2025-06-27

BRUSSELS – Two major cross-border investigations into PFAS pollution have played a pivotal role in influencing the debate on chemical policy in Europe. By revealing the vast scale of contamination by these so-called “forever chemicals” and the cost of removing them, they have provided hard evidence to inform high-level EU decisions.
Their findings have recently been cited in documents from both the European Commission and Parliament — a clear sign that investigative reporting is having a real impact on public policy.

The new European Commission's Water Resilience Strategy, published in June 2025, references the results of the Forever Lobbying Project. This project involved 46 journalists from across Europe,and revealed the cost of cleaning PFAS contamination in Europe if emissions remain unrestricted.

“The economic cost of cleaning up PFAS* contamination in Europe has been estimated to range from €5 to €100 billion per year. The water sector alone is facing an increase in costs of up to €18 billion per year for drinking water treatment, and the cost of wastewater treatment and sewage sludge management is estimated to be even higher.”

At the same time, the European Parliament brief Targeted scrutiny of the EU chemicals strategy for sustainability cites data from the Forever Pollution investigation, spear-headed by Stéphane Horel, Tim Luimes and Datadista, published in 2023. The latter became a groundbreaking point in Europe’s conversation about chemical contamination, as it was the first attempt to map PFAS-polluted sites across the continent, revealing the true scale of the problem. Through data collected by journalists, scientists, policy makers and citizens can now make use of the maps showing nearly 23,000 confirmed PFAS-polluted sites and over 21,000 more likely hotspots across the continent.

Both investigations were supported by the Environmental Investigative Journalism grant programme, part of Earth Investigations initiative financed by Arcadia.

*PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of man-made chemicals often called ‘forever chemicals’ because they do not break down in the environment or in the human body, and they are widely used in industrial processes and everyday products like non-stick cookware, water-repellent clothing, food packaging, and firefighting foam. Almost indestructible without human intervention and persistent in living organisms, humans included, PFAS have been linked to many health concerns because they can accumulate in the human body over time and have been associated with serious health issues, including cancer, liver damage, thyroid disease, decreased fertility, immune system disruption, and developmental effects in infants and children.