Mariah Blake

Also tampons, period underwear, band-aids.

Oh, my gosh.

Synthetic materials really had a boom after World War II.

So prior to World War II, there were a handful of synthetic materials that were used in everyday life.

But Germany was actually the leading producer of chemicals and synthetic materials worldwide.

And so the allied countries, including the United States, had a blockade on Germany.

They were not buying German products.

And that led to a shortage of the synthetic materials that the U.S.

needed for war.

And so the U.S.

government ended up spending huge sums developing synthetic materials.

PFAS or forever chemicals were actually developed by the U.S.

government as part of the Manhattan Project.

Exactly.

They were needed to enrich uranium.

And so after the war...

These companies like DuPont had all of these materials, all these synthetic materials that had been produced with the support of the U.S.

government, massive financial support, and they began marketing these same products to the general public.

So poison gases became pesticides.

chemicals like nitrate that were used for bombs were then transformed into fertilizer that transformed our entire food system.