One of the most lobbied files in Brussels right now is the proposed universal restriction on PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, better known as the ‘forever chemicals’.
These persistent, harmful substances are in everything from your waterproof coat to your fridge, from your frying pan to your mobile phone, from your drinking water to your glass of wine. It's likely we all have PFAS in our blood and this could have serious implications for our health.
Growing scientific research shows that exposure to PFAS may lead to negative health impacts, including by altering the immune system, increasing cancer risk, or affecting reproductive functions. A comprehensive ban is long overdue.
The universal PFAS restriction proposal, covering almost all PFAS uses, is currently undergoing scientific analysis at the EU’s Chemicals Agency before it is passed to the EU Commission for final drafting, and then a vote by member states.
Earlier this year journalists via the Forever Lobbying Project, alongside Corporate Europe Observatory, mapped the intense lobby battle underway on this file, revealing the extent of the lobbying and the disinformation put forward by the industry to defend these substances, the dire health and environmental effects of which have been known for years.
EU environment commissioner Jessika Roswall has said that the commission will implement a ban on consumer uses of PFAS, “such as cosmetics, food contact materials, and outdoor clothing.”
Commission vice-president Stéphane Séjourné has made a similar commitment.
Implementing a ban focused only on consumer uses rather than the currently proposed universal restriction, which also covers professional and industrial uses of PFAS, would be a wholly inadequate response to the massive PFAS pollution crisis that we face.
Judging by Roswall’s comments, the commission seems minded to adopt a narrow interpretation of "consumer uses" – an interpretation which would be deeply problematic. After all, consumers also use mobile phones, paints, electric vehicles, air conditioning, and many other products which also contain PFAS.
But however you define "consumer uses", we all end up most exposed to PFAS pollution via our diets.
Widespread pollution is created by the production, use, and disposal of any and all PFAS which contaminate water sources, soils, and air. Quite frankly, it makes little difference if the PFAS in our blood originates from consumer or industrial uses.
It’s vital that the commission recognises the ubiquity of PFAS and of PFAS exposure, and maintains the universal restriction to ban all uses, with exemptions only where the use is really essential and no safe alternative exists.
The PFAS industry lobby shares at least one characteristic with its products: outrageous persistence.
It has consistently opposed the universal PFAS restriction from the start and used a variety of tactics to try to weaken, delay, or derail the proposal.
Worryingly Europe’s top decision-makers have increasingly adopted industry’s narrative and demands.
Specifically some industry lobbies have been trying to shepherd the commission down the route of a limited, partial ban, as a tactic to head it away from a far more comprehensive, universal ban. It’s vital that the commission avoids handing such a major lobby victory to the PFAS industry.
And it is not as if even a weak ban on consumer uses of PFAS would simply be waved through by the PFAS industry and implemented quickly. During the recent development of the French national ban on some consumer uses of PFAS, an “intensive lobbying campaign” was waged by Tefal’s parent company Groupe SEB which succeeded in excluding cookware from the ban. However weak a proposal on PFAS regulation the Commission comes up with, we can be assured that some industry lobbies will still lobby hard to try to derail it.
As consumers we should be outraged that industry continues to put PFAS in frying pans, waterproof coats, and many other day-to-day items, when PFAS in these items are hardly essential and safer alternatives are readily available.
A PFAS ban should be far more ambitious than just tackling these ‘low-hanging fruits’.
Von der Leyen’s second term as commission president is dominated by the buzzwords of ‘competitiveness’ and ‘simplification’, which imply that industry should be relieved of the so-called ‘burden’ of some social and environmental rules and requirements.
Weakening the scope of the PFAS restriction to consumer uses would be a really short-sighted decision which ignores the public health, social, environmental, and economic consequences of allowing PFAS pollution from other sources to continue.
We need to turn off the tap of PFAS whether produced for consumer, industrial, or professional uses, as soon as possible, and make sure that the polluter pays the huge bill of health damage and environmental clean-up which it has incurred, now and into the future.
This year, we turn 25 and are looking for 2,500 new supporting members to take their stake in EU democracy. A functioning EU relies on a well-informed public – you.
Vicky Cann is a researcher with Corporate Europe Observatory. Hélène Duguy is a lawyer at ClientEarth
Vicky Cann is a researcher with Corporate Europe Observatory. Hélène Duguy is a lawyer at ClientEarth