Documentary: How to Poison a Planet

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Go to the second floor, turn right off the elevators. Turn right down the corridor and pass the double glass doors. Proceed past the bank of elevators and follow the hallway until you find the theatre room on the right.

See you there!

The groundbreaking documentary How to Poison a Planet debuts previously unseen sworn testimony from 3M scientists and employees discussing what the company knew about PFAS danger for decades. Due to PFAS chemicals’ inability to break down naturally, these man-made ‘forever chemicals’ now contaminate the waterways, farmland and communities around the world, including the drinking water of 200 million Americans.

The film features Oscar nominated actor and activist Mark Ruffalo and environmental lawyers. Mark Ruffalo says: “This documentary exposes one of the biggest environmental disasters in human history. Without a concerted effort from all levels of business and government, ongoing contamination will continue to endanger the environment and our health.”
The documentary provides behind-the-scenes access to one of the largest environmental lawsuits in U.S. history. It follows the legal team putting together the case as they prepare to represent communities affected by PFAS contamination from firefighting foam.

Gary Douglas of Douglas & London underscores the magnitude of the crisis, stating: If you wanted to deliberately contaminate the planet with PFAS, you couldn’t have invented a better delivery device than firefighting foam… And just let it leach into the aquifers, into people’s drinking water, and do nothing to clean it up.”

3M settled the lawsuit for up to $12.5 billion in mid-2023, just days before the trial was set to begin. The film draws on unsealed materials gathered as part of the lawsuit, including never-before-seen depositions and documents detailing what 3M knew about their products’ toxicity, and when they knew it.

Ned McWilliams of Levin Papantonio conveys that at the trial, the litigation team planned to reveal that 3M was aware their proprietary, man-made chemicals had found their way into the blood of literally everyone on the planet. “Rather than disclose this important matter of public health, 3M engaged in a decades-long campaign of deceit and cover-up,” McWilliams says.

The term ‘PFAS,’ or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, refers to a group of more than 14,000 chemicals synthesized from the 1930s onward by 3M and produced for use in heat-, oil-, and water-resistant materials. These chemicals gained global notoriety due to environmental attorney Rob Bilott, whose story inspired the New York Times article “The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare” and the feature film Dark Waters, starring Ruffalo.

“A lot of the information that has come out over the years has focused on what DuPont knew about these chemicals, and how DuPont had covered up information about the health threat here. Until now, there hasn’t been as much information available about what 3M knew about these chemicals. This is the company that actually created these at the beginning,” explains Rob Bilott, partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP.