’Forever chemicals’ found above threshold levels in many water bodies in Europe

13 December 2024

The European Environment Agency has released the data on PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals” and the amounts of them found in Europe, in rivers, lakes, transitional and coastal. PFAS pollution in watercan harm human health and the environment.

Monitored data indicate that one of those chemicals, perfluorooctane sulfonate or PFOS, is widespread throughout European waters, often exceeding regulatory threshold. From 2018 to 2022, 51-60% of rivers, 11-35% of lakes and 47-100% of transitional and coastal waters exceeded the annual average environmental quality standards for PFOS.

Samples were analysed across the EU, Norway, and Iceland.

According to the European Environment Agency, monitoring activities need to be expanded to provide more information on a greater range of PFAS across a wider geographical area. More sensitive analytical methods are also required.

The widespread presence of PFOS and potentially many other PFAS in Europe’s water is a clear challenge to the EU’s zero pollution ambition for a toxic-free environment. It also compromises the EU policy target of achieving good chemical status for Europe’s water bodies by 2027 at the latest, as laid out in EU policy.