massively used in the industry for their non -stick properties, impermeable or strong heat, these toxic and persistent chemical compounds are subject to very disparate monitoring from one region to another.
by Stéphane Mandard
The contamination of surface water (rivers, lakes, ponds) by poly- and treacherous substances – the PFAS – is “widespread” and “largely underestimated” in France, alerts the association Futures in a report Posted Thursday, January 12. Nicknamed “eternal pollutants” because of their extreme persistence in the environment and their accumulation in our organism, PFAS are a family of more than 4,500 ultratoxic chemical compounds. They have been massively used in industry since the 1950s for their non -stick properties, waterproof or resistant to hot weather. They are thus found in a multitude of industrial applications (anti-fire foam, paintings, pesticides) and everyday objects (teflon stoves, baking paper, food packaging, textiles, cosmetics, etc.).
The PFAS contaminated all the environments (water, air, soil) and the entire food chain. Also, 100 % of the French population is impregnated by perfluorized compounds, according to a study published in 2019 by Public Health France . Results that can fear a major health scandal, because PFAS are suspected of having multiple deleterious effects, even at very low dose: cancers (kidney, testicle), disturbances of the endocrine system (thyroid), increase in cholesterol levels , decrease in fertility or even delay in developing the fetus. Several studies have also highlighted that they interfere with the immune system and decrease the response to vaccination.
To try to draw up an inventory of the presence of these treacherous compounds in superficial waters, future generations was based on the public database Naïades , which lists all the information on the quality of surface water in France. It is notably fed by PFAS measurement campaigns carried out on an experimental basis since 2014. The NGO has focused on 2020, the most recent year for which all the results are available. The analysis of the samples taken in 2020 shows that the pollution of surface water by the PFAS is “generalized on French territory”: with the exception of Corrèze, Dordogne, Tarn, Martinique and Guadeloupe , we find it in all the departments.
a “generalized” pollution on French territory “
In total, PFAS research has been carried out in nearly 13,000 water samples. According to the calculations carried out by future generations, at least one PFAS (out of eighteen different compounds sought) was found in 36 % of cases, more than a third of the samples. An estimate significantly higher than the figures for the only reference study, carried out in 2011 by the National Health Safety Agency, which concluded that 25 % of water samples contained PFAS.
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