I’m writing to applaud Sen. Hassan for leading the effort to ban “forever chemicals” in food packaging. She knows that no one’s drinking water or breast milk should be polluted by fast-food wrappers or takeout containers. These chemicals are linked to cancer and other serious health problems. She is the lead sponsor of a bill that would ban a class of chemicals called PFAS from all food packaging. I was glad to see that Sen. Hassan won a bipartisan vote this week to add her bill as an amendment to a larger bill.
In southern New Hampshire, we are grappling with the costs and impacts of PFAS contamination in drinking water and our environment in a vast area of industrial pollution. In my own community of Merrimack, we know firsthand the importance of proactively stopping PFAS from getting into our environment and bodies. The financial and physical consequences are not sustainable. The EPA just announced that taxpayers will spend at least $5 billion to clean up our drinking water in the coming years. In New Hampshire, we’ve already spent more than $100 million. It makes no sense to continue allowing these chemicals in food packaging and other products while spending billions of dollars to clean them up. Sen. Hassan’s bill is the kind of commonsense solution we need.
Laurene Allen
Merrimack