Sustainable PFAS Action Network (SPAN)
The Sustainable PFAS Action Network (SPAN) is a coalition of industry stakeholders who advocate for responsible and science-based regulation of PFAS compounds. SPAN is committed to the sustainable use and acceptable management of PFAS compounds while recognizing their essential role in enabling economic prosperity, delivery of lifesaving equipment and medicine, climate change mitigation, and national security among many other important applications.
Driving Science-Based Management Policies
America’s innovators and industries depend on the responsible management of PFAS compounds. SPAN promotes science- and risk-based policies to manage the production and commercial application of PFAS compounds. While U.S. EPA has identified more than 10,000 materials that are likely to meet the broadest definition of PFAS, the number of PFAS compounds that are currently commercially manufactured or used in the United States today is closer to 700. We support policy approaches that recognize the unique differences of these compounds and protect their acceptable use for applications that provide health, safety, security, comfort and critical technologies that are fundamental to today’s society.
What’s at Risk by Banning All PFAS Compounds
Our modern way of life is made possible by the industrial advances developed with indispensable PFAS compounds.
Perfluoroalkyl & polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a diverse group of approximately 700 synthetic compounds commercially active in the U.S. distinguished by their versatility, strength and durability, setting them apart from other chemistries. Substances that may be considered PFAS compounds are not all the same - they contain unique properties and characteristics that yield unique environmental and health profiles.
These properties revolutionized modern industry and facilitated the introduction of products we now depend on in our everyday lives – personal electronics and mobile networks, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, combustion and battery powered vehicles, fuel produced by hydrocarbons, just to name a few. Today, no readily available chemical substitutes exist to replace PFAS compounds in many everyday consumer products and industrial uses. Banning PFAS compounds from the market would have devastating repercussions on our modern way of life.
Independent Analysis: Economic Impacts of PFAS
INFORUM, a Washington-based economic consulting firm, recently studied the economic impacts of six key industries that rely on certain PFAS compounds to manufacture products. These industries support more than 6 million jobs in the United States, provide wages to their workers of more than $550 billion annually, and contribute more than $1 trillion to the national gross domestic product.
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