At present, the regulation of chemicals is generally based on the detection of any adverse effect on human health and the environment. It’s an approach that’s not appropriate for extremely persistent substances. For if the many PFASs on the market continue to be used until their adverse effects have been documented in detail, considerable quantities of these substances will end up in our environment. They’ll then be irretrievable and will circulate in the environment for decades or even centuries, contaminating human food and drinking water.
For essential applications only
The increasing concentrations in the environment will inevitably lead to toxic effects sooner or later – of this there can be no doubt, even if we don’t yet know the details of those effects. That crucial aspect alone calls for the regulation of chemicals on the basis of their extreme persistence; this would be a major step forward in environmental policy.
The applications of the many PFASs are so diverse (and subject to such very different legal regulations) that there’s no simple, immediate solution to the problem. One possibility, however, is to distinguish systematically between essential and non-essential applications of PFASs. Certain industrial applications under extreme conditions could be considered essential for the time being, such as the use of PFASs in hydraulic fluids, insulating and sealing materials in the aerospace industry, and hard chrome plating, where it’s used to suppress chromium-containing, very toxic spray mists. In many consumer products, however, PFASs are not essential, but add considerably to the harmful impact on humans and the environment. High priority should therefore be given to eliminating such applications.