2023-06-27 17:00:52
Thousands of industrial sites will have to carry out a campaign “identification and analysis” of their releases of PFAS, these chemicals nicknamed “eternal pollutants” who worry more and more, according to a decree published Tuesday, June 27 in the Official Journal.
The text thus defines “the procedures for an identification and analysis campaign for per- or polyfluoroalkylated substances which must be implemented for aqueous discharges from certain facilities classified for the protection of the environment subject to authorisation”.
It provides that 20 PFAS substances will be compulsorily analysed.
Legal proceedings initiated
Virtually indestructible, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS (a family comprising more than 4,700 molecules) accumulate over time in the air, soil, river water, food and even the human body, d ‘where their pollutant nickname “eternal”.
In France, they are the subject of growing concern, particularly in the “Chemical Valley” near Lyon, and several legal proceedings have been initiated by 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 following environmental contamination.
The ministerial decree provides that the company must establish “within three months, the list of PFAS substances used, produced, processed or released by its installation, as well as PFAS substances produced by degradation”. She must lead “a campaign to identify and analyze PFAS substances at each point of aqueous discharge”.
About 5,000 sites concerned by the completion of the inventory
The Ministry of Ecological Transition specifies in a press release that“about 5,000 sites are concerned by the realization of this inventory”. The campaign is “targeted on the industrial sectors most likely to release these substances” : chemicals, textile processing, surface treatment, paper mills, wastewater treatment plants and the waste sector.
The approach provides “a first phase of three monthly campaigns to measure PFAS in discharges” et “will extend over 9 months to take into account the availability and the capacities of the laboratories which will carry out these samples and analyses”, details the ministry. The terms of a “permanent monitoring” will then be clarified according to this first phase of diagnosis.
Contacted, the NGO Générations Futures, at the forefront of the issue of PFAS, issued several criticisms of the decree. The campaign must “to be widened” to all installations classified for the protection of the environment (ICPE) and not only those subject to authorization, advocates François Veillerette, his spokesperson. It is also necessary “search for more substances” et “use analytical methods that are much more sensitive and with much lower limits of quantification than those proposed”he adds.
In April, a report by the General Inspectorate for the Environment and Sustainable Development (IGEDD) recommended that the government take action ” without delay “ on products whose “carcinogenicity is suspected”. “French regulations on industrial emissions still regulate PFAS releases too little and their monitoring in databases is almost non-existent”worried the authors in particular.
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