[Perspective] Avoiding the Next Silent Spring: Our Chemical Past, Present, and Future
By Peter H. Arp., Dagny Aurich, Emma L. Schymanski, Kerry Sims, and Sarah E. Hale
ES&T
April 13, 2023
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.3c01735
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published just more than 60 years ago, outlined how the indiscriminate use of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), a potent, environmentally persistent insecticide, was damaging the world’s ecosystems, animals, and food supply. There were many other chemicals more persistent than DDT accumulating in the environment when Carson was writing, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). While man-made, PFAS were not intended to cause harm, contrary to pesticides such as DDT. Today, ambient PFAS levels are contaminating rain, soil, and drinking water resources worldwide to such an extent that they have caused substantial, irreversible health and environmental damage. Like DDT, PFAS had long been in use by the time Rachel Carson was writing Silent Spring (see Figure 1). However, their environmental presence went unnoticed by Carson and other contemporary environmental researchers. PFAS were entering the environment under the radar, except to those who were manufacturing and emitting them.
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