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Dr. Rebecca Altman

@rebecca_altman

Sep 17

…I drove the perimeter. It was hard not to think of my great-grandfather, born in Galacia/Austro-Hungarian Poland, and who fled to avoid conscription in the years before WWI. Had he not left, would I be here? 5/x

But here’s why I’m really telling you all this: After it was cotton mill, but before it became condos, it was — no, I’m not kidding… 6/x

…A Tupperware Factory — called b/c of cite legacy a Tupperware Mill! (I guess plastics history — like plastics themselves— is all around us). The address is now: One Tupperware Drive. Clip from 1965 film, The Wonderful World of Tupperware. #envhist #plasticpollutiin 7/x

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Dr. Rebecca Altman

@rebecca_altman

Mar 28, 2019

@northjersey

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.)

@northjersey

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

Read 8 tweets

Dr. Rebecca Altman

@rebecca_altman

Mar 16, 2019

@Orion_Magazine

Back in 2008, in @Orion_Magazine, @ssteingraber1 reflected on the curious phenomenon of “environmental amnesia,” which she observed while giving lectures around the US on toxics & pollution. This is one of my favorite essays. A thread. #envhist

orionmagazine.org/article/enviro…

@ssteingraber1

“I’ve noticed two opposing trends,” @ssteingraber1 writes in @Orion_Magazine. One is an 🔺 awareness of toxics & their env-health implications. But the other is that this knowledge pertains to products more than the hazards of production, esp legacy or relic pollution . #envhist

@ssteingraber1

“The location of homes on former orchards (where arsenical pesticides were used) or near old toxic-dump sites (where drums of solvents were buried) — these matters seem blurrier and blurrier to the folks in my audiences.” @ssteingraber1 via @Orion_Magazine #envhist

Read 14 tweets

Dr. Rebecca Altman

@rebecca_altman

Jan 9, 2019

@j_g_allen

For those studying, tracking #PFAS pollution, what @j_g_allen has called the #foreverchemicals -- I wanted to offer some key resources about the relationship btwn the atom bomb and their early research & development w/ the Manhattan Project. An #envhist thread.

#PFOA #Teflon

2. In 1947, the Manhattan District wrote up the history of their fluorocarbon work in support of the K-25 gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge: see Vol I Book VII, since declassified and w/ the US DoE. Appendix G explains the fluorocarbon and Teflon work:
osti.gov/includes/openn…

@nytimes

3. Joseph H. Simons, who's eponymous process, The Simons Process, was used by 3M to make #PFASs, did some of the original research on fluorocarbons that catalyzed the Manhattan Project's development work, tho' his process wasn't used in the bomb project). Here, in the @nytimes:

Read 18 tweets

Dr. Rebecca Altman

@rebecca_altman

Jan 5, 2019

@aeonmag

Time Capsules, a thread & a rabbit hole --

So many wonderful pieces on time capsules were companions while writing about the Westinghouse time capsules for @aeonmag -- wanted to share them here, beginning w/ @MatthewBattles piece, also for Aeon, The Ache for Immortality [next]

@MatthewBattles

Here, @MatthewBattles describes time capsules as "a compound of the Quixotic and Ozymandian" -- and also lays out the fascination w/ the "message in the bottle" when often it is the bottle that is the message:
aeon.co/essays/voyager…

@lennypane

Don't miss this minidoc about love, humanity and the twin Voyager missions and their Golden Records --

The Voyagers by @lennypane featured via @aeonmag
aeon.co/videos/a-film-…

(Also h/t @brainpicker) See write-up here: brainpickings.org/2011/12/27/the…

Read 9 tweets