The Forever Pollution Project, established in 2023, is an innovative cross-border collaboration among journalists and experts dedicated to mapping and analyzing PFAS contamination across Europe.
The project uncovered the presence of PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” at nearly 23,000 locations across Europe, and also identified 21,500 additional sites likely affected by contamination due to past or ongoing industrial operations. This efforts resulted in the Map of Forever Pollution, a critical geographical tool illustrating the widespread presence of these persistent pollutants.
Building on this work, the Forever Lobbying Project started investigating the influence of chemical and plastic industry lobbying efforts aimed at preventing the EU ban on PFAS. The interdisciplinary group of experts include Hans Peter Arp from NGI, a relevant partner of ARAGORN project, who has been leading several projects related to PFAS contamination and remediation.
Hans Peter Arp embarked in the challenge of establishing a methodology for evaluating the costs of PFAS decontamination and in a recent article, he states that “The high range of costs of the remediation were not surprising. It was interesting to see how they scaled up per country and per Europe, and to develop the methodology for these cost calculations” and also “The sooner we tackle PFAS remediation and a decrease of PFAS emissions, the cheaper and more impactful remediation actions will be on health costs”.
Other Eu-funded projects share similar research interests with this initiative, particularly in understanding persistent contaminants and the resilience of contaminated lands. ARAGORN develops sustainable and affordable remdiation options for accelerating the pathway towards zero pollution, and ZeroPM looks for alternatives to use instead of PFAS in different sectors.
The findings of both projects highlight the widespread distribution of PFAS pollution throughout the continent. Besides,the project focus on examining the narratives used to oppose regulation and highlighting the broader societal and economic implications of ongoing contamination. It estimates that the cost of PFAS decontamination in Europe could exceed €100 billion annually, reaching €2 trillion over two decades if no measures are taken to curb emissions.
Read more about the impact of the Forever Pollution Project, and about the data and methodologies behind the research.
Also, read the full NGI’s article here.
