What You Need to Know About PFAS and Packaging

Perhaps you’ve heard PFAS referred to as “forever chemicals” or you know the most popular brand names, Teflon, Gore-Tex, and Scotchgard. But they’re all the same thing—a class of approximately 15,000 chemicals that are pretty much everywhere at this point.

Which then brings up the question: Are PFAS in packaging, and specifically, should we be concerned about the recent studies finding PFAS in recycled paper content? Especially, personally, considering that Zenpack uses recycled paper and FSC-Certified paper for many projects?

PFAS (Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances) is a massive topic that only grows with every study and lawsuit that comes out. We are able to find it on clothing, cooking pans, machinery, cosmetics, carpeting, and furniture. They’ve infiltrated soil, waterways, and our bodies. 

“We have not been asked about it,” said Leo Chao, Zenpack’s Creative Director. “No one’s said, hey, is your packaging PFAS free? I’ve never associated it with packaging—I’ve always been associating it with products.”

But yes, as we’ll see, PFAS are also in packaging. 

Sustainability is a journey, not a destination. To think that anyone knows 100% of what we assume they should is false, and doomed to pitfalls. We—the collective ‘we’—learn and try to do better. And that’s what this is. 

So let’s get into it.

A Brief History of PFAS in Packaging

In To Dye For, a book examining toxic chemicals in clothing, Alden Wicker writes a great summary of the beginnings of PFAS:

“The American chemical company 3M invented the chemical compound perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in the late 1940s. 3M started selling PFOA to DuPont to use in Teflon nonstick pans and other products. (Until the late 1990s, its sister chemical, PFOS, was the main ingredient in 3M’s Scotchgard, the popular spray that stainproofs textiles.) Unlike other exciting advancements in chemistry, 3M didn’t publicize this new chemical, which it called C8. In fact, its existence—and the mounting evidence of its toxicity—was kept a secret from the public for half a century.

“In 1961, 3M and Dupont started conducting secret medical studies and amassing reams of evidence that PFOA exposure was linked to several types of cancer, birth defects, and possibly DNA damage. DuPont decided to brush it under the rug and keep raking in the profits.”

And from there the chemicals spread. Scotchgard on furniture, Teflon on frying pans, Gore-Tex on waterproof rain jackets and hiking boots. And let’s not forget fire fighting equipment and gear. Everyone was using it, knowingly as brand names or unknowingly as invisible coatings championing performance.

“It’s not a natural material,” Chao said during our chat. “It’s not something you find in nature…Uh, take that back. It’s not derived from nature. It’s probably found in nature now. Everywhere.”

It is. PFAS is now found in rainwater throughout the world.

PFAS Litigation

The first lawsuit over PFAS came in 1999, when Wilbur Tennant, a West Virginian farmer, sued over his animals dying from contaminated land and water. That story is the basis for the 2019 film Dark Waters, starring Mark Ruffalo. Mariah Blake extensively reports on the story and the coverup leading up to the lawsuit in her National Magazine Award finalist article, “Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia” (2015). 

Blake’s article reveals that a 1993 study by 3M found that workers with ongoing exposure were three times more likely than the average man to die of prostate cancer. DuPont scientists had also linked it to leukemia and other diseases in people.”

While Parkersburg litigation started with one family, a class-action lawsuit was filed in 2001 and settled in 2017 for $670 million. Other lawsuits have since followed. In 2010, Minnesota sued 3M—whose original name is Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company—over PFAS contamination in drinking water. It was the first suit over PFAS by a state in the US, and was settled in 2018 for $850 million. 

In 2023, the two biggest figure lawsuits to date were settled. First, 3M agreed to pay up to $12.5 billion to settle claims of drinking water contamination in water systems around the US. And DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva agreed to pay $1.8 billion over water contamination. 

The ongoing potential of PFAS litigation has been compared to the tobacco industry and asbestos settlements. It’s predicted that more lawsuits will be filed throughout 2024. As of April 2024, 30 Attorneys General have initiated PFAS lawsuits (including the settled Minnesota case).

One reason for this is simply knowledge: Around 2500 health studies completed in 2023 about PFAS are more than twice the amount published in 2022. With more scientific understanding around the impacts of PFAS, the higher likelihood of success in litigation. 

In 2024, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the first nationwide thresholds for 6 common types of PFAS in drinking water. But public water systems don’t need to achieve compliance until 2029. Meanwhile, if you are concerned about PFAS in your water, a reverse osmosis system has proven to be highly effective at removing them from household drinking water.

The Forever in “Forever Chemicals”

It may be obvious, but the reason PFAS gets the nickname forever chemicals is that they last, seemingly, forever. While the chemicals can flake off of clothing, packaging, or other items, it doesn’t disappear, it just goes someplace else. This is why we could find them in so many places—like the bloodstream of 99.7% of Americans, according to Wicker’s book.

And while the chemicals don’t want to break down on their own, it’s also hard to destroy them. Incinerating works—at 1500 degrees Celsius (2730 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s the temperature needed to completely break down any PFAS. As you can imagine, access to incinerators that burn at that temperature is limited.

Because PFAS are so hard to destroy, and won’t break down on their own—at least not in our lifetime—it’s costly to remove them. For instance, the Minnesota settlement with 3M seems huge, at $850 million, but estimates put cleaning PFAS from wastewater streams in the state at $21 billion over a 20 year period. And that’s just one state. 

According to ChemSec, a nonprofit focused on chemical safety, it would cost $26 trillion per year globally to remove PFAS from the environment. This doesn’t include health costs or costs associated with damage to the environment.

But there is hope. Individuals are utilizing various methods of removing PFAS from soil and water, some with more success than others. Growing hemp has been proven to work well. The hemp plant pulls PFAS from the soil and stores it in the roots and stalk.

One such company utilizing this approach is Earth Plus, a Belgian group that’s growing hemp and other plants to remediate contaminated land. When farmers harvest the hemp, they destroy the polluted plants along with the contaminants they removed from the soil, including PFAS, while turning the non-contaminated plants into construction materials. (Using hemp for construction also reduces the need for construction-related logging.)

Migration of PFAS

PFAS has a quality that can only be described as migration. To illustrate this, we should look at the Swedish fashion brand Fjällräven. The brand worked for years to eliminate the chemicals, only for them to still show positive when Greenpeace tested them. 

Researchers eventually discovered that clothing hanging next to racks of PFAS-covered clothing also tested positive for PFAS.

To say these chemicals are pervasive is an understatement. That’s why ending their use is the best approach.

“We can only just turn off the tap,” Chao said. “But what’s out is out.”

PFAS in Food Packaging

PFAS is likely in more packaging materials than we know. The public pay a lot of attention recently to food packaging. Many US states have banned or are in the process of banning the chemicals from packaging that contacts food.

As of April 2024, the current total stands at 12 state bans for PFAS on food packaging. Also, in 2020, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) secured voluntary commitments from packaging manufacturers that they would stop using PFAS on packaging for greasy food—such as fast food wrappers and microwave popcorn.

However, it would still take a while to exhaust the supply that was already sold. In February 2024, the FDA announced that the stock had been sold out and that greasy food would no longer be sold in PFAS-coated packaging in the US.

However, there are a couple things to point out. That was a voluntary commitment, and further testing will ensure that the commitment is upheld. Also, this only applies to greasy food, and PFAS is used as a barrier coating for water and heat too. That’s why state-wide bans are still critical. 

Your primary packaging provider should be able to source PFAS-free packaging in compliance with these state laws. Zenpack can help with that, but it’s also a different type of packaging. 

“Most of the time,” Chao said, “food packaging on our end is secondary, not primary. So [what we design] is not actually in direct contact with food. That’s down a layer, at the factory level.”

PFAS and the Packaging Industry

While food is the primary industry for PFAS coatings, it still appears on other packaging. Three common types of plastic used in packaging—PET, HDPE, and PP—often have PFAS or fluorine gas applied to them during manufacturing. And the machinery that packaging is made on is also typically coated in PFAS, or at least was in the mid 2010s. 

(I used to write for a PFAS applicating company, and packaging machinery was one of the sectors I was asked to target. Another was food processing…Incidentally, I started working with that company about a week after Blake’s exposé was published.)

Because of the migration effect of PFAS, as shown in Fjällräven’s clothing, there stands a chance that the machinery used in making packaging and processing food could also have a migration effect. 

I should note that the EPA states that the use of PFAS on food processing equipment is negligible from a health effect standpoint. Meanwhile, the chemical industry helped write the Toxic Substances Control Act allows the EPA to regulate all these chemicals. For instance, the regulation finally banned most common form of asbestos in March 2024, but the full phaseout will take until 2037. Other forms of asbestos are still technically legal.

Of course, there is a big difference between high exposure levels, like those in Parkersburg, WV, or Lake Elmo, MN, and low exposure levels that most people experience. The health effects of low exposure levels are still being determined. But it’s safe to say they aren’t zero—PFAS are harmful at the parts per quadrillion level.

But with all these new laws, there also has to be new options, and Chao says the industry is responding. 

“I believe most of the suppliers now have PFAS free products because markets and policies—thanks to governance—are doing some kind of good job to bend business to actually respond.”

PFAS in Paper

Multiple recent studies have discovered PFAS prevalent in recycled paper content, and since so many sustainability initiatives are pushing using recycled content, this raises questions. 

A study from Norway revealed that recycled paper and cardboard had 37 types of PFAS in them. And some virgin paper products had them too. The study determined that PFAS is a “non-intentionally added substance,” so they may have been picked up somewhere along the way.

This is likely, because another study says that PFAS are “not present in fresh paper fibers,” but people add them to pulp as a surface treatment. This finding matches Chao’s suspicions that additives are the likely source of PFAS in paper.

“You have to look at raw paper pulp [and the] additives that go into it. You have to look at coatings, ink—which is maybe my most concerning one. And then you [should look at] other finishes like foils or UV even. Will those all have PFAS-free options? I believe so.” 

And yes, Chao’s concerns are on the money—printing inks often have PFAS in them, but again, the industry is responding with R&D. 

Getting back to recycled paper, anything that has previously been coated with PFAS is mixed up in the recycling stream and then contaminates the whole batch. But because PFAS is on so many products, it’s not realistic to avoid these additions. It’s also impossible—and would be incredibly expensive—to test each item before adding it to a recycling mix.

And what about FSC-Certified paper, which is what Zenpack works with? People considered Forest Stewardship Council certification one of the top sustainable forestry bodies in the world. It monitors as best it can the responsible harvesting of forests while trying to decrease the amount of deforestation in biodiversity-rich areas and old-growth forests. 

Three Main Types of FSC Products 

1. 100%, which is virgin wood pulp that is sourced entirely from FSC-certified forests.
2. Recycled, which is made from 100% recycled materials.
3. Mix, which comes from recycled materials, FSC-certified forest, and FSC-controlled wood.

Based on the recent studies, we can determine that uncoated FSC 100% will be more likely not to have PFAS, while the other two options almost certainly will.

But what it ultimately comes down to is intentionality. As you can see, we can discover PFAS abundantly pretty much everywhere at this point. And the best course of action is simply for us to stop using it. So while it’s in many of the products we use, either through migration or cross-contamination or intentional addition, we can’t avoid it.

But we can choose to use products and packaging that don’t intentionally add PFAS in, turning off the tap one item at a time. And that would mean choosing paper over plastic.

Cardboard boxes with crumpled paper inside for packaging goods from online stores, eco friendly packaging made of recyclable raw materials

Of course, this is small potatoes, really. In the US, state laws and an EPA with actual teeth will make the biggest difference. And because of all the recent laws banning PFAS in products—like in Minnesota, New York, and California, among others—this is forcing manufacturers to find new coatings that work. 

Fortunately there are many people working on new types of barrier coatings. And while it’s a quiet industry, these coatings will help decrease our dependence on PFAS. 

In the meantime, people want to know what is PFAS-free. And as Chao asked, “Who certifies this? Because I can claim whatever I want, just like I can say this is compostable. But if I don’t get it TUV certified, I can say whatever I want.”

PFAS-Free Certifications

There are a couple certification bodies that are testing for PFAS content in packaging. TUV is one the biggest certifying bodies for toxic chemicals, in addition to its compostability and marine biodegradable certifications. It states that it has three testing packages for PFAS content, including by REACH requirements (the EU’s toxic chemical legislation), testing for 100 types of PFAS, or for total fluorine content.

GreenScreen is another body that tests for PFAS in packaging, albeit only for food related packaging. This is a US based body, and in collaboration with the Center for Environmental Health, the two developed a test and certification for single-use food ware.

Package with Confidence

I wish I could say that there’s packaging that 100% doesn’t have PFAS in it and point you in the right direction. But until 25 years ago, no one outside of the big chemical companies even knew these existed. And in the time since—and restricted by companies claiming intellectual property and competitive secrecy rights—it’s been a slow road discovering the chemicals and different types, developing tests, and determining the chemicals’ effects.

PFAS are quite simply a part of our world at this point. But that doesn’t mean we throw up our hands. We learn, we explore—we quit using them and contributing to the problem—and we figure out how to clean them up.

So yes, there’s PFAS in packaging. But as long as you’re sourcing materials that don’t intentionally have them added, then you’re doing your part to clean up this mess. 

“We care about this,” Chao said, “and we hope we’ll learn more along the way. But if anything, we should not use them.”

We’re all learning more. And that’s the right way to go. So if you want a packaging agency that’s exploring and learning and trying its best to make packaging that won’t contaminate this planet and our bodies, give Zenpack a call.