No one is immune. These forever chemicals are in the water we drink, the food we eat, the cosmetics we use. PFAS exposure is linked to some cancers, reduced fertility, and developmental harm in children. This pollution costs the EU at least €152–184 billion per year - nearly matching its entire annual budget.
This isn’t an accident. For decades, some of the companies that make PFAS knew about the risks and kept producing anyway. We want to change this.
When your bath overflows, you close the tap before getting the mop. PFAS is a group of more than 10,000 chemicals. Regulating them one by one has failed for thirty years: every time one is banned, industry swaps it for a near-identical cousin that isn’t banned yet, and the exposure continues under a different name.
It’s a broken promise. The EU’s chemical law aims to “ensure a high level of protection of human health and the environment”.
European leaders must stand firm in defending this promise, rather than yielding to polluters and vested interests. As citizens in action, we demand they uphold that commitment: turn off the tap on PFAS pollution and close the door on industry-written loopholes.
covering the entire chemical family, with no unjustified exemptions. Where truly essential uses exist, any exemption must be time-limited, transparent, justified and associated with other control measures.
companies that knowingly contaminated our air, water, and soil must cover the clean-up costs -not taxpayers- and compensate heavily affected communities.
The decision is being made right now, with or without us.
In 2023, five European countries; Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, proposed a Europe-wide PFAS ban 4.
In the next few months, the European Commission will propose a law to ban PFAS and EU countries will vote on it. As the process reaches its most important stage, industry lobbying gets stronger. Investigation has shown that an orchestrated lobbying and disinformation campaign is going on, run by hundreds of companies across around 15 sectors, aiming at watering down or killing the ban.
What’s missing is the public pressure to make sure this process doesn’t get quietly weakened behind closed doors
We are all exposed to PFAS 2
12.5 million Europeans live in areas where drinking water is contaminated with PFAS.6
1,000+ years is how long some PFAS persist in the environment and our bodies11
€52-84 billion/year are the estimated health costs of PFAS pollution in Europe
We are a movement of concerned citizens, scientists, activists, NGOs, affected communities, parents - and we believe no one should have to pay for corporate pollution with their health, their water, or their children’s future.
This campaign has been launched by The Bridge and the EEB
This campaign is based on scientific evidence. You can find below our sources. And below the latter, extra sources to know more.
