GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — PFAS are forever chemicals found in many everyday products. They can be found in clothing and food packaging. These toxins are finding their way into our water and food. Nearly two years ago, there was a plan to annihilate them.
The sound of progress could be heard inside Revive Environmental’s location in Grand Rapids.
“You can actually see the clean water coming out of the unit,” said Rick Gillespie, the chief commercial officer with Revive Environmental.
Revive Environmental is working toward what they call “annihilating PFAS.”
“PFAS is a forever chemical, but they often feel like everywhere chemicals,” Gillespie said.
The company got its start in West Michigan back in 2023.
“This is the first facility in the U.S. that is processing PFAS at scale, destroying PFAS every day, 24 hours a day, six days a week. We're taking different PFAS-laden waste streams and discharging clean water from the facility,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie explains many people would be surprised to learn how often PFAS is used in everyday products.
“Everyday products are then disposed of in a landfill, and then that material can get into our drinking water, groundwater and surface water,” he added.
His company's mission is to stop that from happening.
“PFAS has been one of the most challenging environmental contaminants that we've ever faced. It's persistent. It accumulates in human tissue, and it's toxic at really low levels,” Gillespie said.
The CDC shows that these chemicals can cause cancer, increase cholesterol and impact your immune system.
“Michigan is leading the nation in PFAS enforcement and in looking for solutions to remove PFAS from drinking water,” Gillespie said.
He noted that it takes roughly two to three days to go through a bin full of firefighting foam.
“The clean effluent is clean water, PFAS-free down to very low parts per trillion ... below the drinking water standards… which would equate to about one drop in five Olympic-sized swimming pools,” he said.
Gillespie said they’re getting a lot done between their two locations: Grand Rapids and Columbus, Ohio.
“We've processed thousands of gallons of PFAS-laden waste streams, up to 50 million gallons of leachate, and thousands of gallons of AFFF firefighting foam,” he said.
Revive Environmental currently has three of these PFAS annihilators. It plans to expand and add one to three more at its Grand Rapids location. The company also hopes to hire more people to help in the future.
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