A global study reveals more than 335,000 tons of TFA have fallen to Earth since 2000.
This "forever chemical" pollution stems from ozone-friendly refrigerant replacements.
TFA is a highly mobile PFAS that spreads globally via rainfall and accumulates.
It poses risks to health and aquatic life and is found even in remote regions.
Peak pollution is still ahead due to long-lasting atmospheric source gases.
A
silent, invisible rain of a persistent "forever chemical" has been
falling across the entire planet for decades, and a new scientific study
has just calculated the staggering total. The culprit stems from what
was once hailed as a landmark environmental victory: the replacement of
ozone-destroying refrigerants.
Research published in
the journal Geophysical Research Letters estimates that more than
335,000 tons of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) have been deposited globally
onto Earth's surface between 2000 and 2022. This chemical deluge
originates primarily from the breakdown of the very refrigerants and
anesthetics that replaced ozone-harming chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) under
the Montreal Protocol. The study reports that TFA production from these
sources increased 3.5-fold during that period, and the pollution has
not yet peaked.
This is the chemical crisis nobody
predicted. The substitutes that healed the ozone layer have been quietly
creating a new, pervasive pollution problem with no easy fix....<<<Read More>>>...
