Author: Nigel Haigh OBE, Honorary Fellow, IEEP UK

PFAS – or ‘forever chemicals’ – have continued to accumulate in the environment ever since their manufacturing began in the last century. Every delay in restricting them increases the amount of PFAS that will eventually have to be removed at great cost. The realisation that PFAS are not only persistent but also mobile through soils, without being ‘adsorbed’ as some chemicals are, makes them a threat to groundwater used for drinking. Recent estimates in EU and UK put the cost of remediating PFAS pollution in the billions of Euros – and this may not be possible in all cases.

This new timeline, authored by IEEP UK Honorary Fellow Nigel Haigh, examines why, after the first of the PFAS group was restricted 20 years ago, it has taken so long to restrict the rest. It contains a timeline of regulatory steps taken in the EU and UK to restrict PFAS alongside a discussion of the reasons for this delay, which are found to include:

– The shift in chemicals regulations, including the set up of REACH and ECHA finding its feet;

– The acceptance that ‘grouping’ had to supplement the established approach of restricting chemicals one by one;

– Current and proposed ‘universal’ PFAS regulations only becoming possible through the development of the PMT concept stressing the problem of mobility of the chemicals (alongside the established PBT concept which leans more on bioaccumulation, with both recognising persistence and toxicity as considerations);

– For the UK, once a leader on chemicals regulation, leaving the EU, and moreover the cuts to capacity and budget afforded to chemical regulation post-Brexit, have slowed action and scope of PFAS regulation.

To download the full report, follow the steps below.

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