Many consumer products containing “forever chemicals” will be pulled from store shelves throughout Maine beginning next year.
Included in this prohibition will be non-stick cookware, as state regulators determined that they do not qualify for a “currently unavoidable use” exemption, according to reporting from Maine Public.
This exemption is designed to exclude from the ban products with intentionally added PFAS that are “essential for health, safety and the functioning of society” when alternatives without PFAS are not available to consumers.
According to reporting from Maine Public, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recommended that the Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) reject all but two of the eleven exemption requests they were tasked with considering recently.
The impending bans are pursuant to a law approved by legislators in 2024 prohibiting the sale of many consumer products containing intentionally added PFAS, one of the first laws of its kind in the country.
Maine’s 2024 law was adopted in both the House and the Senate without roll call votes after lawmakers on the Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee unanimously recommended an amended version of the legislation.
This bill was ultimately signed into law by Gov. Janet Mills (D) almost immediately after it was approved by lawmakers in April of 2024.
Prohibitions on the enumerated PFAS products are set to roll out of the course of the next decade and a half, with all new restrictions in place by 2040.
Among the products that must be pulled from Maine’s shelves next year — if they contain intentionally added PFAS — are cleaning products, cookware, cosmetics, dental floss, juvenile products, menstruation products, textile articles, ski wax, and upholstered furniture.
