Colorado legislators want to close loopholes in a ban on “forever chemicals” in many consumer products that was passed in 2022, saying the cost to filter out PFAS is overwhelming water treatment agencies and other states have moved faster in regulation.
Senate Bill 81 would add everything from kitchen cookware to dental floss to tampons to the ban on sales in Colorado beginning Jan. 1, and require labeling of rain gear with PFAS until a full ban would kick in for 2028. Gasoline distributors, refineries and other chemical plants would also lose their exemption for using firefighting foam with PFAS.
Runoff of firefighting foam into water sources has been one of the most widespread paths for contamination with the “forever chemicals,” which are linked to a variety of human health problems and detectable in the bloodstream of all Americans.
“If we don’t set a line somewhere, what incentive is there for corporations to make a change, to really dig in and investigate alternative methods and make that switch?” said Sen. Lisa Cutter, D-Littleton, a prime sponsor of the bill along with Reps. Cathy Kipp, D-Fort Collins, and Manny Rutinel, D-Commerce City. “We feel like we’ve given a long enough ramp up, because the writing’s been on the wall for a lot of years. And it’s time that we draw the line in the sand and say we are better than this.”
The timelines and other details of the bill are still being amended before the first committee hearing, scheduled for March 7, Cutter said.
Industry and retail representatives were consulted on the bill, and one large trade group said the extension of some timelines for PFAS bans has satisfied their concerns.
One request of the Colorado Retail Council trade group, said President Chris Howes, was to let stores “please sell through the inventory that we already have, rather than just throwing it in the garbage. And that’s what I consider a pretty reasonable request. Sure, there has to be some sort of limits on it. You can’t just go on selling the same product forever and ever. We understand that.”
In fact, trashing PFAS-made products does not solve the problem, as the chemicals shed into landfills and sewer systems to further spread throughout the ecosystem.
Starting Jan. 1 under the bill, retailers or manufacturers would have to label “outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions” that contained added PFAS as a repellent. Sales of such garments would be banned starting Jan. 1, 2028. Howe said he is asking sponsors to understand the length of the supply chain and push off the labeling requirement to 2026 to give time for changes.
Retailers have made similar requests in past bills on plastic bag bans and energy efficient appliances, Howes said, and legislators have largely accommodated.
More states are passing legislation aiming for a complete phaseout of PFAS in consumer products by 2032, Cutter said, and the new bill tries to catch Colorado up with those plans. The 2022 Colorado legislation banned PFAS in some products beginning this year: Carpets or rugs; cookware; cosmetics; fabric treatments; food packaging; juvenile products, oil and gas products; and textile furnishings. Through 2030, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is charged with identifying more categories of goods, and those would be added to the banned list.
Some consumer industries that got away with labeling requirements in the past now need to be nudged toward finding other less-toxic chemicals for manufacturing, she said.
“How long have we known this? Ten or 15 years ago, I remember hearing, ‘Oh, don’t use Teflon anymore,’ and here we are,” Cutter said, adding that it’s time for a complete ban on PFAS use in cookware. “It’s arguably one of the most dangerous uses, because it goes right into your body, or into the water supply in different ways.”
Colorado’s water treatment providers and municipal waste handlers are seeking tens of millions of dollars in federal and state assistance to add PFAS filtering methods, saying firefighting runoff and ubiquitous consumer goods have contaminated nearly all sources of drinking and waste water. Colorado’s attorney general has joined other states in suing PFAS manufacturers to recover some of the mitigation costs.
Colorado may have the largest number of sites in the nation that have handled PFAS chemicals, due to firefighting drills and operations at military installations, mountain wildland firefighting, and from PFAS in firefighting and other industrial materials used at oil and gas exploration sites.
About 21,000 industrial sites in Colorado appeared on an EPA database of locations that “may be handling” PFAS, with more than 85% of those places related to oil and gas, and heavy concentrations of possible locations at the industry’s core in Weld County, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which forced EPA to release the data.
The same properties that make PFAS a lubricant or seal cookware also make them resistant to long-term impacts of heat or water, conferring the moniker “forever chemicals.” CoPIRG and other consumer advocates say the chemicals have entered Colorado waterways and “polluted communities like Fountain, Frisco, parts of Denver, south Evergreen and Golden,” threatening serious health impacts.