00:00The European Commission is planning to launch a vast operation to clean up PFAS in water.
00:10The European Water Resilience Strategy concluded in Brussels on Wednesday.
00:15Environmental associations, which are campaigning for a ban on PFAS at the source, denounce it as a missed opportunity.
00:22We were expecting to see more ambition to cut the pollution at source,
00:25and especially when it comes to pesticides, we see that although it is mentioned,
00:31like we need to cut the pesticide pollution at source,
00:33then let's say the measures that they're taking in order to do that, they're really falling really short.
00:41PFAS are dubbed forever chemicals because they don't easily break down in the environment.
00:46Health costs are estimated at 52 to 84 billion euros a year.
00:51These chemical compounds are anti-adhesive, waterproof, and heat-resistant.
00:56They're also present in many everyday objects, such as nonstick pans, firefighting foams, and medical devices.
01:03The European Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resilience said she was in favor of a ban on PFAS
01:09in certain products, such as cosmetics and food packaging.
01:12However, she points out that it would be difficult to ban all PFAS,
01:16as some of them currently have no effective alternatives.
01:19The problem is that we need PFAS in a lot of different products.
01:26For example, medical products like inhalators, things that you use when you go to a surgery,
01:32or a lot of things that we are, there is no substitution.
01:37Also when it comes to green transition, there is, or semiconductors, or digitalization, or defense industry.
01:43There is a lot of industry that we don't have the substitutions.
01:47The Commission wants to apply the polluter-pays principle for PFAS decontamination
01:52and reserve public funding for sites where it has not been possible to identify who is responsible.
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