Our team has estimated a range of costs of PFAS remediation in Europe on two different scenarios:

In the ‘legacy’ scenario, where emissions cease immediately and only legacy PFAS – long-chain PFAS that received the first regulatory attention for restriction and phase out (such as PFOS and PFOA) – are remediated, then the cost is about €95 billion over 20 years.

In the ‘emerging’ scenario, where emissions continue and remediation efforts include short-chain and ultra-short chain PFAS, like TFA, which are difficult to deal with, then costs rise to around €2 trillion over the next 20 years. A phase out of these difficult to remediate, emerging PFAS would be needed to lower this 20-year estimate, otherwise remediation could cost over 100 billion euros per year in perpetuity.

These calculations do not include a wide variety of unknown costs due to a lack of knowledge and data sources, meaning they are underestimated. Ongoing innovations have the potential to lower the remediation costs, but the most economical option is to lower emissions.

Workers’ boots on the Oosterweel construction site, in Zwijndrecht, Belgium, a couple of kilometres away from the 3M PFAS facility that has contaminated the whole area, February 2024 (Photo: Stéphane Horel).