It was good to see the Press Herald run the article with the headline “Best way to clean up PFAS? Don’t spill it in the first place.” (Sept. 23). Yes, we should never spill the toxic chemicals known as PFAS such as what tragically occurred from a fire suppression system at the former Brunswick Naval Air Base. But even more on point would be an article with the headline “Best way to clean up PFAS? Don’t produce and use the stuff in the first place.” Let me explain.

Our way of regulating toxic chemicals has long been fundamentally flawed. The Brunswick spill is just one of many toxic calamities that have been occurring over the years. Just here in Maine, we have also seen PFAS-contaminated sewage sludge spread as fertilizer on farmlands all over Maine.

So more than once we have seen environmental and human health tragedies with PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. PFAS are dangerous long-lived toxic chemicals that should be safeguarded but are now found in the Androscoggin River and on farmlands all over Maine. Mishandling fire suppressants and spreading contaminated sludge on farmland land are tragic mistakes. But there is a much older and fundamental flaw in the regulatory regime.

Decades ago, I was the first person in Greenpeace, the activist environmental organization, to start campaigning on what we called “toxics.” These are defined as “substances that can cause injury or death to living things through chemical action.” Initially, in the post-Love Canal era, we took on toxic waste dumping and discharges. But we soon came to understand that the core of the problem was the vast overproduction of the dangerous chemicals.

I initially noticed that one class of chemicals, chlorinated hydrocarbons, was repeatedly implicated. Controversies over the years included contamination and poisoning with: asbestos, PCBs, Agent Orange, DDT, chlordane, parathion. Each of these were once viewed as essential but, after years of destructive incidents, they have been banned or highly restricted. At that time, a toxicologist with whom I consulted agreed that many “organochlorines” should have strict controls. He then told me that complex brominated and fluorinated compounds also needed more attention and control. Since then, we have seen controversy over brominated flame retardants and now organofluorines, including PFAS.

A strict cost-benefit analysis would show that PFAS never should have been put into consumer and industrial products, not in Teflon, not in Scotch Guard, stain-resistant carpets, firefighting foam or ski wax.  In Maine, sewage treatment plants accepted waste effluent from industries, including pulp and paper plants, that used PFAS. What we should have learned is that if they use these persistent poisons, we will one day eat those poisons.

Part of the problem comes from treating complex man-made toxic chemicals as innocent until proven guilty. What is an important principle of constitutional law for people accused of crimes should not be applied to dangerous new pollutants. Synthetic compounds not found in nature should not be taken straight from laboratories and put into various products that are then widely distributed and used. More than 50,000 chemicals on the market today have never been adequately tested for the health and environmental risks presented. America will constantly face ghastly toxic hazards, and the extreme costs that come with them, until we more stringently control the widespread distribution and use of toxic chemicals.