3M coughs up $10b to settle "forever chemicals" lawsuit

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Originally published at: 3M coughs up $10b to settle "forever chemicals" lawsuit | Boing Boing

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That seems … low. 3M’s net income last three years was $5.5-6b per year. So, they spend $0.75b (12%) per year to settle something that gave them much more profit over the last 30 years and we still are stuck with the clean-up bill. Fun.

edit: clarified “$5.5-6b per year”

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When Joker poisons the Gotham water supply, he gets beaten up and stuck in prison. Just saying. If all these fines are just the cost of doing business, there’s not really a disincentive.

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And then he escapes and does it again. Tracks.

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Seeing that firefighting foam video, reminds me that my summer day camp as a kid had an event like that as part of their “fair” that they did. I never participated in the foam. I don’t think my mom would let me. I’m not sure if she knew that stuff was bad - obviously there wasn’t a lot of general knowledge that it was harmful until recently though she early on was against Teflon…

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Thank you for this. I’m beyond sick and tired of deliberately misleading and lazy reporting of these settlements. They should be making it clear what a drop in the bucket these amounts tend to be, as well as how the government and the public end up paying for it. I really want to see more news pointing out corporations getting away with this are promoting even less regulation, and which pols are taking their money. They don’t want to take any responsibility for the harm they cause.

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And they are still producing them. :woman_shrugging:t2:
The Guardian article says they’ve pledged to stop producing them sometime in 2025. They’ve destroyed the commons and harmed untold people for profit and got away with it. It’s infuriating.

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I wonder what the net present value of that is, because if they’re paying in installments that small it’s an even better deal for them.

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Oh no–that foam video reminds me of this DDT video from the '50s:

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