Dalton makes something like 70-80% of the carpet in the world. They've had carpet factories there since I was a kid, but they're starting to expand into lots of other industries.

They've begun massively ramping up on solar panel production, for instance.

It used to be the only city between Chattanooga and Cobb County (in the Atlanta metro), but now factories have sprung up throughout the I-75 corridor from Acworth to Calhoun. And they're putting them up at breakneck pace.

You can easily see all the factories on a satellite view. Just look at the I-75 corridor [1].

The folks working in these factories are making good money. They're able to afford 2,000 square foot homes in the rural towns they live in.

This little city is doing $10B in GDP. It's impressive if you've ever driven through there.

[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@34.6185909,-84.9776839,50698m/d...

But the CEO in the intro just seems like an odd choice. PFAS were known to cause issues for a long time, if you continued to use them for years then it is in your back too.

Being "surprised" this might eventually affect your own product line just seems naive. You might have trusted 3M but just blindly trusting a supplier is not an excuse at some point.

Compounded on top of that is because although you can dye the polyester before it is extruded, this is the firm minority of carpet produced. Maybe a quarter or less? Usually you will dye it before spinning it into yarn or before tufting it (weaving it into the backing basically). However, it is often cheaper especially for solid carpet to essentially dunk the whole finished carpet into a vat for dyeing, or run it through a glorified conveyor belt to do much the same. I’d hazard a decent guess that the latter two methods are the worst offenders for pollution for obvious reasons. What’s a bit of a pity then is that it seems to me that this isn’t really inevitable (although if we stop entirely that’s a perfect recipe for some other country to undercut us even if they inherit the long term dangers too).

With that said, the CRI (Carpet and Rug Institute) is almost the epitome of what you’d imagine an industry group to be. And 3M/DuPont are, well, you know. So I’m sure the article doesn’t really exaggerate there.

Finally I’d say that the upshot for all of us should be that regulation and pressure work. There was a calculation made whether intentionally or not, explicitly or implicitly, that if this came out to be bad then the big chemical companies could be blamed (and could further be reliably counted on to have engaged in outright unethical activity that makes blaming them a somewhat valid strategy too).

Source: sold carpet for a few years and was actually curious about the industry unlike many of my peers

It doesn’t surprise me that Dalton Utilities operated poorly and appears to have been in cahoots with the carpet companies to cover up the risk. Dalton is a place where education isn’t always valued but relationships are. Plus, carpet is the back bone of the economy there — issues with carpet impact the community heavily, making it difficult for anyone to stand in its way.

There’s a real sense of fear and helplessness in the community there as this information comes out.

It’s a lesson in the dangers of unregulated capitalism, but it only matters if we’re paying attention. There’s a role for government to support and protect citizens from companies whether it’s PFAs or AI.

Frankly the carpet factories will do more business as people will want to replace their carpets more frequently.

Also(I'm absolutely not taking corporate side here), she says, "I feel like, I don’t know, almost like there’s a blanket over me, smothering me that I can’t get out from under." because of PFAS levels but then look at the corporate products/chemicals she covers her body in daily, and accepts money from others to do the same. If you are going to be outraged, at least be consistent about it.

Now, that sounds really boring and potentially a waste of time, right?

Well, yes, and no, and yes!

Well it's complicated!

I would speculate (being horrendously undereducated on the subject!) that there probably exist a set of chemical processes which could create Carpets without any harmful environmental waste or residual chemicals which subsequently require disposal.

What these would be or could be, I as-of-yet do not know...

It's a subject that needs research... a lot of research... lots and lots of research!

But, while it might sound like a really boring, uninteresting, "there's nothing to see here" kind of goal, keep in mind this quote from the article:

>"Mohawk logged more than $3.4 billion in net sales. Shaw Industries reported $4.2 billion."

Yup, the global carpet market is worth... (wait for it!)... "Billion$"!

So -- an interesting problem for present and future Scientists/Chemists! Crack it (in whole or in part!) and your solution or partial solution could be worth Billion$!

I mean, I'd put that up against a Clay Millennium Prize for solving a complex Math problem, I'd put that against a Nobel Prize or Fields Medal or Dirac Medal or Feynman Prize!

Yup, solve The Carpet Chemistry Problem(tm) (let's give it a name!) -- and your share of Billion$ (as Carl Sagan would say!) could be yours! :-)

(I now will humbly submit this post for the obligatory yes-I-know-they-are-coming downvotes! :-) )

Using an AI answer as a jumping off point, it looks like the possible harms are:

• Higher cholesterol — (Strong)

• Reduced vaccine antibody response — (Strong)

• Pregnancy‑induced hypertension / preeclampsia — (Strong)

• Lower birth weight / impaired fetal growth — (Strong)

• Kidney cancer (PFOA) — (Contested)

• Testicular cancer (PFOA) — (Limited)

• Thyroid disease — (Limited)

• Liver enzyme changes / fatty liver risk — (Limited)

• Immune issues beyond vaccines (asthma, infections) — (Emerging)

• Diabetes / metabolic effects — (Emerging)

• Neurodevelopmental / behavioral effects — (Emerging)

• Other cancers (breast, prostate, etc.) — (Inconclusive)

Obviously, this isn’t verified research, but I wanted to know what the concrete risks actually were since at this moment, it seems like most of us are probably stuck with the PFAS already in our environment and bodies.

It sucks that it is this way, but society seems to have largely accepted it

In another world, there could have been NO impact at all to human beings and PFAS could be just another random chemical the body doesn't clear but doesn't actually do anything and sits there inert.

I know everyone's pissed about this but the thyroid/other connections stuff happens 10 years later as a result and these are idiot business people playing in waters they don't understand (and neither did medicine at that time). You could say, "you can't take the risk." For me these questions are maybe we need to take a deeper/closer look at what are permissible risks and at what point.

But you could use the same logic to not make any advancement ever. No antibiotics because it will cause resistence. No chemo because it will cause damage and death. People want there to be a Dr. Eggman or Hitler in this story because it's turned out to be so impactful. Like Aesbestos which solved for fire, just poorly - carpet was solving for comfort, sound deadening, and emotional well being. We just can't necessarily quantify that as easily.

It's fantastic that science continually grows in understanding and can attribute once thought "inert" chemicals to problems. "How evil children playing with matches" are though, is asking the wrong question. These people were stupid enough to say - "there's cancer in rats, lets just keep going".

Do people really speak like that?

It's the banality of evil over and over again. Can't really blame the individual, with some extreme exceptions, otherwise by calling people out as you are doing you are participating in perpetuating the problem without contributing with anything new.

Domestic manufacturing has a lot of advantages from the standpoint of total pollution. I guarantee you that even with lax American environmental rules, the pollution caused by a factory in Georgia is still lower and less hazardous to workers and the surrounding community than if the same factory were in India. Furthermore, our government is at least theoretically capable of adding better protections for workers and communities, while our government is going to have a hard time enforcing pollution rules overseas.

I don't think you are racist or xenophobic. I just think that when people make this argument they don't think about the fact that this stuff is still getting manufactured somewhere if it's not made here, and basically the complaint is that Americans are having to deal with the consequences rather than people in other countries.