On 15 January, members of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) visited the North Yorkshire town of Bentham, which has the highest levels of Pfas contamination in the UK.
Pfas (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances), colloquially known as “forever chemicals”, do not break down or break down naturally. This persistence gives it special properties useful in both industrial and consumer products.
However, it also means that once they are discarded, they accumulate in nature and in the bodies of living things. Although the effects of this bioaccumulation are not yet fully understood, there is growing evidence that it is associated with cancer, immunosuppression, infertility, and developmental problems.
MPs heard from cancer patients who wondered if high levels of Pfas in their blood were linked to their poor health. Some wondered if they had put themselves at risk by foraging for local food or fishing in nearby rivers. The worst part, they heard, was not knowing the impact the chemicals were having on the community.
The visit was the penultimate evidence-gathering session of the commission’s inquiry into the risks of Pfas, and on Thursday the commission published its recommendations.
The most important of these calls for urgent restrictions on the use of PFA in consumer products such as school uniforms, cookware and food packaging, with the ban required to start next year.
“The longer we wait to address the risks of Pfas, the greater the health, economic and environmental costs will be,” the lawmakers warned.
Bentham’s Pfas contamination is on an industrial scale, a legacy of decades of producing firefighting foam in local factories.
But this is an extreme example of a widespread problem. Despite having existed for less than a century, Pfa has become ubiquitous. They are now “in the blood of most of the world’s population,” MPs heard during the inquiry.
The EAC’s report comes after the government released an outline of its plan to tackle Pfas earlier this year, a document that has been derided by environmentalists as “deeply disappointing”. The commission echoed this criticism, saying the plan “lacks decisive action”.
EAC chairman Toby Perkins said its publication was an “important step”. “But it doesn’t go far enough. It seems like a plan to end up with a plan rather than a concrete set of commitments to reduce and remediate Pfas.”
Instead, the committee called for group-based restrictions on the entire class of Pfas to avoid a “whack-a-mole” approach when industry introduces new, potentially more harmful substances to replace banned substances.
Labor MP Perkins said: “There is no need to panic, but we do need to take sensible precautions.”
“Our report calls on governments to phase out the use of clearly non-essential Pfas, such as in kitchen equipment and school uniforms, and to take a precautionary approach to approving new Pfas.
“Companies should require approval before introducing new Pfas substances, rather than waiting for evidence that the chemicals are harmful before banning them.”
Dr Shubhi Sharma of the Chem Trust was one of the many environmental activists who welcomed the report.
“Swift and decisive action in line with the EU’s universal Pfas restriction is urgently needed in the UK to protect both public health and the environment,” she said.
Some people were not so convinced. Jonathan Klymark, program director at chemicals watchdog group ChemSec, said the report’s recommendations were too limited.
“The UK has said it should avoid a whack-a-mole approach to Pfas, but it is only proposing to whack a few small moles, and it hardly needs a whack to finish it off,” he said.
ChemSec calculated that only 20% of Pfas exposure in the population came from consumer products. “Yet, the commission makes no mention of industrial uses or pesticides, which are a huge source of Pfas contamination,” Clymark said.
