The estimated cost of cleaning up 'forever chemical' pollution in the UK and Europe will be £1.6 trillion over 20 years
Chemical and plastic companies orchestrated a disinformation campaign to water down an EU proposal to ban so-called ‘forever chemicals’, a year-long investigation by the Forever Lobbying Project has revealed.
The cost of cleaning up forever chemical pollution could now reach more than £1.6 trillion across the UK and Europe over the next 20 years.
Furthermore, the UK Environment Agency has identified up to 10,000 high-risk sites in the UK that are contaminated with PFAs and the estimated costs of clean up will reach £9.9 billion a year.
Manufactured by a handful of companies, PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a family of over 10,000 man-made chemicals that do not break down in the environment and can lead to health problems including liver damage, thyroid disease, fertility issues and cancer.
In February 2023, five European member states pressed the European Commission to impose a ban on toxic PFAS.
The research, carried out by 46 journalists and 18 experts from 16 countries, found that industry players have used misleading and scaremongering arguments to keep their “chemical business as usual”.
The Forever Lobbying Project described lobbyists’ tactics as “straight out of the corporate disinformation playbook” and similar to those used to defend the tobacco and fossil fuel industries.
Lobbyists used dubious scientific arguments, including claims that fluoropolymers are too large to harm cells and warned against the generalisation of all PFAs.
In lobbying documents, Plastics Europe and Fluoropolymer Product Group (FPG), which is lobbying for exemptions under the PFAs restriction, cited two industry-backed studies over 900 times.
Both studies were co-authored either by industry consultants or employees of fluoropolymer manufacturers.
Gary Fooks, a professor at the University of Bristol, who carried out a stress test on objections to the proposed PFAs ban, said: “The scale of corporate lobbying around the proposed PFAS restriction is extraordinary.
“It makes the work of other politically active industries, like Big Tobacco, look small-time in comparison”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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