Press Statement: A ban on forever chemicals is essential for people and planet

PFAS chemicals can persist for 1,000 years in the environment and their presence within drinking water is a major cause for concern. We need to ban all but their most essential uses to protect both human and environmental health and to reduce the costs of both water and wastewater treatment. The UK Government should also follow the lead of the European Union which has established a PFAS Action Plan, triggering other countries to ban the use of PFAS in textiles and cosmetics.

We find many other chemicals in our aquatic environments beyond PFAS, and we urgently need to adopt a more strategic approach to address them, as we know that inaction costs us environmentally and economically. The government must act to phase out harmful chemicals except for the most essential uses, enforce the use of less harmful substitutes, and adopt the precautionary principle where evidence is incomplete. We also need greater societal awareness of the issue so that we can all use chemicals in a much more sustainable way. Increased funding is also needed to improve the monitoring of chemicals in our wider environment, not just rivers but within soil and air too and known sources of pollution such as landfill sites.

Dr Rob Collins, Director of Policy & Science