Regulating PFAS Forever Chemicals
This is a revised version of a talk I gave on 20 October at a UCL seminar organised by Sir Richard Macrory. The seminar celebrated a recently published book, EU Environmental Policy and Law: Reflections at 50, co-edited by Richard
On Law Pod UK episode 245, Richard and I discussed chapters on enforcement of environmental law which he wrote or co-wrote.
This post and my talk were inspired by another chapter in the book, on EU chemicals legislation, and written by Professor Moreno.
PFASs – the problem
PFASs (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances) are a nightmare set of substances to regulate. There are estimated to be more than 10,000 different substances. They are synthetic chemicals, containing a chain of carbons with fluorine atoms attached – the covalent bond between those atoms is one of the strongest there is.
The header photo, by the US EPA, is of a commonly found Carbon 8 or C8 PFAS, known as PFOA. They have been manufactured since the late 1940s.
PFASs’ selling points are precisely the reasons why they need regulating. They are heat-resistant (only way to break them down definitively is to burn them at 1100C plus), fat resistant and waterproof.
They have been used as firefighting foam, where they are mixed with water and sprayed over an outside fire. In retrospect, this is a perfect way of introducing PFASs into the nearby soil and groundwater.
They are used in wrappers for greasy fast food and in waterproofing clothing, in machinery, seals and membranes. They are found in or derive from pharmaceuticals and agrichemicals.
They are now found everywhere in the environment, including in humans, other animals and fish. A recent European study appears to have found PFAS in the blood of all 12-18 year olds sampled from nine different EU countries (just under 2,000 in the study), with higher concentrations in those who consumed more eggs and fish.
Concentrations in the livers of polar bears, another apex predator, are increasing, as PFASs circulate around the oceans. PFASs are also to be found in the atmosphere.
It is more difficult to generalise about their toxicity, as only a relatively few PFASs have been studied in detail and over a long period.
There are concerns about liver damage, thyroid disease, kidney and testicular cancer, and effects on reproduction and foetal development.
Some of this toxicology (going back to the 1960s and 1970s) is well known to me; ten or so years ago, I spent some months working on a fire fighting foam case involving PFOS (another C8 PFAS, and one of the few individual PFASs now banned).
EU REACH
Now to current regulation. Start with the EU REACH Regulation 1907/2006. REACH is an acronym that isn’t quite an acronym; the second R in its long title (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals) is an important one.
REACH is administered by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). Prof Moreno explains the system in 20 exemplary pages of the book.
He identifies what he describes as the lights and shadows of the regime.
The lights include the requirement that manufacturers must submit detailed scientific and toxicological information to the ECHA before placing the substance on the market. ECHA may request further data to assist in its evaluation. Specific authorisation may be needed for a substance or a restriction imposed upon its use(s).
The shadows include the fact that Member States cannot introduce more stringent measures, and must wait for consensus within the ECHA
Most importantly, the decision-making process is very slow and cumbersome, involving input from four different committees into the ECHA.
The Regulation is highly complex and technical; as Professor Moreno puts it, chemistry here is the king, and the average lawyer may feel lost. It is now a 600 page Regulation.
UK REACH
We in Great Britain are subject to our very own “UK Reach” – though Northern Ireland is still subject to EU Reach. UK Reach is a very similar system, and hence similarly complex, but so far as relevant the list of regulated substances stopped being updated on Brexit day, unlike the regularly changing list attached to EU REACH. So it is catch up time for the UK.
SPECIFIC PFASs
The international Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) is part of EU law (2019/1021 – and part of UK assimilated law) and the UK is a party to the Convention. The Convention has banned PFOS and PFOA as POPs. The UK is just about to update its regulations for post-Brexit additions to the Convention, with effect from 16 December 2026.
FORTHCOMING CHANGES
Most importantly, we are on the cusp of what may be a complete change in approach by the EU in respect of PFASs and REACH. This has wide implications for PFAS regulation and possible UK divergence.
To date, EU regulation and restriction has been in terms of certain specified chemicals or classes of chemicals in certain applications (e.g. a recent EU regulation (2025/1988) directing that the use of PFAS in aqueous fire fighting foam be phased out).
But the current proposal from the ECHA to amend REACH would go far wider. It seeks to restrict the manufacture, marketing and use of all PFASs (i.e. all the 10,000 different substances), subject to very specific derogations.
After a three year run-up, the ECHA is expected to transmit its final opinion to this effect to the European Commission by the end of 2026. See the excellent briefing prepared for the European Parliament, which is linked to many of the underlying scientific and policy documents in this process.
This would be a new approach by the ECHA/EU, with advantages and disadvantages. One obvious advantage is speed.
You don’t need to wait for years of toxicological testing on one individual PFAS or type of PFAS before you restrict its use. You just do it, from a set date, and the market has to adjust.
You cut out the consequences of continued use in the meanwhile. The disadvantage is the flip side – you don’t have tailored information on the toxicology of all the specific substances which you intend to ban.
But this approach would avoid another problem. You ban one formulation, and a clever manufacturer comes up with a tweak to its chemical composition taking the substance outside the ban. The environmental and toxicological consequences may be as bad if not worse than those of the banned substance.
As one expert, Professor Elsie Sunderland, described it, you are “playing this game of chemical whack-a-mole” with the regulators endlessly chasing information to justify or ban the new unregulated and undetected substance.
The chemical companies may not of course take such an EU change lying down. They may argue that the blanket ban is disproportionate and it cuts against the grain of the precise regime set down by REACH.
Where does the UK stand? We don’t yet really know because the ECHA and the Commission have not yet said their final piece. But the runes suggest that the UK will not go that far.
If this is where we end up, there will be a major divergence between the UK and the EU, though Government tells us that divergence should only be when there are compelling reasons for it.
The economic consequences will be predictable; PFASs banned in the EU might find their way into the British market, and GB export trade to the EU would have to adjust to the new EU rules.
The UK is however considering banning PFAS use in non-essential items, where either PFAS is not critical to the product, or the product cannot justify the use of PFAS in it – but not in other cases. But it is saying, in a June 2026 statement, that that is a difficult line to draw with such a large group of chemicals: p.6.
So far, I have been talking about restrictions on the manufacture and sale of PFAS.
DOWNSTREAM
But there is now in place a raft of recent EU provisions dealing with monitoring and regulating downstream PFAS concentrations.
There are EU PFAS thresholds in the current Drinking Water (2020/2184), and Surface and Groundwater (as amended by 2026/805) directives.
The new Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (2024/3019) will require monitoring of PFAS when discharged from treatment works; note that the processes in the works do not destroy or modify PFASs – and ordinary sludge treatment processes simply move the problem onto agricultural land, and thus potentially into food.
Similarly, the Soil Monitoring Law (2925/2360) will require such monitoring.
There are EU limits for certain PFASs in foodstuffs including fish and meat, and proposals for fruit and vegetables, (and also in packaging waste – the fast food wrappers).
No equivalents to any of these in the UK – though there is non-binding guidance by the Drinking Water Inspectorate to water companies (PFAS at less than 0.01 micrograms per litre) which may, according to the Government, be made binding in due course.
CONCLUSION
The respective EU and UK stances go hand in hand. The EU is moving towards stricter restrictions on use, and it is telling member states to check for PFAS levels in the environment.
The UK is moving more slowly in regulating use, and with non-mandatory downstream monitoring.
The UK’s stance may come at a cost. Prevention is a good deal cheaper than cure. PFAS clean up of whatever sort is massively expensive. There are some numbers out there for total EU projected clean up between now and 2050, from 330 billion euros upwards.
You might be sceptical about the assumptions on which they are based. But one instance of past costs may suffice: the cost of removing 34g of PFAS from the groundwater at one construction site in the heavily PFAS-contaminated town of Doetinchem in the Netherland was more than 1m euros – over 29,000 euros per gram.
Much of this is of course legacy contamination, but the longer the UK carries out light touch regulation, the bigger the bill, or the bigger the hazard.
See more here substack.com
Header image: Water Online
Some bold emphasis added