PFAS concern, time for urgent action

The Waste Management and Resource Recovery Association of Australia (WMRR) is again calling on the federal government to act now to immediately ban all types of PFAS — not just a handful and from next year.

The waste and resource recovery industry read with concern about the presence of PFAS being found in drinking water; however, it said this is not unexpected.

“The reality is PFAS is everywhere. It is not just in water, it is present in items we all use every day — simply head to the supermarket and you can buy materials off the shelf that contain PFAS at far higher levels than being found in water at present,” WMRR Chief Executive Officer Gayle Sloan said.

A 2023 study by the University of Queensland, published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials Letters and funded by in part by the Australian and Queensland Governments, found consumer products contained various concentrations of up to 29,000 parts per million.

For example, the study found dental floss contains 15 parts per billion (ppb) of PFAS, microwave popcorn bags have 18,200 ppb and cosmetics up to 10,500 ppb.

“Australia is yet to sign the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants or so-called ‘forever chemicals’, which Europe did over a decade ago. That means a whole raft of products and chemicals can still be sold in Australia that cannot be overseas — resulting in Australia increasingly being the dumping ground for these chemicals.

“Australia needs to act to turn off the PFAS tap, and we need to do it now, otherwise we will keep finding it in water, recycled products and kitchen shelves!” Sloan said. “And if the federal government believes there is no need to act now, they should step up and say so.

“The waste and resource recovery industry has been calling on the federal government for years for much tighter restrictions on what can be placed on market containing PFAS and how it is managed, including labelling and registration schemes.

“In 2025, the federal government is proposing to ban less than five of the more than 4000 types of PFAS in existence.

“WMRR believes this is simply too little, too late. Too little because the ban should be on all types of PFAS, otherwise the government will simply be playing catch-up as companies switch to other types of PFAS. And too late because the European Union moved to ban PFAS years ago and the United States has introduced tougher drinking water standards and moved to eliminate it from food supply.

“There needs to be urgent action on this, not future promises. This material needs to be prevented from circulating in the environment in the first place,” Sloan said.

Image credit: iStock.com/Francesco Scatena