Environmental campaigners have criticised a “crushingly disappointing” UK government plan to tackle “forever chemicals”, which they warn risks locking in decades of avoidable harm to people and the environment.
The government said its Pfas action plan set out a “clear framework” of “coordinated action … to understand where these chemicals are coming from, how they spread and how to reduce public and environmental exposure”.
But campaigners described the plan as “incredibly weak” and criticised its failure to match tough action taken in Europe, where national governments are already banning chemicals on the grounds of public safety before EU-wide action.
Already thought to be in the blood of every person on the planet, man-made per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (Pfas) – a family of thousands of chemicals – are used in a huge range of consumer products, from waterproof clothing to electronics.
They are prized for their indestructible and non-stick properties, with chemical bonds so strong they will not break down in the environment for tens of thousands of years, earning them the moniker “forever chemicals”.
Evidence is emerging of multiple harms to human and environmental health from Pfas, with two of the previously most widely used forever chemicals now largely banned after research linked them to multiple forms of cancer.
Research last year found that almost all English waters had Pfas levels above proposed safety limits. Dolphins, otters, porpoises, fish and birds across the UK have been found to have the chemicals in their tissue and organs.
Introducing the plan, Emma Hardy, the environment minister responsible for chemical pollution, said Pfas posed “a long-term challenge for not only our health, but that of the nation’s vital ecosystems”, adding that the government would “act decisively to reduce their harmful effects”.
Measures include the launch of a consultation on setting a statutory limit for Pfas in England’s public supply regulations, more testing and monitoring of England’s estuaries and coastal waters, tests on food packaging to ascertain whether they contain Pfas, and the publication of a website “to raise the public’s awareness and understanding”.
Chloe Alexander, chemicals policy lead at Wildlife and Countryside Link, described the document as a “crushingly disappointing framework that ducks the hard decisions”.
She said the measures fell far short of plans in Denmark and France, which have already banned Pfas in some consumer products – including clothes and cosmetics – and taken action to clean up contaminated sites. Moves are already under way at the EU level to impose a bloc-wide restriction on their use.
Shubhi Sharma, a scientific researcher at Chem Trust, said the government’s calls for more information were redundant and amounted to a delaying tactic.
“This is not the action plan we were expecting – action has been deferred to an indefinite date in the future,” she said.
Dr Mohamed Abdallah, chair in environmental chemistry at the University of Birmingham, said: “Given the significant risks posed by Pfas to human health and the environment, it is encouraging to see the UK is taking an active, holistic approach to regulating them and minimise the harmful effects before it’s too late.”
But Prof Patrick Byrne, reader in hydrology and environmental pollution at Liverpool John Moores University, said: “A major blind spot in the plan is that we don’t actually know how much of these chemicals are entering the environment, or where they are coming from.
“Simply measuring Pfas concentrations, or increasing monitoring as the plan suggests, won’t solve this problem. What we need instead is to measure Pfas loads – the total amount released from different industries and contaminated sites. This allows us to identify the biggest polluters and target cleanup efforts where they will have the greatest impact.”
