The results from PFAS pollution is an “invisible violence", to quote the title of the book by Adriano Zamperini, the psychologist from the University of Padua who studied the effects of pollution on local communities. He dedicated great attention to those of the Vicenza and Verona areas. As we wrote in the first episode of this series dedicated to the costs of PFAS pollution in western Veneto, over 350 thousand people have been exposed to water contaminated by invisible substances, odorless and tasteless. The story began between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, but the extent of the disaster and its consequences were defined only in recent years . For this reason, as well as being invisible, the pollution perpetrated by PFAS is also a "slow violence”, to quote a famous definition by the South African scholar Rob Nixon: a drip, like a leaky tap which, drop by drop, shows the damage it has caused only after a long time.
For the over 23 thousand contaminated sites mapped in the investigation published in 2023, and then resulted in the Forever Lobbying Project in which the authors of this article also participate, the main problem now is another characteristic of PFAS: being “eternal pollutants”. They are in fact synthetic chemical substances which, thanks to their extraordinary stability, have found application in many fields, from the production of water-repellent materials to the foams used by firefighters to contain fires. As we saw in the previous story, the companies managing drinking water in the contaminated area in Veneto reacted to the emergency by introducing water purification measures and searching for new water sources. All of this has a high cost on bills paid by citizens, but it does not solve the problem: the groundwater remains abundantly polluted today. In this second episode of the Forever Lobbying Project, we try to take stock of the technologies available for the removal of PFAS from water and for remediation. With some more general considerations on the political dimension of the problem.
Intermezzo: lobbying to limit bans
Given the enormous damage to the environment and health, and the stratospheric cost scenarios, it is also important to look at the current political vision that European countries express towards the possibility to limit or prohibit the production and use of PFAS altogether.
An interesting starting point to understand how politics is moving and how independent or not it is from the pressures of industrial sectors is the proposal made by five European countries (Denmark, Holland, Germany, Sweden and Norway) to introduce a “universal restriction” of PFAS under the European directive that regulates the chemical sector, the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals). The proposed ban would affect the entire PFAS universe, with exemptions only for some compounds for which alternatives are not yet available on the market at the moment. Of course, the response of the chemical industries didn't wait long. A massive lobbying action led hundreds of companies and associations representing them to present documents and apply pressure by proposing a vast range of arguments to counter and possibly undermine the proposed tender in all possible venues at European level.
The Forever Lobbying Project, born from the coordinated action of 46 journalists from 29 media in 16 European countries, has collected, through requests for access to documents, interviews, consultation of scientific databases and direct contacts also with associations that monitor corporate lobbies in Brussels, such as the Corporate Europe Observatory, beyond 14 thousand documents. These “PFAS papers” have been organized, analyzed and made publicly available for the first time in an open manner through an agreement with two different American archives, the Industry Documents Library of the University of California, San Francisco (where the famous “Tobacco Papers are also preserved”) and Toxic Docs (Columbia University, New York, and City University of New York). In the UCSF database documents are organized and accessible under the Chemical Industry Documents Archive.
More than 8,000 documents among these are related to lobbying by the chemical sector. The journalists of the investigative project, in collaboration with various academics experts, have put in place an analysis and careful fact checking action, verification, control of sources and of conflicts of interest, declared or not, of some scientists who are consultants to companies. A real, well-documented stress test. There is no doubt that in addition to trying to defend these compounds as essential to progress, technological innovation, security, economic development and, ultimately, the economic well-being of European countries and the industrial sector, companies often use an argument already heard in the past and always contradicted by the facts. “There are no alternatives”. In the sense that for many PFAS use there would be no different, less impactful technologies, compounds or solutions. But various research, experiences and many of the documents analyzed demonstrate that this is not always true. In fact, after the ban on the production and use of the first PFAS in Europe, and the public discussion on the opportunity to regulate others too, a series of companies have already independently started research and development actions to find less polluting alternative solutions.
Make water drinkable
Acque Veronesi and Acque del Chiampo were the Italian companies that found themselves managing the emergency since 2013 in the red zone at the crossroads between the provinces of Vicenza, Verona and Padua, when the PFAS case broke out. They quickly implemented activated carbon filters, a technology widely used in water purification, which allows the removal of some substances, in this case PFAS, through a filtration process: the water is passed into contact with a porous activated carbon filter and the substances to be removed are retained because they form both chemical and physical bonds with the filter itself. There is a basis for this process of adsorption, whereby gas or liquid molecules adhere to the surface of a solid or liquid, such as activated carbon. This material is particularly effective thanks to its high specific surface area. Unlike absorption, in which molecules penetrate the material, in adsorption they bond only superficially. This characteristic makes adsorption ideal for water purification, allowing the separation and purification of unwanted substances such as PFAS.
As time goes by, the filters become saturated and must be replaced because they lose effectiveness. The two companies we spoke to confirmed that filters are replaced approximately every two months. In theory, the filters can be remanufactured and reused, as Manuela Antonelli explains. She is an engineer at the Polytechnic of Milan, where she deals with the water cycle with particular attention to technologies for the removal of contaminants. "Activated carbon can be used up to six, seven times without problems", she confirms in a long online interview, after having met her in person during an update workshop on the PFAS problem which was held at the Polytechnic, mainly dedicated to professionals. But the possibility of regenerating, and reusing, activated carbon filters depends on the amount of PFAS that accumulates during their use. However, it is still an issue about which "until a few years ago there was no knowledge and, for example, there was the fear that they would not go away in the regeneration process". Today we know that this is not the case, but companies still prefer to change the filters completely. With the consequence, however, that their replacement makes the costs more significant, as we saw in the first episode of this investigation.
We can only imagine the bewilderment and concern of the technicians of these companies, when they found themselves facing such an invisible, subtle and persistent danger. “Everything has evolved over time,” Massimo Carmagnani, who is the Research and Development Manager of Acque Veronesi, tells us in a long conversation. He explains the costs but also the discovery process of these new pollutants, and the commitment put into finding effective solutions to bring clean and drinkable water to the people. “At first we were told there was a pollutant, but we didn't know it.” Then, the publication signed by the CNR (the 2013 work by Stefano Polesello and Sara Valsecchi we described in our first article) changes everything. “We are hit by this problem and we try to change the filters in the plant, and to use extraction wells where we think there is less pollution, even if at that moment there were no limits to observe. No one had set a limit at the beginning.” Then, over the years, the limits imposed by the Veneto Region arrive, and we understand that the problem is not limited to the two best-known compounds, PFOS and PFOA. We therefore arrive at the concept of technical zero, the minimum level achievable with the available filters and technologies. “With the existing power plant, however, we were unable to reach technical zero in all analyses,” Carmagnani continues. For this reason, it was necessary to invest almost 2 million euros "to create a double carbon filtration that would guarantee this." Carmagnani shows us one series of satellite images from Google Earth, clearly showing how the power plants have changed over time. “At first we had a tank without filters. In 2013, when the problem arose, there were the first filters, introduced by the previous manager to break down the compounds associated with tanning production, typical of this area. And so in that moment we had to adapt these, we had nothing else available. Then in 2017 the filter compartment expanded considerably, as well as the storage tank. Finally, in 2018 we see the construction of the second battery of filters. The power station is still like this today.” The only alternative that managers see today, as we have already said, is to find new sources of supply, given that the current purification costs are very high and that pollution will remain high for decades. “It's clear that we have reached the limit of available technology, in this case. We have been working with these filters for a decade now. We experimented, shared, published. Pushing beyond this is certainly not possible without further investing" Carmagnani concludes.
Other technologies, between scalability and systemic approach
By doing a search in the scientific literature, the quantity of different proposals to reduce or eliminate PFAS it's really high. But “there are two reliable technologies that exist today”, explains Antonelli, “and they are the absorption of activated carbon and the membrane separation technologies, which is the nanofiltration and the reverse osmosis”. Why does the choice almost always fall on activated carbon in water purification and drinking water plants? The fundamental point is that in almost all drinking water plants, such as those managed by Acque Venete and Acque del Chiampo, a section of absorption is already there. As Antonelli explains, "it may be a matter of managing it in a different way to remove the PFAS", but it is a "technology that managers already know very well”. This is in fact confirmed by what Carmagnani told us. He explained very well the progressive development and adaptation of the Acque Veronesi filtration system. Instead, continues Antonelli, “the membrane-based technologies also touch the inorganic composition of water, they remove the mineral salt." It is no coincidence, in fact, that membrane technologies are used in desalination plants of sea water. But water without salt is not ideal for consumption and must, if necessary, be added with the necessary mineral salt. A further step not easily feasible in systems built so far.
When we talk about research and experimentation with alternative technologies, it is necessary to consider a key aspect, the scalability. “The research clearly starts from very small working scales, in the laboratory” explains Manuela Antonelli, “but not all processes tested on a small scale are able to see a transition to larger scales. There are many studies on large-scale technologies that need to be improved and adjusted to remove PFAS effectively. And then, there is a whole line of studies focusing on very new technologies but without a transition on a large scale”. For economic, efficiency, and performance, these technologies could never take the necessary leap to become applicable.
In addition to the issues of scale, there are also fundamental systemic issues. Manuela Antonelli explains that the impact evaluation of a technology cannot be too focused on individual supply chains only. An evaluation of the problem in all its dimensions is needed. To give an example, PFAS can be eliminated from drinking water thanks to activated carbon, which is very powerful today. It is clear that the water manager has an urgent need to guarantee drinking water and PFAS-free to its customers, and therefore that is the priority. But from a general point of view, for example of the institutions managing a territory, we need to look further. The exhausted filters loaded with PFAS which are changed every two months, for example, don't magically dissolve. They must be treated, and the only way to do it effectively is to incinerate them at very high temperatures, over a thousand degrees centigrade. "In the literature, however", specifies Antonelli, "studies on the combustion of PFAS at high temperatures are relatively few". We therefore know well that the incineration process is effective, but we know less well what happens to those fumes, where they end up and what effects they might possibly have. “We have to get used to watching the system as a whole,” Antonelli continues. “Besides using a macro lens, which photographs the individual process very well, we should also use a wide angle, which allows us to understand what the right solution might be to solve a problem without creating another. Otherwise we risk losing sight of some steps, some processes, some impacts."
When "forever" is perhaps a little too much
Dealing with PFAS, continuing the photographic metaphor, is like looking at a photograph at different resolutions simultaneously. You look at it up close, distinguishing the individual pixels that make it up: these are the efforts of water companies to make what comes out of the taps in our homes drinkable, trying to manage an emergency by salvaging what can be saved with the available technology and looking for new water sources. But just widen your gaze a little, lose sight of the detail, and your field of vision is flooded with new forms and questions: are there other technologies under review by science? Perhaps technologies that allow us to think about the medium term with more confidence, finding, for example, alternatives to PFAS for some uses? In these two horizons, investment in research appears crucial to find new solutions, and in this case, the issue is no longer just scientific-technological. It is a stimulus for reflection for society as a whole.
However, we can still broaden our perspective by looking at the photograph at an even higher resolution because all the experts we have heard in Italy, and more generally in the Forever Lobbying Project, emphasize that the PFAS issue must be addressed on a systemic level. At this level, the will or unwillingness to ban the production and use of PFAS under discussion in the European Union comes into play: do we really need a molecule to make frying pans non-stick? Are there really no alternatives to those PFAS used in fire-resistant substances for firefighters? Multiple times, throughout the recent history of industrial chemistry, we have faced bans that were supposed to stop scientific and social development. It happened with the DDT before, and with CFCs later, just to mention two well-known examples: in both cases, different solutions were found that actually stimulated technological development and innovation. So, at this high resolution, the photograph of PFAS we are looking at involves politics, that dimension of our shared life where we question how we want to live today and how we want to live tomorrow.
Credits
The cross-border investigation ‘Forever Lobbying Project’ was coordinated by Le Monde and involved 46 journalists and 29 media partners from 16 countries: RTBF (Belgium); Denik Referendum (Czech Republic); Investigative Reporting Denmark (Denmark); YLE (Finland); Le Monde and France Télévisions (France); MIT Technology Review Germany, NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung, (Germany); Reporters United (Greece); L'Espresso, RADAR Magazine, Facta.eu, Il Bo Live and Lavialibera (Italy); Investico, De Groene Amsterdammer and Financieele Dagblad (the Netherlands); Klassekampen (Norway); Oštro (Slovenia); DATADISTA / elDiario.es (Spain); Sveriges Radio and Dagens ETC (Sweden); SRF (Switzerland); The Black Sea (Turkey); Watershed Investigations / The Guardian (UK), with a publishing partnership with Arena for Journalism in Europe, and in collaboration with lobby watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory.
The investigation is based on over 14,000 previously unpublished documents on “forever chemicals” PFAS. The work included filing 184 freedom of information requests, 66 of which were shared to the team by Corporate Europe Observatory.
The investigation expanded on the ‘expert-reviewed’ journalism experiment pioneered in 2023 with the Forever Pollution Project by forming an expert group of 18 international academics and lawyers.
The project received financial support from the Pulitzer Center, the Broad Reach Foundation, Journalismfund Europe, and IJ4EU. Website: https://foreverpollution.eu.
