They're in your shampoo, your carpet, your nonstick pan, and your fast food wrapper.

They've also been found at the top of Mount Everest.

This group of manufactured chemicals called PFAS are pretty much everywhere you look,

and high exposures to them might increase the risk of everything from some cancers to

infertility.

What do we do about these so-called forever chemicals?

Scientific American custom media recently sat down with David Treva, the president and

chief executive officer of Revive Environmental, to learn more about the problem and some

possible solutions.

David Treva fell in love with chemistry when he was a junior in high school.

I was fortunate to have Mrs. Travers as my chemistry teacher.

He says Mrs. Travers got him hooked on combining substances to create new ones and solve problems.

She actually worked for the EPA funny enough.

So as a chemist, he actually has a deep respect for the chemicals that include the coding

we use for nonstick pans.

I honestly think Teflon as a story is really cool.

It was happened to bond by accident.

It's completely effective.

What started as products like Teflon in the late 1930s is now a group of more than 9,000

chemicals called PFAS, or PER, and polyfluoral alcal substances.

And their purpose is to fight fires and prevent things from sticking and to help in production

of many of the products that we really take for granted as a society globally.

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