TalkingPFAS

Welcome back to Talking PFAS Podcast, and if you are joining us for the first time a very special welcome. I am a journalist and your host Kayleen Bell. Today’s episode was also recorded in September in Adelaide, South Australia at the International Clean-Up Conference. My guests today are Gavin Scherer and Rachael Casson from AECOM and first up I will be speaking with Gavin Scherer. Following my chat with Gavin I will be speaking with Rachael Casson, and you will hear her introduction before my discussion with Rachael. Gavin has over 23 of consulting experience in environmental and contaminated land assessment and remediation. The past 15 years has been in the service of AECOM. During his time in AECOM Gavin has led teams in both Australia and New Zealand including Australia’s largest geosciences and remediation services team, the Australian Department of Defence client account as well as Australia and New Zealand’s PFAS response teams. Currently Gavin leads AECOM’s global PFAS commercialisation strategy, which includes focusing AECOM’s global team to develop, trial and bring to market a world-first onsite cost effective PFAS destruction solution known as De-Fluoro and Gavin is going to explain what De-Fluoro is in today’s episode. Rachael serves as a Director of AECOM’s International PFAS Program focusing on innovation and technical excellence. She has over 22 years of consulting experience in contamination, assessment and management. In 2008, Rachael recognised the emerging concern over PFAS with aviation and Defence clients positioning the AECOM team at the leading edge of the PFAS science. She has worked on over 100+ PFAS related projects across the globe. Rachael is part of the De-Fluoro Technical Development Team an electrochemical process that destroys PFAS in solution. Her other research programs include plant PFAS uptake study and evaluation of the transformation of PFAS precursors into perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs) downgradient of known source zones. AECOM’s De-Fluoro technology won the CRC Care Innovation Award at the 2022 International Clean-Up Conference in Adelaide. The CRC Innovation Award recognises researchers and environmental consultants who develop innovative ways to monitor, assess and remediate environmental contamination. The Award aims to inspire industry, businesses, communities, local government, schools and individuals to take action toward a more sustainable future. AECOM’s De-Fluoro technology is one of the first commercially available economical and environmentally sustainable on-site destruction treatment for high concentration PFAS waste. AECOM’s Global Initiative Leader, Gavin Scherer said the technology uses electrochemical oxidation to break the carbon-fluorine bonds in PFAS which causes the molecules to break down. An estimated $2-$4 billion dollars worth of work is required to treat PFAS over the next decade. Link to Details about AECOM Award at 2022 International Clean-Up Conference presented by CRC Care https://az659834.vo.msecnd.net/eventsairaueprod/production-eventstudio-public/dd56e1e2846e452493a19f52014e910d AECOM Website https://aecom.com/ Please note: I am an independent journalist and a podcaster no money was received for today’s interview. If in the future money is received from remediation companies (as sponsorship) to support the continuation of this podcast I will disclose this. Also any discussions with remediation companies is for information purposes, I am not endorsing any product or remediation method over another. Copyright: Please share the episode (in whole) with acknowledgement via social media or website, but anyone wishing to edit, alter, or republish any information from this podcast in another form is subject to copyright and must contact the rights holder at TalkingPFAS@gmail.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back to Talking PFAS podcast. I am a journalist and your host, Kayleen Bell. Episode 37 - Published 25/11/2022. Thanks for being patient listeners (as I have been unwell since the Conference). It is good to be back with new episodes. For the next several weeks I will be bringing you episodes recorded at the International Clean Up 2022 Conference held in Adelaide mid-September, hosted by CRC Care. I have already published two interviews recorded at the conference, episode 35 and episode 36 and I encourage you to have a listen. There are six more to come from this conference, hopefully I can get them all up before Christmas, if not they will run into January, 2023. Today’s guest is Paul Nathanail from Nottingham, England, Technical Director of LQM, which specialises in contaminated land management in England and around the world. Paul was a keynote speaker at the Clean-Up Conference and in today’s episode we will discuss details from his talk on PFAS. In brief, Paul believes we need to form an International Working Group to look at the entire universe of PFAS and then break this universe down into galaxies of individual PFAS substances that have more or less the same chemical properties and more or less the same toxicity properties. He will explain this in more detail in today’s discussion. I would like to point out that he refers to this universe of PFAS chemicals at around 9000, and at the last count that I heard, was 12,000, so the PFAS universe seems to be growing all the time. Now to today’s chat with Paul Nathanail. LQM (Land Quality Management) based in England but they work all around the world. https://www.lqm.co.uk/ Their website states: LQM is a specialist environmental consultancy based in Nottingham (UK) with an international track record of assessing and managing the risks posed to human health and the environment by contaminants in soil. Increasingly, this is being done within a context of sustainable development and specifically sustainable brownfield regeneration.” About LQM from today’s discussion: “We are specialists in contaminated land management (not just PFAS). LQM does high level consultancy. We write a lot of technical guidance. We developed the biggest set of soil screening levels that are used in the UK. I helped to write the International Standard on Sustainable Remediation. We run training courses. We write books and occasionally we go to conferences in far-flung placed like Adelaide.” Paul Nathanail, Technical Director LQM Please subscribe to the podcast so you do not miss an episode. Please share the podcast also on social media, or with colleagues etc, but please note all information in this episode is copyright so can not be reproduced in any way without permission from the rights holder at TalkingPFAS@gmail.com *NB: The 10 million contaminated sites we speak about in this episode was a number that was given at the Clean Up 2022 conference – please note this number is not just PFAS sites, but would include some of those. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the next several weeks I will be publishing episodes from PFAS discussions I had in person with a range of people at the International Clean Up 2022 Conference which was held in Adelaide, South Australia. This conference is hosted by CRC Care, and there were over 600 delegates (including about 100) online who attended from over 28 countries. There were over 230 oral sessions, and far too many PFAS sessions to count or for one person to attend them all. Today’s guest is Professor Mark Patrick Taylor, and we will briefly discussed his research that he did with firefighters which used blood and plasma donations to reduce PFAS levels in their blood. This research was published around April 2022, and received a lot of media attention. We will also explore Mark’s opinion of what PFAS means in the environment and people’s concerns around this class of chemicals and he will also talk generally about impacts of other chemicals in our world and what he says we can all do about it. The next discussion from Clean Up 2022 will be published on Monday 26/9/22 then weekly after that until the end of October.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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