Transitioning away from PFAS

How can we transition away from the dangers of PFAS? These forever chemicals are everywhere in our environment and form a huge risk to our health, oftentimes ending up in water as the final sink. Awareness on the negative impacts of PFAS has been known since the early 2000s, yet they are still broadly applied throughout industry. PFAS is a complex issue to tackle due to its beneficial use in many processes and products. It is found in all of our products from kitchenware to necessary medical and safety equipment. With our project, we aim to incentivize industries to phase out the use of PFAS where possible and use regulatory frameworks to push for better alternatives. We are doing this in collaboration with DoMoreForWater, a UvA initiative that brings researchers together to fight for water justice.

• Collaborator: DoMoreForWater

• Students: Nathalia Bastos, Janne van Asselt, Thomas Timmerman  

• Supervisors: Jelger Kroese, Mohammad Sadia, Annemarie van Wezel, Suzanne Hansen and Jobien Monster 

• Cohort: 2025

Challenge

PFAS is still impacting many communities that are directly and indirectly exposed to emissions from industrial waste. It spreads throughout our environment and affects our globe. This impacts biodiversity and ultimately our climate. It also causes cancer, impaired brain and organ function and fertility issues. A few laws have been put in place to restrict the use of certain types of very harmful PFAS, but no regulatory frameworks have been made yet to restrict it in general. Five EU member countries proposed a restriction on the use of almost all PFAS, however, this has been delayed due to the many comments made by both industries and individuals. Within our project, we want to analyse the narratives that industry uses to prevent regulations and see how existing laws can promote the transition. These findings will be used as a tool to investigate how we can facilitate the transition away from PFAS.  

Approach

To address this challenge our research is split into three different approaches. First, we perform a comprehensive background research within different media to gain an understanding of the issues and contexts surrounding PFAS. This includes research into the narratives and regulations of PFAS. Secondly, we perform case studies on the historical and social context of PFAS and other chemicals’ regulation. We take an extra deep look into specific stories about the regulation of PFAS as well as other compounds like DDT, a pesticide that followed a story similar to PFAS. This is with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of narratives and finding out where changes can be made for a better transition. Finally, we set up collaborations and hold interviews with journalists, industry, students and other people involved in the world of PFAS. That gives us a viewpoint in which we could find the ‘raw’ stories behind written comments and other texts, while also bringing different stakeholders together in a currently fractured field of action and research. 

Outcomes

• Gain an understanding of PFAS use and its historical, social and economic context and use this as a tool to change industry behaviour 

• Connect professionals from different fields who are interested in this transitional movement so that a better collaborative effort can be made 

• Write an article for DoMoreForWater and Folia about the findings of this project to connect the public and raise awareness 

• Create a GitHub page to provide code that can be used to assess the comments made on the PFAS restriction in Europe. This is in collaboration with students from the UvA-based AI4business group. 

• Find other ways to effectively share our story, for example via a podcast episode or different types of media