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According to studies, the cost of cleaning up harmful everlasting chemical pollution might exceed £1.6 trillion over the course of 20 years in the UK and Europe, or £84 billion annually.
Additionally, the number of pollution hotspots in Britain is increasing. According to the results of a year-long research by the Forever Lobbying Project, a cross-border investigation involving 46 journalists and 18 specialists across 16 nations, the price of cleanup in the UK will reach £9.9 billion year if emissions stay unregulated and unmanaged.
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), also known as "forever chemicals," are a group of over 10,000 compounds that are produced by humans. They are widely used in consumer goods and industrial processes, and they are produced by a small number of businesses.
PFAS, known for their heatproof, greaseproof, and waterproof properties, are present in nonstick pans, pizza boxes, cosmetics, waterproof clothing, firefighting foam, pharmaceuticals, and more. These qualities, while making them highly useful, also contribute to their problematic nature. Resistant to degradation and persistent in living organisms, PFAS have been associated with infertility, cancer, immune system and hormone disruption, among other health issues.
PFAS are widespread, having been detected in drinking and surface water across the UK, making remediation a complex and extensive challenge. Contamination hotspots include landfills, airports, military sites, sewage outfalls, sewage sludge, industrial sites using PFAS, and areas where firefighting foam has been extensively used.
Recent sampling by the Drinking Water Inspectorate revealed 278 instances of untreated drinking water exceeding recommended maximum levels, alongside 255,610 samples where action is advised to lower PFAS concentrations.
Just to clean up existing legacy pollution in the UK, analysis has found it will cost an estimated £428m every year for the next 20 years, based on existing cost data. This would cover remediating contaminated soils, landfill leachate and to treat 5% of the drinking water in large water supply zones for just the two regulated PFAS compounds, PFOS and PFOA. These costs are conservative, as they only include decontamination costs, not socioeconomic costs or potential costs to the health system. It also assumes that PFAS emissions stop immediately.
“The ‘legacy’ cost scenario we developed represents the minimum costs needed to manage environmental health risks from past actions related to PFAS that are currently regulated,” said Ali Ling of the St Thomas School of Engineering.
The UK Environment Agency has identified up to 10,000 high-risk sites in the UK that are contaminated with PFAS. It is reeling at the potential costs involved in simply investigating four problem sites, before even considering cleanup costs, and has told Defra that the associated bill is “frightening” and way beyond its budget.
“Current remediation of PFAS-contaminated samples is predominantly through high temperature incineration, which is very expensive,” said Dave Megson, a PFAS expert at Manchester Metropolitan University. “Our recent research on landfill wastewater treatment plants shows that some facilities actually create banned PFAS, rather than destroy them. More funding towards developing effective lower cost remediation options is desperately needed to tackle this issue.”
According to Ling, the answer lies in restricting the chemical’s use. “As we move forward, it will be more cost-effective to prevent PFAS from entering the environment through use restrictions and emissions reductions than to pay to treat PFAS in the environment.”
This could prove popular: a YouGov survey commissioned by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) found more than three-quarters of respondents said the use of PFAS known to be toxic should be stopped immediately or subject to more effective controls. The most popular control measure the UK public would accept is increased regulation on industries using PFAS, requiring them to reduce and reverse the contamination caused by their processes.
The RSC is calling for public protections from toxic PFAS to be enshrined in the recent water special measures bill, which is now at the committee stage.
“No one chooses the water that comes out of their tap. This bill is a crucial first step, and we also urge government and industry to build upon this change by creating a national inventory of PFAS and enforcing stricter limits on industrial discharges,” said Stephanie Metzger, the RSC’s chemistry policy adviser.
Environmental groups have criticised the government for what they say is a weak chemicals regulatory system.
“These figures show that the cost of regulatory inaction on PFAS pollution is staggering,” said a spokesperson for environmental charity ChemTrust. “The UK government has inherited a toxic legacy and must act now to urgently ban these chemicals to protect people and wildlife from the adverse impacts of these toxic, forever chemicals.”
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told the Guardian it is taking action and has begun investigating whether to restrict PFAS in firefighting foams among other measures. It also pointed to water regulator Ofwat’s 2024 price review, which allows for £2bn of investment to improve water quality, including work on addressing PFAS.
“This government is committed to protecting the environment from the risks posed by chemicals,” it said in a statement. “We are rapidly reviewing the environmental improvement plan to deliver on our legally binding targets to save nature, which includes how to best manage the risks posed by PFAS.”
