Mike Belliveau’s 20-year-old refrigerator no longer kept food cold enough, so he headed to a big-box retailer last summer to replace it.
Belliveau, who has worked in the consumer safety field for two decades, wanted a model with improved environmental and safety features. The salesperson readily guided him to the energy-efficient fridges. But when Belliveau asked if there were any without F-gases — the fluorinated gases used commonly as refrigerants that contain forever chemicals — his question drew a blank stare from the salesperson.
“He asked me, ‘What’s that?’” said Belliveau, director of Bend the Curve, a nonprofit that is advocating for safer petrochemicals and sustainable plastics.
It is not yet possible to buy a heat pump without forever chemical refrigerants, but there are safer alternatives for other appliances already on the market, including some refrigerators and small air conditioners. Those appliances, which generally run on hydrocarbon gases such as isobutane or propane, also contribute less to global warming. That is good news for Mainers like Belliveau interested in minimizing their carbon footprint and contributing to the state’s goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050.
The salesperson helped Belliveau pull out fridges to read the label on the back that tells what chemicals are in them. They eventually found one with R-600A, a hydrocarbon gas that does not contain forever chemicals. Many of the labels contain numbers rather than plain English, but consumers can look them up on the web. The fridge looks the same as any other fridge, Belliview said, and costs the same.
“Any consumer can ask to see the back of the refrigerator and enter the R-code number into their smartphone search engine,” said Belliveau. “If the chemical answer has ‘fluoro’ in its name, then it’s a PFAS-based, F-gas.”
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, the forever chemicals known as PFAS, have been linked to kidney and testicular cancers, according to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. They can leak out of operating appliances including air conditioners, refrigerators, and heat pumps in small amounts that can add up over time. Some 1 percent to 4 percent of refrigerants leak out of small, split heat pumps annually, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Belliveau’s experience with the salesperson is common in most appliance stores. Customers are not asking for forever chemical-free appliances yet, said Rick Figmon, a salesperson at Dunnett Appliance & Mattress in Bangor.
Consumers usually have less direct exposure to chemicals in appliances compared with other products such as waterproof cosmetics and water-repellent clothing, said Lydia Jahl, senior scientist at the Green Science Policy Institute, a nonprofit advocate against chemicals that may harm human health. But PFAS emissions are so pervasive in appliances, even in small amounts, that they work their way into the environment, water and food just as other products do, she said.
Consumers can find appliances free from PFAS refrigerants by looking at statements and product tags from manufacturers, as well as following efforts like Maine’s first-in-the-nation PFAS law, which requires manufacturers to report to the state, starting in January 2025, products sold here with added PFAS content. Already Panasonic has reported PFAS was added to refrigerator tubing. The Portland-based nonprofit Defend Our Health, which Belliveau founded and worked at for more than 20 years, lists the companies and products that they have reported on its website.
Finding an appliance totally free of PFAS chemicals would be difficult, Jahl said. That is because PFAS chemicals are used commonly in wiring, blow-in foam insulation, cables, gaskets, non-stick coatings, lubricants and electronics used in appliances. Consumers who have PFAS in their water and who have refrigerators with water and ice-making features would need to filter the chemicals at the main water source. Some of the tubing used inside the fridge to move water into it also could have PFAS in it, she said.
“More research is needed to see how much PFAS would leach out of that into your water, though,” she said.
Alternatives to refrigerants with PFAS are becoming more available and are less harmful for climate change. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change introduced a measurement called “global warming potential” in 1990 to measure the global warming effects of different gases. The refrigerant in the General Electric fridge that Belliveau purchased, R-600A, commonly known as isobutane, has a global warming potential value of 3, much lower than today’s widely used refrigerant R-134A, or tetrafluoroethane, which has a global warming potential of 1,430.
Natural refrigerant gases such as isobutane and carbon dioxide are flammable, Jahl said, but other kitchen appliances, including stoves, also use flammable gas. The refrigerant gases are in a confined space, so they are better controlled than the open flame on a gas stove, she said.
“The health and safety concerns with replacement refrigerants are a lot less than those of PFAS,” she said. “More concerns likely lie around the difficulty in switching to replacements than their safety.”
R-134A and R410A, a common refrigerant used in heat pumps, are among the hydrofluorocarbon-based refrigerants that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to phase out this and next year as part of its Significant New Alternatives Policy program to get rid of chemicals with high global warming potential and human health concerns.
While PFAS-free heat pumps are not yet available in the United States, Belliveau already is researching his options for replacing his aging oil furnace and hot water heater. He was able to find a PFAS-free heat pump water heater that runs on carbon dioxide that he plans to buy and use for water and for baseboard home heating as a backup to his wood stove.
He expects more PFAS-free refrigerants to emerge in new products. Volkswagen said in February that all of its electric vehicles will be air conditioned with carbon dioxide by 2030 instead of PFAS-based fluorinated gases. The European market is moving faster to get rid of PFAS, but the U.S. will follow soon, he said.
“Resisting that change, of course, are the fluorinated chemical producers including Honeywell, Chemours and Daiken,” Belliveau said. “Policymakers and consumers will break through that barrier, however.”
Lori Valigra is an investigative environment reporter for the BDN’s Maine Focus team. She may be reached at [email protected]. Support for this reporting is provided by the Unity Foundation and donations by BDN readers.
