Thread by @rebecca_altman

NJ is the forgotten birthplace of industrial #Teflon — where DuPont scaled PTFE manufacture during WWII from grams to pounds to the potential for tonnes. This precedent setting response is fitting, given this #envhist. A thread.

cc @northjersey @fastlerner @MariahCBlake #PFAS

https://twitter.com/typeinvestigate/status/1110994915117461504

Pictured below: DuPont’s Arlington Works (Kearny) formerly Arlington Co. — maker of nitrocellulose plastics — DuPont purchased after WWI to diversify, shift public image (Nye Commission the co. “merchants of death”) & use postwar nitrogen excesses (also used to make explosives.)

I corresponded with a woman who worked at DuPont’s Arlington Works (NJ) during WWII — she remembered the PTFE plant explosion in 1944 — and (w/ a local historian) helped me sketch the boundaries of the plant, & where the co. built the first PTFE/#Teflon pilot plant. @northjersey

More about this plant is in this oral history w/ former DuPont chemist, Malcolm Renfrew, hired by the company in the late 1930s (and then directed by the Manhattan Project’s John R Dunning) to scale PTFE production on the quick. Via @SciHistoryOrg #envhist

More about the Arlington Work’s pilot #Teflon/ #PTFE plant in Kearny, NJ — c early 1940s — is in this book by Hounshell & Smith (1988) on DuPont/Teflon R+D — #PFAS

NJ’s role as the birthplace of industrial #Teflon also briefly touched upon in a recent essay I did for @aeonmag — #teflon #pfas #envhist

aeon.co/essays/how-20t…

cc @petemyers @EWGPrez @pdykstra @northjersey @fastlerner @MariahCBlake

I was born & raised in NJ. / END

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cc @theintercept @typeinvestigate @ciel_tweets @ToxicsFree @DevilWeKnowFilm @steepsuperfund @laurelschaider