The use of PFAS is intensifying
To quantify the costs of the cleanup, the media, in collaboration with two researchers, relied on “the rare scientific and economic information available” as well as “local data collected from decontamination pioneers.” “Each of the scenarios in our evaluation is based on series of conservative choices, which allows us to affirm that the costs are most certainly underestimated,” details the investigation.
“Despite clear evidence of their harmfulness, the use and pollution by PFAS continues to intensify, paving the way for a large-scale future crisis,” denounced the NGO Zero Waste Europe after the publication of the investigation, denouncing the “price borne by the public”.
“Technological challenge”
The lower range – 4.8 billion euros per year – corresponds to “an unrealistic scenario” with “ultra-optimistic” hypotheses: no more new PFAS pollution “from tomorrow”, depollution limited to priority sites and pollutants today regulated – ignoring new substances used since “the early 2000s”.
If the pollution continues and if we carry out extensive cleaning, “the bill would rise to 2,000 billion euros over twenty years”, especially since “decontamination poses an immense technological and logistical challenge”. Some advanced water filtration techniques, for example, consume a lot of water and energy.
These include, for example, filtration using activated carbons associated with the oxidation capabilities of ozone, or the chemical process of ion exchange. Conventional incinerators, which are not powerful enough, do not destroy PFAS in household waste, underlines the investigation: the waste must be burned at more than 1050 or 1100 degrees. Given the colossal amounts required, “restricting PFAS emissions to stop the bill from increasing is essential,” concludes The World.
-Lobbying
The investigation, which is based on “thousands of documents”, also reveals a campaign by industrialists, described as “harassment of public authorities by an armada of lobbyists”, to “water down, even kill” a proposed ban of PFAS at European level. “The investigation reveals the astonishing efforts made by lobbyists to fight common sense regulations,” responded the NGO ClientEarth.
The contours of the new regulations to govern the use of PFAS, which the European Commission intends to put on the table at the end of 2025, remain very vague. According to a European source, the EU would like bans on “common consumer products”, with exceptions for essential products “in the medical field for example”.
This restriction of PFAS would be part of a broader review of the “Reach” regulation on the regulation of chemical substances within the EU. In February 2023, four Member States (Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden) and Norway put forward a proposal aimed at banning the production, use, import and placing on the market of some 10,000 perfluorinated compounds. (PFC) and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) in the EU and in the European Economic Area.
