Ignorance and Performative Corporate Repair in the Case of PFAS

As the PFAS (per-and polyfluoroalkyl substance) crisis gains greater attention from mainstream media, Global North consumers, and governments, it appears as though substantive solutions to the problem have been implemented. While some characterize the PFAS crisis as another case of corporate malfeasance, others depict it as an exemplar of successful corporate responsibility, based on voluntary industry withdrawals of certain PFAS from the market. But, as my research inside the U.S. EPA, and with a range of scientists, activists, and industry stakeholders shows, the current state and corporate response to PFAS over the last two decades has, in fact, been woefully inadequate — the volume of PFAS only continues to grow in global production. Given that government and corporate response has, thus far, succeeded only in giving the appearance of substantive action, we ought to ask: What is the point of piecemeal responses to PFAS contamination by chemical manufacturers and government actors? While corporations and states routinely produce toxic chemical exposures and health harms in low-income communities and communities of color around the world, it is less common for such actors to be caught damaging the health of more favored populations within the so-called Global North. While all people have PFAS in their blood, we are neither exposed nor responded to equally. This paper argues that corporate and state crisis management in the U.S. takes distinct shape when managing outcry to a ubiquitous and uneven contaminant. This simultaneous substantive and performative response to PFAS obscures the severity of irreversible health and environmental harm of this permanent contaminant, while reassuring consumers and more privileged populations that the problem has been effectively controlled.