“Eternal pollutants”: 5,000 industrial estates must identify and analyze their discharges

Thousands of industrial sites must carry out a campaign to “identify and analyze” their PFAS emissions, these chemicals nicknamed “eternal pollutants” that are increasingly worrying, according to a decree published this Tuesday in the Official Gazette.

The text thus defines “the procedures for a campaign for the identification and analysis of per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances that must be implemented in the aqueous discharges of certain facilities classified for the protection of the environment subject to authorization”.

It establishes that twenty PFAS substances will be mandatory analyzed.

Three months to establish a list of “eternal pollutants”

Virtually indestructible, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFASs (a family of more than 4,700 molecules) accumulate over time in the air, soil, river water, food and even in the human body, hence their nickname “eternal pollutants”.

In France, they are the subject of growing concern, particularly in the “valley of chemistry” near Lyon, and legal proceedings have been launched by several NGOs and individuals. In the United States, large chemical groups such as 3M, DuPont, Chemours or Corteva have recently had to pay billions of dollars as a result of environmental contamination.

The decree establishes that the company must establish “within three months, the list of PFAS substances used, produced, treated or discharged by its facility, as well as the PFAS substances produced by degradation”. It must carry out “a campaign for the identification and analysis of PFAS substances at each point of aqueous discharge”.

Some 5,000 sites affected

The Ministry of Ecological Transition specifies in a press release that “around 5,000 sites are affected by carrying out this inventory.” The campaign is “aimed at the industrial sectors most likely to reject these substances”: chemical products, textile processing, surface treatment, paper mills, wastewater treatment plants and the waste sector.

Next, the “permanent follow-up” methods will be specified according to this first phase of diagnosis.

In April, a report from the General Inspectorate for the Environment and Sustainable Development (IGEDD) recommended that the Government act “without delay” on products whose “carcinogenicity is suspected.”