…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

This week — after yrs of research, contemplation, COVID-delays — I *finally* visited the RI cotton mill where my great-grandfather labored during WWII. It sits along the Blackstone River, which had powered the US Industrial Revolution🧵 #envhist #PlasticPollution 1/x Built in 1904 by the Blackstone Cotton Co — eventually owned by Lonsdale, tied to Brown & Ives, Brown—the family that built Triangle Trade ships and benefactor to Brown U., The mill closed shortly after my great-grandfathered signed his over-45 draft card. 2/x

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.)

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… “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

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…

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] 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…

TIL The Lorax was inspired by the state of Lake Erie in the late 1960s. #eutrophication