EU Mulls Banning 'Forever Chemicals' in 2025
Who said the EU isn't good for anything (me)? Well, if it materialises, the PFAS ban will be due to individual countries teaming up and going through the EU process, not due to the EU itself
A month ago, we talked about so-called ‘forever chemicals’—highly toxic, very long-lasting (hence their name), and bio-accumulating compounds—that likely harm you:
Now, this topic appears to pick up steam in Nordic legacy media, if the below references are any indication.
We’re at the point now that the Norwegian Green Party (Miljøpartiet) is advocating for a EU/EEC-wide ban on ‘forever chemicals’, which are found, among other things, in outdoor jackets (Goretex™) and non-stick cookware.
And, of course, since we’re talking the Greens, there only solution is a blanket ban (which is, and always has been, the second-best option): why not mandate a black box label—which should be done with pharmaceuticals, too—and let both Mr. Market and the ‘sovereign consumer’ decide?
I suppose we cannot have that better option, if only the chemical industry appears stronger than Big Tobacco was a generation ago.
Translation, emphases, and [snark] mine, as are the bottom lines.
Greens Want to Ban Goretex Jackets and Teflon Pans as Soon as Possible
By Sverre Lilleeng, NRK, 26 Dec. 2024 [source]
The chemicals that make our jackets water-repellent can be harmful to health.
‘If we are concerned about taking care of people’s health, the Norwegian government should take action now, not sit and wait for the EU’, says Ingrid Liland, deputy leader of the Green Party [there are two bad things in this short statement: first, I can’t recall any of the Greens here in Norway being against the modRNA poison/death juice or for banning these products; second, it shows the relative power distribution between a small country (Norway) that is not in the EU but in the EEC vs. ‘Brussels’: if the latter sneezes, the former catches a cold…].
She is concerned that Norwegians are ingesting too many chemicals that are not disappearing.
Where your great-grandmother might have had to stand and scrub the iron pan clean after dinner, by the 1950s there were pans with a coating that worked almost like magic. Nothing got stuck [but you cannot scrub it like a skillet, for if you do, these highly toxic chemicals are getting into your food].
In the same way, PFAS substances were put into clothing, cosmetics, and kitchen utensils. It seemed absolutely brilliant!
But then came the first signs that the chemicals could be harmful. And that’s not all. PFAS disappear very slowly from the environment. So slowly, in fact, that the more than 10,000 chemical substances are referred to as forever chemicals.
In recent years, there have been a steady stream of new reports and studies on what PFAS can do to our bodies, and where they are found. Like, for example, there are many such pollutants in make-up and other body care products [here, NRK links to the piece I’ve discussed in the top-linked article].
Things Take Time
Together with four other countries, Norway has backed a proposal to ban all hazardous chemicals in Europe [I’ll be discussing this one below]. According to the Norwegian Environment Agency, PFASs are pollutants and ‘among the most disturbing substances we surround ourselves with’.
More than a year and a half has passed since this process started in the EU [in mid-2023]. Along the way, 100,000 pages of consultation responses have been received [lol, that would be: stuff submitted mostly by the chemical industry, I suppose…].
The process surrounding the new regulations will continue until 2025, and the goal is still to ban PFAS in things like cosmetics, food packaging, and clothing.
But this is too slowly for the Green Party [because, as revolutionaries, things can never be ‘good enough’ or ‘due process’ cannot be the only thing, which is: faster, higher, wider things must be changed].
Will Not Wait
The more research is done on PFAS, the more serious the effects appear to be. This is already a public health problem.
Ingrid Liland of the Greens believes that Norwegian companies will gain more advantages than disadvantages if they have to comply with a special Norwegian ban [as stupid as this sounds, if the outcome would be clear—e.g., a total ban on PFAS in the EU/EEC, then this is actually a useful thought]:
We can repair our health before other countries do, and we can have companies and businesses making healthy products before the rest of the world does.
That’s why she believes the government should move towards its own ban in Norway [this is hilarious in terms of policy: a Green [commie] party hack—who like all other party apparatchiks across Norway, by the way, relies on gov’t subsidies for their ‘very important political’ work (on average, almost two thirds of all party income is gov’t subsidies)—calls for more gov’t intervention (this isn’t the surprising part) to ensure that domestic businesses will be in a position to outcompete other companies worldwide]
The practical consequence will be that when you go to the shops, you’ll have to choose a cast iron pan instead of a Teflon pan [that’s a good idea, personally, I’m using a stainless steel one]. We’ll have to buy glass or silicone baby bottles instead of plastic ones [here, I’ll merely note the documented benefits of breastfeeding (only available to women, though, and not ‘for everyone’ because breastfeeding is, of course, a trans-exclusionary female thing, or TEFT, if you like)].
Role Model Norway [ouch]
‘It’s always good when someone shows the way forward. Someone has to be first’, says researcher Hans Peter Heinrich Arp [who apparently is a progressive; faculty bio; X/Twitter handle].
He leads a large EU-funded project on PFAS. Among other things, they have compiled an overview of alternatives to hazardous chemicals for industry.
Arp believes that being early with a ban can bring benefits:
Perhaps we can get the positive effect before the others.
He points out that Norway has been a pioneer in electric cars because of government policy [don’t get me started on that issue: it’s gaslighting galore as the EU intends to ban new combustion engine-powered cars (which, in Norway, don’t come with a 25% VAT compared to first-registered cars); all this ban does are two main things: a) work-arounds, such as ‘biofuels’ and other such shenanigans; and b) a thriving used-car import business (last time I checked, half of all used cars on sale aren’t even put up online as dealers sell them faster)]. At the same time, he thinks it’s good to co-operate with Denmark and Sweden, for example:
If Norway leads the way, other countries will soon follow.
In Favour of Banning PFAS
Usman Mushtaq is State Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Care Services. He believes it’s wrong for the government to ‘wait’ for anyone:
Norway is one of the most important drivers for banning PFASs internationally.
He believes that the government is working in the most effective way to reduce the contamination of PFASs in the environment and in us humans:
All the experience we have indicates that completely separate national measures are demanding and take longer to introduce, and they will have little effect. The most important thing we can do is to stop production, use, and diffusion internationally.
Mushtaq says that research on PFAS is also being carried out here in Norway:
This will give us a better basis for assessing the type of measures that can be taken together with other EU countries and internationally. This is what will ensure that we have less environmental pollution from PFAS.
A Few More Words About PFAS
Thus ends this piece in a rather unsatisfactory, seemingly open-ended way.
Note that Mr. Mushtaq is a member of the left/far-left gov’t currently in office in Norway.
That is to say, it’s hardly surprising that he wishes to have international bans on stuff, even if—as in the case of PFAS or ‘forever chemicals’—it would make sense.
The most troubling thing here, I’d argue, is the utter dependency on the EU regulatory process: why do my taxes go towards a domestic regulatory apparatus when all they do is wait for the EU to move? (To say nothing about the funding for domestic political parties…)
Next up, I’ve got to be be fair here and note that the above-linked NRK piece does link to other ‘concerning’ pieces and data points, which include:
A piece on how PFAS or ‘forever chemicals’ appear to delay puberty among boys; there’s no need to read that piece, which discusses the paper ‘Exposure to Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances and Timing of Puberty in Norwegian Boys: Data from the Bergen Growth Study 2’ that appeared in Environmental Science & Technology, vol. 58, no. 37 (2024) earlier this year. Among its chief conclusions based on data from Bergen, Norway, ‘our findings indicate that certain PFAS were associated with delay in male pubertal onset’. It’s fully open access, and perhaps we can discuss it here before too long, esp. as PFAS exposure appears to lead to (way) lower testosterone biosynthesis capabilities in pubescent boys. Note that the NRK piece cites the lead author stating that the study focuses on 19 out of some 10,000 ‘forever chemicals’, which means ‘we cannot say if our findings are valid for all PFAS’ and that the NRK journo™—incidentally, the very same Sverre Lilleeng—considers PFAS ‘ingenious and problematic’ at the same time: you can’t make up this kind of split personality…
NRK ran a very different piece back in summer 2022 when the Environmental Protection Directorate (Miljødirektoratet) first moved towards banning PFAS because, as the sub-header held, ‘such chemicals were found in human bodies as long after production as forty years’. As regards its most common effects, the piece cites Audun Heggelund, the Environmental Protection Directorate’ chief engineer, as follows:
The most common effects that occur are found in the liver. PFAS can lead to higher cholesterol levels, and we can get a reduced immune response.
Sverre Lilleeng also wrote a piece in summer 2022 indicating that PFAS ‘fall on all our heads when it rains’, adding ‘there is no safe space’, even linking to a somewhat useful BBC reporting from 2022 on ‘forever chemicals’ that opens as follows:
Research shows that rainwater in most locations on Earth contains levels of chemicals that ‘greatly exceed’ safety levels.
These synthetic substances called PFAS are used in non-stick pans, fire-fighting foam, and water-repellent clothes.
Dubbed 'forever chemicals', they persist for years in the environment.
Such is their prevalence now that scientists say there is no safe space on Earth to avoid them.
Bottom Lines
Please bookmark the following link to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), the supreme EU/EEC regulatory authority (sic):
https://echa.europa.eu/hot-topics/perfluoroalkyl-chemicals-pfas
There, you can find a lot of additional information, updates, etc., such as this news item from 20 Nov. 2024 about ‘progress made’ so far:
The basis for the proposed restriction is the fact that PFAS and their degradation products may persist in the environment for a very long period, longer than any other man-made chemical.
Further concerns are their bioaccumulation, mobility, long range transport potential (LRTP), accumulation in plants, global warming potential and (eco)toxicological effects. The EU-wide risk arises from the continued emissions of PFAS into the environment during manufacture, the use phase, and the waste stage.
This restriction dossier is built on the principle that PFAS are to be substituted where already feasible today, or to become feasible in the foreseeable future. At the same time, it provides the possibility for allowing the continued use of PFAS in certain circumstances e.g. where there are no suitable alternative substances or technologies available [so far, exceptions are batteries, fuel cells, electrolysers, and the like], while still ensuring that emissions into the environment are minimised.
Next meetings are scheduled to be held in March 2025, with additional hearings to take place later that year.
I suppose we’ll get howls from the chemical industry about the costs this will impose.
There are precious few things any individual can do rather right away, that is, apart from stoping to use teflon-coated cookware; use metal and/or glass food containers; reduce the amount of plastic-wrapped/packed things you buy in the supermarket (esp. fruit and vegetables).
The most important thing to do, however, is to talk to everybody about it.
Bookmark the website EWG’s Skin Deep, which offers guidance on many contents of such personal care products. If you’re unsure, here’s a few reasons why doing so is time well spent:
Finally, would banning PFAS render the EU a ‘good thing’? I doubt it, for their existence is predicated on the gargantuan bureaucracy that seeks to centralise authority and it won’t stop.
In this context, nothing the EU could do can’t be done at the national or international level: remember CFCs? Mankind banned them without the need for the ECHA, and while I’m unsure this is the perfect comparison, it’s also a highly relevant one.
Imagine if, for instance, one country (Norway) or a group of them—together with Norway, the countries pressing for the total ban of PFAS are Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands—would wish to do something, they could simply raise import duties and/or slap some ‘eco tariffs’ on it plus mandating black box labels. All of this would likely have the same effect on sales and diffusion of ‘forever chemicals’ as it has on cigarette sales and consumption.
Sure, doing this within the EU/EEC framework also means, once in force, it would immediately apply to more places, but then again, I doubt you’d need to sell the banning of dangerous pollutants such as PFAS to the public anywhere.
One last word about the Greens: it’s a breathtakingly stupid scheme to call for a national ban to increase consumption in an ostensibly free-market (sic) economy, and this hare-brained scheme is, I think, a way for the Greens to make them a bit more elect-able ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.
As I said, I’d be in favour of banning these things quite outright everywhere, yet there’s no need to politicise the issue. The one reason Norway’s Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t moved domestically is because they teamed up with like-minded partner agencies in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands and the process, begun in 2023, is actually moving forward.
There is, in short, no need for the Greens to jump on that bandwagon now (one of the other NRK pieces from summer 2023 focuses on a concerned parent who’s gone way ahead of things to protect his family) with the horses well out of the barn and the finishing line coming closer into view.
So, I read this is a highly disingenuous attempt to salvage the Green Party, which, if current polling is accurate, would not be represented in parliament as they would fail to meet the 4% boundary.
Talk about dishonesty among the Greens, which is soaring to new, if unimaginable heights.
"...why not mandate a black box label—which should be done with pharmaceuticals, too—and let both Mr. Market and the ‘sovereign consumer’ decide?"
Because that doesn't adress the issue, and wouldn't work for the very simple reason that chemicals don't care about economic/behavioural theories.
Years ago, ski wax containing PFAS was banned here in Sweden and every year since, samples are taken from the Vasaloppet-course, since it's been in constant use since the 1920s. What is encouraging is that the PFAS disappears from the area quickly, but what is not where it moves to:
Aquifers, ground water, and eventually wells, streams and rivers. It will take generations to be rid of it, and "rid of it" means it will have accumulated in river, lake and ocean beds.
Blanket ban, unless there are products where it simply must be used (health care-tools perhaps?) and marking what few products are allowed would be best, and a good start to banning other cancerous and otherwise dangerous additives too - there's nothing dangerous with a cast iron skillet, except to the bottom line of capitalist profiteers, since a well-made skillet lasts well over a century.
Now, if we could get around to in one scale ban most food additives, and in the other make domestic food production as tax free as possible. . . Might as well dream that Sweden would force foreign lorries and trucks to switch to studded winter tyres when driving here.