons of soil and river silt and being moved to different parts of Belgium. The decision to move all this soil to other parts of Flanders led activists to start scrutinizing whats in the soil. And two activists came across some documents that they requested from the state highway company and from flemish regulators, and discovered that the soil being dug up near the three m factory was heavily contaminated pfas.

In the middle of this environmental report on the sanitation report for three m, I find what's pretty much a photocopy of groundwater measurements from 2000. And my first reflex is like, oh, there's a problem with the decimal comma or point. You know, I was thinking, oh, you know, they misplaced it, so it's like a thousand times too much, or it must be. But it wasn't. It was like, you know, 250,000 micrograms per liter, I think just so staggeringly high. I'd never seen numbers like that even, you know, in these international reports. And that's, you know, that was loose in the groundwater underneath three mh.

If we go by the current data and the knowledge from the European Food Safety Administration, they get to like a norm around four nanograms per liter for drinking water. Now, what we saw there was something that was in the order of a couple of hundred million times that. That's what we're talking about. Now, this caused a chain of events that caused a huge political scandal. What came out was that the state owned highway company had done a secret deal with three M that would enable them to deposit the most contaminated and polluted soil onto three M's factory site to build what they called a security wall on a site that previously didn't need any kind of security wall.

And the catch was that they could move contaminated soil as long as it served a function. And if you look at the permit for it, there's no indication that it's actually storage for polluted soil. It's just not in there. So this roundabout actually contains really heavily polluted pfas soil. So technically it's an illegal waste dump. But because it's already in here, they're basically saying, oh, we're not, you know, a done deal, we're not going to bother getting it out, if it's even possible. So this is a whole problem in this area with the tunnel construction company, is they're trying to create situations where it's impossible to rectify it.

There was a public outcry. activists then crowdfunded to start testing the bloodstream of certain residents who lived near the factory for pfas. And when those results came out in August 2021, it caused mayhem because many of those people that they tested and just at random had incredibly high levels of pfas and their bloodstream. In one case, a woman in her sixties had levels that were comparable to industrial wastewater.

So three M has been churning out varieties of pfas chemicals since the 1950s, but it began doing studies in the seventies that made them realize that these chemicals were highly toxic. toxic, including two studies in the late 1970s on monkeys, which were disclosed as part of a lawsuit. In 2018, it was being sued for harming the health of residents of Minnesota who lived near three M's headquarters. They found high levels of pfas in drinking water, particularly those people who had wells on their property, and they noted higher rates of cancer and leukemia and residents that live nearby.

In 2018, three M agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by the state of Minnesota by paying $850 million without admitting any wrongdoing. In 2003, M announced it would stop producing longer chain pfas as a precautionary measure, saying the chemicals were safe. But they announced they would be replacing them with shorter chain equivalents that they said were safer. Those are now believed to be potentially equally dangerous to the environment and to human health because they're highly mobile and they spread in the environment more easily.

They try to project a, you know, societal, you know, corporate responsible view, you know, but in the end, they've known since the eighties how toxic this product was. I think it's really disappointing that three m reached this agreement to pay 580 million to the flemish government. But so many of the residents are left in limbo, worried about their health, worried about their kids, worried about their house prices, worried about their surrounding environment, and very little has been done.

Now they say, don't play outside. Don't eat your vegetables. I'm like, hmm, it's your child. How I can tell my child, like, please don't walk with your bare feet. Don't touch the soil because it's polluted. It's impossible. And now I have to say, don't touch that apple. Don't touch. Don't do. It's poison. And then they're like, hmm. Is it a fairy? No, it's not a fairy. It's real life. We cannot eat those apples. It's poison. Don't touch.

Environment, Pollution, 3M, Chemicals, Health, Activism, Bloomberg Originals