Hey, Green Junkie!
We are back today with part 2 in our fascinating discussion all about PFAS with Leah Segedie.
If you missed part 1, be sure to go back and listen to episode 50 first so you can catch up on what a PFAS is and what are the most important items to avoid if you want to avoid these harsh chemicals.
In part two we will discuss,
- How to spot PFAS on your favorite items
- What to watch out for on product labels
- How Leah tests for PFAS
- What companies / brands are doing to eliminate PFAS
- How to get involved in preventing PFAS
You’ll discover that and so much more in this episode.
If you love this podcast be sure to leave a review and share a screenshot of this episode to your IG stories. Tag @thisisstephaniemoram so I can shout you out and publicly say thanks.
Thanks for listening and being here.
Your green bestie,
Xoxo Stephanie
Hang With Leah:
http://www.instagram.com/mamavation
http://www.facebook.com/mamavation
http://www.twitter.com/bookieboo
https://www.facebook.com/groups/163497447012490
Previous Episodes Mentioned:
Episode #36. The Truth Behind Your Hair Dye With Lindsaya VanDeusen
Episode #31. What’s Really Hiding in Your Home With Loni Brown
Episode #24: What is Greenwashing?
Snag 1 on 1 Sustainability Consulting with Stephanie
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Produced by: Alecia Harris
Music By: Liz Fohle
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TRANSCRIPT FOR EPISODE 52
Stephanie Moram 0:07
Hi, Green Junkie, I'm your host Stephanie Moram and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Leah again, for part two, all about PFAS which are forever chemicals. Leah helps women make safer consumer choices for their families. She's a consumer watchdog, author, activist, community organizer, and strategist. Leah founded the award winning consumer activist website, mamavation.com and is the creator of the leading eco friendly influencer conference called shift on social media conference. She also wrote the book Green Enough, eat better, live cleaner, be happier, all without driving your family crazy.
Stephanie Moram 0:48
If you love learning new ways you can reduce your impact on the environment, please subscribe to Green Junkie on whatever platform you get your podcasts that way, you will never miss another green living episode.
Stephanie Moram 1:01
And so now that we have, like all these studies that you've done, and all these things, so what happens if someone's looking at a certain product and you know, you haven't done a study on it, they're researching it? There's not a lot of studies out there on this particular product, whatever it is, whether it's food, yoga pants, whatever it is, how could a consumer know if it actually has PFAS in it? Like, do they ask the company? Like I would assume most companies say no, no, we don't add it. So how does a consumer like if you know, there hasn't been a lot of research done on this particular brand? How do they even know if it's in it? Or is there is there a way to know or are you just kind of like riding blind?
Leah Segedie 1:40
In some areas, you're riding blind – in other areas, you can tell if it's in high amounts, but there's always this idea of intentionally added levels, and that's where I'm looking, and I'm looking in, you know, between 10 parts per million and 100 parts per million, which is kind of that realm of not intentionally added we didn't do this on purpose. And ooh, wow. Okay, you know, we got to do something about this. Um, that's where I'm looking that in a lot of cases, you know, you can avoid the nonstick pans, you can get a water filter, you know, you can avoid clothing that stain resistant and water resistant, you can kind of do the basics to avoid the large scale numbers, you know, tooth floss, you know, the avoid the conventional tooth losses, that type of thing. But in terms of the contamination levels, you can't, and that's, that's kind of like where I'm standing in, to kind of fill in the gaps right there. Because there's no reason for us to be impacted by this. And the only reason we're impacted by this is because consumers are just behind. And we just have to learn, be educated and start demanding brands do this.
Leah Segedie 2:57
And the other thing that's happening is the reason there's a lot of brands that are operating testing, and then they're saying it's PFAS free, but what they're doing is, like I said, there's over 12,000 of these chemicals. And the period underwear brands were guilty of this, by the way. So let's say a period underwear brand does, you know, operates PFAS compound testing. And they look into very specific chemicals. And maybe they're looking into 16 chemicals, right? And they get it a their labs come back that say of these 16 chemicals, you have no PFAS. And so they'll put that right on their website, PFAS free, But what about the other 12,000 chemicals that could be in that product? And they're making a lot of statements based on that? Or they're making statements like saying PFC free, which doesn't include any of the Teflon chemicals. And so to them, that's PFAS free. But is it really? No it's not, you know, so there's a lot of because this is such a new area, and it's not really a new area, but there's like a scientific battle going on behind the scenes, trying to categorize all 12,000 of these chemicals into one chemical category, so that the marketing is clear for people. If you see something like PFOA free, they're only telling you that they're free from one chemical out of 12,000. And they probably have another PFS chemical in there. So if something says PFOA free, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, because they're not really telling you anything. They're just telling you they avoided this really bad one over here. But what about the others are PFC free is kind of the same idea where they're avoiding part of the chemical class, but the other part of the chemical class, they're not avoiding, you know, so I think there's a lot of tricks out there. If you'd like the courts are going to work this out. The states are going to work this out. It's just going to take a decade or so.
Leah Segedie 4:48
But in the meantime, what moms can do is being vigilant, you know and come to my website. I hate to say that every time but really I'm the one stop shop of trying to think route, if this product has PFAS or not, even the investigations that I don't do, I cover everything that's done. So if there is an investigation, I'm betting I've done it clothing, I've done it, you know, like anything out there, I've, you know, put it into really simple terms and things on my website stuck it up there. So you know, specifically which brands had indications of this and which ones did not. And so it goes back to testing, when they're testing for these PFAS compounds. Most brands are looking for individual compounds, and are testing between 16 to say, 45 of them. And that leaves out everything. So what I do, instead of testing these specifically and looking for them is I do marker testing, I'm looking for an element called Organic fluorine. Now fluorine on itself is the sixth most common element in the world, you find it all over, you know, fluoride is an example of that. But organic fluorine is man made fluorine, and there's only a few things in that realm that you'll most of the time, that will be a PFAS chemical, especially if I'm finding it above 10 parts per million, or it could be a pharmaceutical drug, because about 45% of pharmaceutical drugs are fluorinated. Or it can be a fluorinated pesticide. Now, none of those things are things that my audience wants in their food and their personal care products and anything. So I'm very comfortable doing this marker testing, because this is solving a lot of problems at the same time. So I do this marker testing. So that's why I always call it indications of PFAS, because I'm not finding a specific chemical. I'm finding flooring, organic flooring, and then I'm telling them how high that level is. And so it's it's kind of a high level that I'm able to look at right now I'm in the 10 parts per million and above level.
Leah Segedie 6:50
And to give you an idea, an example, there's parts per million, there's parts per billion, which is smaller, and then there's parts per trillion, which are infinitesimally small parts per million would be something like a drop in a swimming pool, parts per billion would be something like a drop in an olympic size limit swimming pool, and then parts per trillion, oh gosh, let me see if I can figure this out. In either a drop in 10, or 100 Olympic sized swimming pools, your water is regulated, especially in California and states that have been regulating the water is in the parts per trillion. So according to the states, it's not safe, unless it's like maybe one part per trillion. And that's it, you know, and for water, I'm testing in the parts per million, why the testing is just not there yet, to be able to do things that way, I need to do it in a smaller realm, you know, to go down, down, down. So I'm using, you know, this, this kind of these these marker tests, but it's better than nothing. And it gives us a lot of information because we're what a lot of what we're finding is Teflon type chemicals, and a lot of things like especially food and personal care products. And we do find those in above 10 parts per million. And so, you know, I feel like this is kind of like what we've got right now, it's not perfect, but it's what we have, I'm comfortable, you know, talking about it, I'm comfortable, you know, telling my audience, you know, avoid this, this is better this is this is you know, something that's the best. And I tried to make it really simple for people because I know everyone's busy. And honestly, it's not about me, it's about you. My job is to make your life easier. My job is to kind of deliver the information to you in chunks that you can read, scroll down to the very bottom, see what the most important part is, what do I buy, and then figure it out, you know, and then if people want other things tested, all you got to do is reach out to me, the best way to do that is to join the mamavation Facebook group, we've got just under 10,000 Women in that group, join that group, get to know people and make recommendations. I want this, I want that, you know, and every single investigation that we've ever done, has been based on the needs of nomination. So it's people telling me what they want to know, it's not me running out there and just randomly testing things. I'm testing things based on what the needs of these women are.
Stephanie Moram 9:10
And so anything that Leah mentions that has to do with links in the show notes, so you don't have to like be writing notes or anything like that. It'll be in the show notes for her Facebook group and her website is mamavation.com. But I just think there's like so much information out there. And like you said, I think like the not the easiest, but because there is a lot of PFAS out there is just avoiding all those resistant things, right? Like, am I wrong? I'm assuming that like the Teflon, the water resistant like period, underwear resistant, like all those things that are resistant and that will kind of help people get a chunk of it out of their lives at least.
Leah Segedie 9:51
Yes, yes. Looking for claims of PFAS free, you know, look into those types of products. You can find car wax that's PFAS free, you know, like brands are springing up to try to fill in the gaps of consumers that are becoming educated on this and want to avoid it. So there's a lot more options now than there was, say 10 years ago, 10 years ago, there was not very much now, there's a lot more. And there's a lot of good news on the horizon. You know, for instance, the carpets that I've tested, none of them have come back with indications of PFAS, you know, so there's a lot of like, retail stores that have gotten in the mix, like Home Depot, and I believe Lowe's as well, all of their carpets are now PFAS free, I haven't tested every single one of them that I have tested a few of them and been able to confirm that yes, I did. I've seen that. And I've seen that in some brands that don't even, you know, advertise PFAS free, it's just they're not doing it. So the more people are aware of it, the less the manufacturers are using it, it's like, and there's, you know, I read interviews all the time, and no one is saying that the fluorinated industry is going to grow in leaps and bounds right now. In fact, you know, they're worrying and they're scattering, and their lobbyists are going nuts on Capitol in California and in Europe, because they see the writing on the wall. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to salvage the small chain, newer chemicals that they've been put out in the last decades, and abandon the old ones, will my advisors are very concerned about these smaller small chain chemicals, because the molecules are smaller, so they get in places and are harder to get to get rid of. And so you know, we kind of like you know, everything gets replaced by something else. It's just, it's a matter of time for them, I feel like their days are numbered.
Leah Segedie 11:41
But this, this work that I'm doing is really important to do to ensure that moms and consumers in general nowhere to go and know what to buy, and can tell the brands and get involved by telling brands, I'm gonna buying you from you until you fix this, you know what I mean? That's what we really need, it's so I really encourage your audience to get involved in that way. And if you want to know another way that you can get involved, I am actually I partnered with a bunch of different NGOs, as the only blogger in a pool of NGOs, like Consumer Reports, breast cancer and breast cancer prevention partners, Environmental Working Group, you know, friends of your Center for Food Safety, and many, many others. And it's called toxic free food FDA. And what we're doing is we're demanding that the FDA banned PFAS fast food manufacturing, any type of food manufacturing, and for cosmetics and food. And for the FDA to use modern technology to evaluate umpteen food additives that they have. There's like 4000, food additives that are, you know, available to these manufacturers. And so they assume it gets into your food and your cosmetics in you know, and trace amounts. Were banding together to pressure the FDA to do this. So if you want to get involved, there's a petition, you can sign on to this letter that demands that the FDA does this and just get involved that way and pressure them so like, you know, you'll see if you watch like Environmental Defense Fund, for instance, they will, they're doing a lot of the lobbying in Washington, DC and in California, so is the Environmental Working Group. And you follow these NGOs, and like retweet what they're saying, you know, what I'm saying if you get on the mailing list, you're gonna know how to help them, you know, pressure, these different brands, these different, you know, agencies, etc, etc. It's like, at the end of the day, the special sauce is us, you know, it, nothing is gonna happen without us changing. And, you know, when and you know, how I told you I worked in politics? Well, the reason I love politics is because it worked and things change at this incredibly slow rate. But you know, what doesn't what is not slow is the private sector. So the the work that I'm doing can change the market faster than you know, a law that is passed in California, if enough people get involved and start making different decisions when they're when they're at the grocery store. And that's all you really have to do make a different decision and tell the brand's to make a different decision and tell the brand's why. And especially when you tell them why that is what really, really activates them to start changing, because they know that they're losing market share that they don't want to lose, they're going to try to not lose it. And you know, support these NGOs come to motivation, do your research and motivation. Just come into the search bar, type in nut butters, peanut butter, whatever. And you will find or just type in PFAS on the search bar and you will find a slew of things that we have consumer studies on and be able to find things really easily.
Leah Segedie 14:31
And I guess my last kind of question would be you know, you're saying telling brands why you're not potentially buying this but it's to ask brands Right? Like if I'm using a granola bar company be like, Hey, how are you manufacturing? The wrappers? Is there PFAS? And like what is the you know, asking these questions and then that would in turn, get the brands thinking of enough people are kind of saying hey, wait a minute. I want to know not only what's actually in the granola bar, I'm using granola bars as an egg sample but was actually in the granola bar, I want to go a step further and ask you like about the packaging, I want to ask you about, like the machinery that you're using, you know what I mean?
Stephanie Moram 15:11
It's like the thing is, the more you ask, the more, they're going to start looking into it. Because these, a lot of these brands have not tested for organic flooring, until I come along and test their brand and find organic flooring. And I've even found on websites saying PFAS free, but then I do testing and I find stuff. And then oh my gosh, I think it educates them on what type of testing they need to start doing that is more convincing to the public. And it's probably more based, in fact, then you know what I would like it to be true. It increases their awareness. So the more you talk about it, the better off we all are. And every single person that asks a brand, this question does us all a solid, you know, for that very reason. It educates them, it tells them that their consumers are concerned about this, oh, no, eventually, someone's going to notice them. And God forbid, you know, when something bad happens, and they'll start looking into it, you know, and ask them about organic flooring, specifically, you might want to put that in the show notes and quotations. Organic flooring marker testing, have you done this? A lot of brands have not done it until I find out and then they start doing this testing. And it's not hard for them to do. And it's not expensive for them to do either. So it's they should be doing it a lot of times, they just don't know. That's honestly what it is. They just don't know.
Stephanie Moram 16:29
Yeah. And they don't know. And then a lot of companies like you said, there's like these trace amounts and like digging a purpose. No, like some companies like are doing it on purpose. But like the girl of our company is not going out of the weight but PFAS and granola bar. Right?
Leah Segedie 16:42
Yeah, especially the kind of brands that we kind of travel with, you know, exactly. The green living organic brands are mortified when they find these types of things. And they have no idea and they they do work to fix it, you know, but a lot of them don't know about it. And there's so many different food brands and personal care brands. And there's, it's just like, we're swimming in so many options. Now, with so many people that don't know the specifics on these types of quality control issues. And then a lot of a lot of times in the corporate setting, they have quality control directors that Do you know, the compound testing, like I was telling you before, they tested for 16, or they tested for 45 compounds down to the parts per million and nothing was found. So therefore repeat past free. And they don't even understand this type of marker testing. And so it's it's, that's another reason why it's really important to get this word out. And, you know, the consumers will be educating the brands in this sense, because, you know, it's just taking a while to get all the states on board with the different pieces of legislation. But, you know, there's a lot of things that are happening. And I don't know what's happening in Canada, I wish I would have looked up and seen what's happening in Canada, because I know you're Canadian, and you're probably sick and tired of hearing all this stuff from the US. But there's, but there are a lot of states, you know, across the country, like this year alone, I believe there was like 216 different bills introduced across different states having to do with PCs, from everything from cosmetics and personal care, to water, you know, to personal protective equipment, all kinds of stuff. So things are happening. It's just I want it to happen faster. It's not happening fast enough for me because women need to know because we're feeding families and the most vulnerable time is pregnancy and early childhood, of course, and so we don't have time for them. So that's why I've stepped in to do all this work.
Stephanie Moram 18:35
And I feel like you know, there was a time like, you know, BPA was like an not Well, obviously, it wasn't in everything. But it was like in a lot of products. And consumers started saying Wait, wait, wait, wait, what is this BPA and started demanding for change? And now so many companies are looking for alternatives for BPA, right? So I feel like, again, not the same thing. Not the same chemicals, but the same type of movement of where people were like, no, no, no, I'm not buying plastic with BPA. So unless it says BPA free on it, like I'm not buying it. I mean, you can also do more research and go deeper. What are they replacing it with? Blah, blah, blah, another topic for another day. But just like looking at it was like there was BP and a lot of stuff. And then people started saying no, no, no. So I feel like if P FOSS is going to be like it's slowly catching on, I'm seeing more and more people talk about it a lot more. And that it's gonna start becoming a thing where it's like, no, no, no, like, we want PFAS free. Like we're not, we're not taking these products. So I think you know, it's not going as fast as you want it to go or maybe I want it to go. But I do think the needle is definitely moving with all the work that you're doing the work of other people out there that I've seen on the internet, you know, screaming from the rooftops doing research, testing stuff. I just, it's such important work and I thank you for doing it.
Leah Segedie 19:58
Well it's my pleasure to serve your family and everyone else's I love being of help. It's really what what I what I live for is being able to solve people's problems.
Stephanie Moram 20:07
So besides mamavation where they can like find all like the research. Is there anywhere else you want to send them? Like I know, we'll put the Facebook group in the show notes, you know, mamavation where all the research is like, where can they find you on social media?
Leah Segedie 20:19
Well, I'm on Instagram, @mamavation on Instagram. I'm only there like, a quarter of a time I spend three fourths of my time on Facebook, which Yes, I know, I'm still on Facebook. And because we have this really, really active group there, so I would just encourage people to you know, we've got 200,000 Facebook fans on Facebook, but the real special sauce is in the Facebook group. And that's a small group that we have, it's like, under just under 10,000. And I spent a lot of time there. And that's where I really get my inspiration of women and, you know, this tells me what your problem is and how I can solve it. And if we have enough women that are agreeing, I'm like, I'm off to the races. And so that's that's just what I live for I live to be useful. I live to be helpful. I just love solving people's problems. And you know, I'm just obsessed with different things like that. And so if I can combine my my skill sets all together, you know, writing speaking, you know, ideas, creative uses of technology, you know, organizing and solve these problems and make an impact I you know, I'm going to do it. So that's that's where I am. So Facebook, Instagram, I'm also on Twitter, but I'm not on Twitter very often you can find me at motivation. I also have my private account is buki boo. So you can find me Buceo on Twitter, but don't be mad at me if you tweet at me and it'll get back to you for like six days or something like although I used to be on Twitter quite a bit. I used to be considered a Twitter Liberty back in the day. I mean, they had that as a title. It was funny, but yeah, it totally was. Today, that's not so much the case I'm spending more times on and I'm not on Tik Tok yet. I mean, everyone's kicking me because they're like, you have to be on Tik Tok. Oh my god, and I'm just let me take a breather. And when I get over there, I'll finally get over there. But I'm over there as like benchmark but I'm not like doing anything yet. So Facebook and Instagram will be the places to find me. When you can always find me on my website as well.
Stephanie Moram 22:16
Well, thank you so much for chatting with me for the last little bit like I really, really appreciate it. Pack was so much information that people are gonna have to like listen to this like five times. Thank you for being on with me.
Leah Segedie 22:31
Oh, it's my pleasure, Stephanie. Thank you so much for having me.
Stephanie Moram 22:34
So for more sustainable and non toxic living inspiration, I have a couple of other episodes, you might want to listen to number 36: which is the truth behind your hair dye with Lindsaya. Number 31: What's really hiding in your home with Lonnie Brown, and number 24 which is a solo episode: What is greenwashing. Stay connected with me on Instagram and Tik Tok at this is Stephanie moram. And don't forget to subscribe to the Green Junkie podcast on the platform you're listening on. Thank you for listening and I'll see you next Tuesday Green Junkie.
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