The Green Issue: Chemicals Are Forever

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances were once considered miracles of human convenience. They can prevent eggs from sticking to pans, make coats waterproof and provide foam to fight challenging fires.

The chemicals — also known as PFAs or “forever chemicals,” due to their persistence in the environment and the human body — often come from industrial sources, wastewater treatment plants and construction materials. But they can even be found in toilet paper, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and some cosmetics. Many of them are toxic, and many of them accumulate in the body, says Scott Banbury, lobbyist with the Tennessee chapter of environmental conservation group the Sierra Club.

“Scotchgard, it’s amazing,” Banbury tells the Scene. “I can spray it on my couch and it won’t get stained. But [people were] not realizing that, later on down the road, we’ll find out that this isn’t really good for people or animals and ecosystems. It’s hard to walk it back. It’s a big industry with a lot of money.”

It’s challenging to show causation — after all, you can’t just feed someone PFAs and see what happens — but according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, exposure to PFAs is associated with increases in cholesterol, a lower antibody response to some vaccines, changes in liver enzymes, and even kidney and testicular cancer. Plus, PFAs have been linked to pregnancy-induced hypertension and decreases in birth weight.   

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One way PFAs get into the water and land is through sludge — all of the solids left over after wastewater treatment plants screen the water out. For years, advocacy groups like the Sierra Club have been working to pass legislation to more strictly regulate the sludge (also known as biosolids, or more colloquially as “shit”), which is often dumped in rural areas of the state to fertilize the land.

The group brought a bill again in this year’s legislative session, sponsored by state Sen. Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma), in an attempt to regulate the biosolids.

Under Senate Bill 1263, Grundy County — a rural area that sees a lot of biosolid dumping — would be able to enforce Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation rules requiring the biosolid to be spread within a certain period of time, and if it’s applied to grazing land, animals would not be able to graze right away. The bill has made more headway this year than in previous years, passing the Senate Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee before being rolled to the 2026 session in the House. 

Meanwhile, a competing bill that would prevent regulation of PFAs is making its way through the legislature. Senate Bill 880 would prohibit state agencies from instituting regulations on pollutant waste until officials prove an exposure to the toxin caused “manifest bodily harm” to people.

Maine became the first state in the country to ban the spreading of biosolids in 2022 due to PFAs. Late last year, Texas farmers entered a lawsuit claiming biosolids poisoned their livestock and land.

Because of the type of bonds that make up these chemicals, they are currently impossible to break down. The ultimate solution is to keep PFAs out of products unless they’re absolutely necessary. But that lofty goal will take time, according to Dan Firth, Holston Valley chair of the Sierra Club Tennessee chapter.

“The goal right now is really to bring awareness to the problem,” says Firth. “You’ve got to start somewhere. If you’re not testing it, and you’re not looking for it, all you’re doing is ignoring it.”

For some rural Tennesseeans, it’s hard to ignore — it stinks.

“A lot of counties across Tennessee have been very concerned about land application of biosolids,” says Banbury. “It’s a nuisance. They come and dump the sewage sludge out on property. They’re supposed to spread it out right away so that it starts to actually incorporate itself into the soil. Unfortunately, the companies that do it are sometimes lazy, and they just dump it on the property, and it sits there in a stinky pile for a long time.”

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