Clean Harbors, Inc., the leading provider of environmental and industrial services throughout North America, announced the successful results of a comprehensive third-party study demonstrating that the Company’s commercial facilities can safely and thoroughly destroy PFAS (per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances) in multiple forms. Conducted at the Company’s RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act)-permitted facility in Utah, the study demonstrated that Clean Harbors’ use of high-temperature combustion destroyed greater than 99.9999% of PFAS compounds. This performance level meets the strict chemical destruction standards for many of the most dangerous and difficult to destroy hazardous wastes, such as PCBs and dioxins.
“We believe that when these results are fully reviewed by the scientific community and regulators, they will draw the same conclusion as this third-party study: High-temperature thermal treatment is an ideal option for the safe elimination of the most dangerous members of the PFAS family.”
“PFAS compounds, frequently referred to as forever chemicals, represent a clear threat to the environment and human health. Prior to this study, there had been no proven, scalable methodology to permanently destroy these chemicals safely and effectively,” said Eric Gerstenberg, Chief Operating Officer. “We engaged several outside engineering and environmental firms to design a program for us to conduct thorough testing of stack emissions and all residue streams at one of our RCRA-permitted commercial incinerators. We then provided the comprehensive test results to Philip H. Taylor, Ph.D., a nationally recognized environmental scientist who validated the conclusion that high-temperature destruction and removal efficiency of PFAS was achieved.”
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Dr. Taylor, who previously led the University of Dayton Research Institute’s Environmental Engineering Group, has more than 30 years of experience dealing with the thermal destruction of hazardous materials. With a total of more than 250 publications and conference proceedings to his credit, Dr. Taylor also has served as an environmental consultant for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Air Force. Dr. Taylor conducted fundamental and applied research on hazardous waste destruction and was awarded the EPA STAR designation for development of the hazardous organic waste incinerability ranking.
SOURCE: Businesswire