This is the result of an investigation lasting several months to which major European media such as The world Or The Guardian participated. 17,000 sites are contaminated in Europe, including 2,100 at levels dangerous to health by the so-called “eternal” PFAS pollutants.
Called the “Forever Pollution Project”, in reference to these almost indestructible synthetic chemical compounds developed since the 1940s to resist water and heat, the investigation is based on expert methodologies, data and “thousands of environmental samples” having made it possible to carry out, according to them, the first European mapping of contaminated sites and suspected of being so.
Dangerous levels for health for 2,100 sites
A Norwegian lake, the Blue Danube, a Czech river and vast areas surrounding most industrial chemical basins… The collective of journalists presents its map validated according to “a form of “peer-reviewed journalism”, on the model peer-reviewed scientists. “According to our conservative estimate, Europe has more than 17,000 contaminated sites at levels that require the attention of public authorities. [au-delà de 10 nanogrammes par litre]. »
“Contamination has reached levels deemed dangerous to health by the experts we interviewed. [plus de 100 nanogrammes par litre] in more than 2,100 hotspots”, indicates the French daily. The journalists also located twenty PFAS production factories, including five in France, and 230 factories identified as users of PFAS, compounds with non-stick and waterproof properties, used in industry and present in everyday objects: Teflon products, food packaging, textiles, automobiles.
Germany and France in the front line
The production plants are mainly located in Germany, the cradle of industrial chemistry with the establishment in particular of the Archroma companies and the Americans 3M Dyneon and WL Gore, and in France with Arkema and Daikin south of Lyon, but also Chemours and Solvay.
“Next comes the United Kingdom with three sites, Italy (two), then Poland, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium (one)”, adds The world. From these locations but also from the identification of current or past industrial activities, the journalists identified 21,500 “presumed contaminated” sites in Europe, in particular areas around airports, which use fire-fighting foams containing PFAS .
The places spared are “rare”
“Collected by scientific teams and environmental agencies from 2003 to 2023, the tens of thousands of data collected show it: rare, now, are the places spared by this omnipresent contamination still largely unknown to the public, including the most intimate like ours. own bodies”, adds the daily.
The German, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish health authorities submitted a project to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in mid-January to ban these components, supported by other countries including France, which recently presented its own “action plan”.