If PFAS restrictions are not enforced, the cost of cleaning up contaminated sites will be around 100 billion euros annually for European countries. For the first time, an investigation by the Forever Pollution Project reveals the staggering price of the environmental remediation of these forever chemicals. The project, coordinated by the French newspaper Le Monde, involves 46 journalists from 16 countries, including Italy.
Over 20 years, the total clean-up cost would soar to 2,000 billion euros. In short, outrageous environmental and economic damages that, according to the authors of the investigation, could be limited by Brussels. However, in the meantime, the documents gathered by the team of journalists reveal that the lobbying efforts of those dubbed “merchants of doubt” — the stakeholders in the PFAS industry — are working to weaken or block any restrictions. The goal is to continue their business as usual.
PFAS contamination in Europe
According to scientists and environmental protection agencies interviewed by journalists from the Forever Pollution Project, the so-called “poison of the century” has created the most severe pollution crisis humanity has ever encountered. PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) encompass around 10,000 chemical compounds, renowned for their persistence in the environment. Beyond this feature, certain subgroups of PFAS pose additional risks, including the potential for bioaccumulation in living organisms, mobility in water, soil, and air, long-range transport, and toxicological effects on both humans and the environment.
In use since the 1940s, PFAS are employed across a wide range of industrial and consumer sectors thanks to their unique properties, which make them resistant to water, grease, and high temperatures. They can be found in products such as paper plates, non-stick pans, food packaging, textiles, carpets, leather, electronics, and fire-fighting foams. A widespread use that has consequences.
In early 2023, with scientific support from the Centre national pour la recherche scientifique (CNRS), the Forever Pollution Project team identified nearly 23,000 contaminated sites across Europe. On the 9th of December 2024, the European Environment Agency (EEA) also published its first comprehensive overview of PFAS pollution in European waters. Based on 2022 data from approximately 1,300 monitoring sites across Europe, 59% of river sites, 35% of lake sites, and 73% of sites in transitional and coastal waters exceeded the limits.
The industry lobbying campaign
In February 2023, five European countries — Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden — proposed a complete ban on PFAS under the European chemicals regulation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals). The proposed restriction covers the production and import of the entire PFAS chemical “universe,” with some exceptions until alternatives can be developed. In response, according to the Forever Pollution Project, hundreds of stakeholders defending the interests of some 15 sectors pressured European policy makers to weaken or block the proposal. Through an analysis of nearly 10,000 documents obtained through hundreds of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the investigation uncovered the scale of the lobbying and disinformation campaign led by PFAS manufacturers and users — referred to by the Forever Pollution Project as “the merchants of doubt.”
For instance, the journalistic team uncovered an attempt by plastic manufacturers to secure an exemption for an entire category of PFAS known as fluoropolymers. This type of “high-performance” plastic is used in a wide range of applications, from non-stick pans and outdoor clothing to chemical plant seals and aircraft cable insulation. The lobbying tactics employed mirror those once used by the tobacco industry to discredit scientific evidence on the dangers of smoking. Today, a similar strategy of spreading false and misleading information continues to cloud also the debates on pesticides and other harmful chemicals.
On PFAS, the opposition to industry restrictions is often based on economic concerns, on the claim that alternatives do not yet exist, or on the argument that it is not possible to assign the same level of toxicity to every chemical compound in the PFAS family. Involving 18 international academics and lawyers from cities such as Zurich, Stockholm, Toronto, and Rotterdam, spanning disciplines from environmental chemistry to criminology, the investigation systematically dismantles each of these arguments.
PFAS in Italy
In September and October 2024, Greenpeace Italy conducted an investigation, taking 260 samples across 235 Italian municipalities in all regions and autonomous provinces, with the exception of Valle d'Aosta. The analyses, carried out by an independent and certified laboratory, detected the presence of 58 PFAS molecules. While the sample size may not be fully representative, the results nonetheless show the presence of these polluting compounds in the aqueduct networks. In 206 of the 260 samples — 79% of the total — at least one substance from the PFAS group was found.
However, only the samples taken in the municipality of Arezzo exceeded the 100 nanograms per litre threshold — one of the safety limits recently defined by Europe, set to come into effect in 2026. Moreover, a brief note in Greenpeace Italy’s report mentions that after the NGO's sampling, the water manager in Arezzo, Nuove Acque, started a monitoring campaign, collecting seven samples. All of these showed PFAS concentrations below the threshold limit. The most common molecules found were PFOA, classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a class 2B carcinogen (possibly carcinogenic to humans), and the potential carcinogen PFOS, which appeared in 58 samples, or 22% of the total.
"The reality is that the PFAS phenomenon is global, as is not only their production but, especially, their use," says Riccardo Piunti, president of CONOU, the National Consortium of Waste Oils. In 2024, CONOU launched a research focus to investigate the presence of PFAS in recovered waste oils and their impact on circularity. "While the debate often centres around production sites, certainly more critical, we tend to overlook the fact that once PFAS are produced, they are highly mobile and can spread into both industrial and drinking water through emissions from user sites."
This article is also available in Italian / Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano
Cover: photo Envato