The environmental journal ENDS Report, along with journalists from Watershed Investigations released a TV piece today, entitled ‘Toxic’, which highlights the shocking impact of PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ on UK waterways.
River Mersey heavily polluted with PFAS chemicals
They found that the River Mersey has the third worst catchment in the world for recorded levels of toxic perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), a heavily restricted PFAS, banned in some countries. Investigators are concerned that many other rivers around the UK need similar studies and investigations completed to be certain of the scale of the problem. All these toxic chemicals impact life and biodiversity along the course of the waterway before they reach the sea.
United Utilities released a statement in the short film, stating that:
“Wastewater treatment processes are not designed to remove PFAS and there are currently no permit standards for PFAS in treated wastewater.”
In new research published today in the journal American Chemical Society, by Dr Patrick Byrne and others, ‘PFAS River Export Analysis Highlights the Urgent Need for Catchment-Scale Mass Loading Data’– the shocking levels of PFAS chemicals were recorded.
The team estimated that there was “an annual PFAS export of 68.1 kg for the River Mersey and report that the yield of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in the catchment is among the highest recorded globally”.
Some potential sources for PFOS pollution of the waterway could be identified:
“Effluents from wastewater treatments works (WwTWs) are thought to contribute substantial amounts of PFAS to rivers in England.”
The study also suggested that there were a range of possible polluters:
“Although no other sources of PFOS to the river have been confirmed, potential sources of PFOS to the river are widespread in the catchment and include landfills, airports, and consented discharges from construction activities, chemical and textile manufacture, paper mills, metal fabricators, and contaminated land remediation projects.”
The research paper concluded by emphasising the necessity for more data gathering to aim to track down the sources of PFAS pollution, in order to measure the level of loads for each source:
“Our findings highlight the urgent need for catchment-scale mass loading data at high temporal resolution that can locate and ‘bracket’ PFAS sources to rivers and quantify the loads associated with those sources.”
Should the UK move to ban PFAS?
Dr Byrne of Liverpool John Moores University, told Yorkshire Bylines:
“PFAS are probably the greatest chemical threat facing humankind in the 21st century.”
When asked about a ban, Dr Byrne commented that, “A complete ban for the whole class of more than 4000 PFAS compounds will be very difficult to achieve because society and industry are so reliant on them. One major thing that needs to happen is regulation.”
He highlighted the shocking lack of regulation on PFAS chemicals, arguing that UK wastewater treatment works would all fail to pass standards, if regulation was in place.
“Currently, industrial and other [eg wastewater treatment works] effluents are not regulated for PFAS. That is, there are no restrictions on discharge of PFAS into the environment.
“This will hopefully change in the next few years. But if we start regulating WwTW effluents for example, almost all of them across the UK would fail.”
Dr Byrne concluded by suggesting that might be a good first step, but that this would not solve the issue of the PFAS already present in the environment.
“I agree we do need to ban these substances. But it could take decades and we will need a complete shift in consumer and industry thinking and behaviour, as well as a huge investment from government in water treatment to stop PFAS entering the environment.
“But even if PFAS manufacture stopped tomorrow, there is still the legacy, the compounds already in the environment are highly persistent and will take thousands of years to degrade.”
What are PFAS chemicals and how can we avoid them?
PFAS chemicals are a large group of thousands of man-made, persistent, bio-accumulative, toxic chemicals, which won’t break down naturally, causing them to be called ‘forever chemicals’. They are found both on, and in, multiple consumer products from make-up, to clothing, to food packaging and cookware.
In the USA, studies have shown that a type of PFAS was found in 97% of blood samples of pregnant women, suggesting that the number of people contaminated with PFAS chemicals could be in the millions, if not billions.
An industry more at risk following Brexit
Sadly, it is not just the waterways which are at risk from PFAS contamination.
In a policy paper released by Defra last week, it was noted that fire fighting foams (FFFs) have clear hazards to firefighters – that they are endocrine disrupting, neurotoxic, carcinogenic and are toxic to the liver.
Although acknowledging that some substances have been restricted, Defra acknowledged that “regrettable substitutions” have been used instead. These regrettable substitutions are simply where one toxic and harmful chemical is replaced by another one equally as harmful.
“Several substances used as flame retardants are already subject to restrictions (under UK REACH and other regulations). In some cases, this has led to regrettable substitution with other substances that have similar hazard profiles.”
The entire fire-fighting industry – with over 30,000 full time employees – is at risk of having significant amounts of PFAS in their blood, creating a major factor in terminal diseases, with firefighters having an increased cancer incident rate than the general public.
“Over 4% of surveyed firefighters were found to have a cancer diagnosis, with the age-specific cancer rate up to 323% higher (35–39 year olds) than that of the general population. Firefighters who had served ≥ 15 years were 1.7 times more likely to develop cancer than those who had served less time.”
Just like the fossil fuel issue, turning the tap off on PFAS pollution, is the number one action that companies and governments need to do. The full extent of PFAS contamination may not be known for several years – but what we do know is enough to act upon.
Leading European politicians were found to have levels of PFAS in their blood which exceeded existing safety threshold levels following a study completed last month.
This study was part of an awareness-raising campaign from NGOs to put pressure on the EU to debate a potential ban on the chemicals.
The UK however, appears to be much further from even debating a potential ban on PFAS chemicals and instead is widening the gap on protecting workers from hazardous chemicals, especially endocrine disrupting chemicals.
Brian has lived in North Yorkshire for over 10 years. He is very interested in climate related issues and has recently edited a climate book due for release later this year. Air pollution and chemical pollution are particular areas of interest for him. Follow him on Bluesky
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