Cleaning up Europe’s waters and soils from “perennial pollutants” (PFAS) would cost at least €95 billion over 20 years – under the most favorable conditions – and the bill could reach €2,000 billion, according to multi-media survey coordinated by French newspaper Le Monde.

What are PFAS chemicals?

The research was done as part of the “Forever Lobbying Project” media consortium on perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkylated substances (PFAS).

This research follows an extensive study released in 2023 which showed that there are “at least 23,000 places contaminated” on the continent by these chemicals known to their anti-adhesive properties and her their resistance to water and stains.

Almost indestructiblethe “eternal pollutants” include over 4,700 molecules and accumulate over time in the soil, in rivers and in the human body.

In the case of exposure for a long period, they can have consequences on fertility or favor the appearance of some forms of cancer according to early studies.

Sign from US National Wildlife Federation warns hunters in Michigan not to eat deer due to high levels of toxic chemicals in their meat

The “high” and the “low price”

To calculate the cost of the cleanup, the media, in collaboration with two researchers, relied on “the scarce scientific and economic information available,” as well as “local data collected by cleanup pioneers.”

The lower cost – 4.8 billion euros per year – responds to a “unrealistic scenario” with “overly optimistic” conditions: no more PFAS pollution already “from tomorrow”, limited decontamination in priority areas and currently regulated pollutants – ignoring new substances used since “the early 2000s”.

If the pollution continues and the community proceeds with an extensive cleanup, “the bill would rise to 2,000 billion euros over 20 years, i.e. 100 billion euros per yearaccording to “Le Monde”, especially as “decontamination poses a huge technological and logistical challenge”.

This is because this calculation “does not include either the impact of PFASs on our health systems, or a myriad of negative externalities that are too difficult to quantify,” the French newspaper adds.

The higher cost “is very likely the most realistic» scenario, notes Le Monde.

For example, some advanced water filtration techniques use a lot of energy and water. Conventional incinerators, which are not powerful enough, also do not allow the destruction of PFAS in household waste, the research points out.

Because of the huge amounts needed, “limiting the release of PFAS is imperative to stop the bill rising,” the French paper concludes.

This investigation, which is based on “thousands of documents”, also reveals a campaign by industrialists, characterized as “harassment of public authorities by an armada of lobbyists”, which aims to “soften, even bury” a plan to ban PFAS at European level.