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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jan/14/cost-clean-up-toxic-pfas-pollution-forever-chemicals>
"The cost of cleaning up toxic forever chemical pollution could reach more than
£1.6tn across the UK and Europe over a 20-year period, an annual bill of £84bn,
research has found.
The number of British pollution hotspots is also on the rise. If emissions
remain unrestricted and uncontrolled, the costs of cleanup will reach £9.9bn a
year in the UK, according to the findings of a year-long investigation by the
Forever Lobbying Project, a cross-border investigation involving 46 journalists
and 18 experts across 16 countries.
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), commonly referred to as “forever
chemicals” are a family of more than 10,000 human-made substances. Manufactured
by a handful of companies, they are widely used in consumer products and
industrial processes.
They can be found in nonstick pans, pizza boxes, cosmetics, waterproof
clothing, firefighting foam and pharmaceuticals, among other places. The
properties that make them so useful – heatproof, greaseproof and waterproof –
also have fateful downsides. Almost indestructible without human intervention
and persistent in living organisms, PFAS have been linked to infertility,
cancers, immune and hormone disruption, and other illnesses.
PFAS are ubiquitous and have been detected in drinking water and surface waters
across the UK, which makes the task of remediation huge and complex. Hotspots
of contamination include landfills, airports, military sites, sewage outfalls,
sewage sludge, manufacturers and industrial users of PFAS, and places where
large amounts of firefighting foams have been used.
The Drinking Water Inspectorate’s latest sampling found 199 examples where
untreated drinking water exceeded maximum guidance levels, and a further
255,610 samples at levels where measures should be taken to reduce PFAS.
Just to clean up existing legacy pollution in the UK, analysis has found it
will cost an estimated £428m every year for the next 20 years, based on
existing cost data. This would cover remediating contaminated soils, landfill
leachate and to treat 5% of the drinking water in large water supply zones for
just the two regulated PFAS compounds, PFOS and PFOA. These costs are
conservative, as they only include decontamination costs, not socioeconomic
costs or potential costs to the health system. It also assumes that PFAS
emissions stop immediately.
“The ‘legacy’ cost scenario we developed represents the minimum costs needed to
manage environmental health risks from past actions related to PFAS that are
currently regulated,” said Ali Ling of the St Thomas School of Engineering.
The UK Environment Agency has identified up to 10,000 high-risk sites in the UK
that are contaminated with PFAS. It is reeling at the potential costs involved
in simply investigating four problem sites, before even considering cleanup
costs, and has told Defra that the associated bill is “frightening” and way
beyond its budget."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
