WAX OFF? Chemicals in ski wax may pose a risk.
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BERKELEY, Calif. –A storm has dropped a big snow on Lake Tahoe resorts, and there’s a flurry of activity at the California Ski Company as hordes of skiers and snowboarders prepare to hit the slopes. In a cluttered workroom at the back of the shop, technician Bobby Panighetti is getting a pair of skis ready to make their first tracks – infusing the bottoms with a coat of hot wax. This essential ritual is being performed at winter sports centers around the world as the ski season gets underway.
Now scientific research suggests that ski wax can expose users to perfluorochemicals (PFCs) that build up in their bodies and may carry potentially serious health risks, including cardiovascular disease, liver damage, hormone disruption and cancer.
Racers, in particular, covet waxes with high amounts of fluorinated compounds because they make skis go faster. But that extra speed could come at a cost, especially to thousands of junior ski racers and parents who may layer on highly fluorinated race wax week after week without knowing how to handle it safely.
Two new studies, conducted in Sweden and Norway and published in September, found that wax technicians working for World Cup ski race teams had very high levels of PFCs in their blood. Their median levels of one compound, perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, were up to 45 times higher than the general population’s. The second-highest compound was perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), a common contaminant in wildlife that is now on the rise in people.
Adding to the concern, one of the studies suggests that the technicians may be manufacturing PFOA and PFNA in their own bodies, metabolizing it after breathing in a common industrial chemical, fluorotelomer alcohol (FTOH), that was found in high quantities in the workroom air. That process, known as biotransformation, has been demonstrated in animal studies, and lead author Helena Nilsson of Sweden’s Orebro University said her group’s research now reveals for the first time “direct evidence of human biotransformation.”
The research provides a key piece to the puzzle of how PFCs build up in the human body, said Olga Naidenko, a senior scientist with the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization. “This study is really important because it shows that this process is happening in humans,” she said. “We already knew that it happens in animals.”
In shops, chalets and slope-side tents from the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies in the American West to the European Alps and beyond, legions of skiers and snowboarders are waxing up their gear before a big race or just a fun day on the mountain. A base saturated with wax is the key to making cross country and downhill skis and snowboards glide fluidly over snow, the prerequisite for speed.
The technicians in the studies used hot irons to melt layers of wax onto racers’ skis, then ironed the waxed surface to make it adhere, and scraped it smooth. The process, often performed in small, stuffy cabins, produces clouds of fumes, dust and airborne wax particles, which the World Cup team waxers inhaled for approximately 30 hours a week during the November-to-March race season.
Little information is available on the chemical composition of ski waxes, because companies closely guard their formulas. Most race waxes contain water-repellant additives known as “fluoro”, but manufacturers do not reveal whether these include the potentially harmful perfluorinated chemicals turning up in human blood. When the researchers in Norway analyzed 11 different race waxes, however, they found PFCs in every one.
Costing as much as $100 a gram, high-fluoro waxes are too expensive for most recreational skiers and boarders. But the products are in big demand at competitions, including junior race events.
“With the fluoro, we all know it’s a little bit on the nasty side,” said Greg Whitehouse, who owns California Ski Company in Berkeley. “We prefer to not be around it.”
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8 Comments
Add CommentDoes anyone know if this also applies to surfboard waxes?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“We cannot say how [the PFCs] will affect the waxers’ health later on,” said Nilsson, “but there are a number of biological alterations in relation to PFC exposure shown in animal studies.”
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are going to find out some time later, to absolutely no fanfare whatsoever, that one would have to eat several tins of wax per day over the course of seventy five years to be even remotely in danger of contracting any of the diseases they list.
When "some scientists say", a substance may be carcinogenic, and then don't in any way quatify the risk, then the article is meant to sensationalis and not to educate. Surfere dud up above is a good example of the effects of fearmongering at it's finest.
The problem isn't how much is required to have an impact. The problem is how much in combination with all of the other destructive things a person is exposed to is required to have an impact. Exposure to multiple toxins is virtually guaranteed for modern humans. At what point do they all cause enough damage to be noticable?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell, let's review. Americans had a life expectancy of forty five years at the beginning of the industrial revolution. 150 years later it is approaching eighty years. We now enjoy the greatest and most widely distributed opportunities for health and wealth in the history of humankind. Or can you think of an age prior to say, 1900 in which humans in general and Americans specifically were better off?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn that entire time we've been living in a virtual double blind study which has shown us what dosages of what chemical are harmful. We've gotten it very wrong in some instances. Thalidomide comes to mind. But on the whole, The almost limitless combinations of chemicals extant in the environment have proven to be not harmful in the least.
The evidence for what I say exists in thae fact that Our population is heading toward four hundred million mighty fast, and every last one of us, from the poorest wretches to the wealthiest billionaire are far healthier now than they ever were back in the "good old days" before modern chemicals.
Finally, if you would like to spend your money to test every possible combination of chemical, above and beyond what the EPA already requires, to see which is harmful, please be my guest.
Wow let's scare everyone. Obviously the concern is real for those occupationally exposed (professional ski/board shop workers) especially if the employer has failed to provide the adequate controls i.e. ventilation, respirators, or even a HAZCOM program. Now it's time for someone like NIOSH/AIHA or any other industrial hygiene research group to weigh in on the risk assessment. Bottom line for the casual user I am willing to bet our exposure and risk alike are pretty low. For the user of the ski/board I don't see how they would be exposed- the wax is melted in as if its an article. Surf Wax? Well if the route of entry is through the skin this would be pretty tough since you don't normally melt surf wax onto the board and I don't believe sex wax is fluorinated.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love reading comments from folks who probably have no clue what they are talking about. Does anyone here apply LF HF swix wax to their skis daily ? Does anyone here use some toxo helix, some rub, some powder on their ski, corking or waxing at very high heat... Anyone ever get dizzy by the heat vapor in the room... Who here is a wax technician ? f you downhill ski or wax a surf, you have no clue what this article is about, the act of applying a pur block of fluororcarbon and adding high heat to it in a ski tent before a race ? If you haven't done this, I would suggest you kindly refrain from smart arse comments. Fluoro are highly highly permeable to long blood air transfer. I is nasty nasty stuff. Oh and by the way, yes western civilization has had tremendous increase in life expentency, so much now that it's OK to be a fat pig, to have early onset diabetes and to jam and increase the US health system to the pint of bankrupcy. Let me tell you that for the first time, that expentency is slowly reversing... there is a reason for that. Most of the shit we have layered in the environement is slowly making its way, including the tons of cooling sea water being used right now in Japan.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only think right now prefenting fluorocarbons from entering your lungs is a scott airpack. So I repeat myslef, if you know nothing of cross country skiing where mostly it is the only place being used, you know nothing.
Please take a look at the following norwegian team wax truck. The most sophisticated wax truck in the world. http://www.nordicskiracer.com/news.asp?NewsID=4242
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow imagine an old tarp tent stuffed with parents kids and coaches, waxing in the dark and cold and pumping out some fluoro fumes... Again, if you have never put a hand on a cross country ski, you don't know what you are talking about. If you wax a snow board, you wax one every week at best. I have to wax 80 pairs of skis every week end, and I help very small ski club.
For those not involved in nordic skiing, PFCs are also used in fast food wrappers and a number of other consumer goods. Carpets use PFC solutions containing 400 parts per million. PFCs have been found in every U.S citizen tested so far. No other consumer industry besides cross country skiing has the audacity to use 100% PFC, especially not the more toxic long chain C8 and higher chemistries. Note: once in the environment PFCs never break down. Ever. They have been found in the most remote places on the planet, and research shows that every animal responds to them differently. So while they may not be toxic to us right now, they are building up in the environment and impacting other wildlife. Whether you want to admit it or not we are part of a larger ecosystem and reckless chemical use does have consequences.
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