PMT substances pose a worrying impact to human health and the environment. This article highlights why it’s crucial to recognize the need for integrated prevention and remediation strategies to effectively combat the challenges these pollutants present
Safe drinking water
Safe and clean drinking water is essential for human life. However, a new generation of pollutants has been increasing in concentration in the sources of drinking water as well as being found more commonly in human blood. These pollutants are called persistent, mobile, and toxic (PMT) substances and very persistent and very mobile (vPvM) substances. By nature, these substances do not break down in the environment over appreciable timescales (persistent). They can travel long distances with water (mobile) and, in some cases, cause negative effects on the ecosystem and humans (toxic).
A well-known example of a group of PMT/vPvM substances is per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are typically used in non-stick pans and Gore-Tex jackets. These substances are now found globally and have coined the name ‘forever chemicals’ owing to their intergenerational presence in the environment.
Daily exposure to harmful substances
Many of us come into contact with PMT/ vPvM substances daily, and the water industry struggles to find remediation methods to remove them from the sources of drinking water. Today, thousands of harmful PMT/vPvM substances are used to produce everyday items, including cosmetics, outdoor garments, and kitchen equipment such as pans and dishware. There is no single current remediation solution that can be used to remove all of the known PMT/vPvM substances from water, let alone those that still remain unknown. One of the most widely used remediation methods is removal via the use of activated carbon; however, this method is not suitable for all PMT/vPvM substances. Reverse osmosis and nanofiltration methods can be used to purify drinking water, but these techniques are energy-intensive and produce a waste concentrate that has to be disposed of or remediated itself.
The cost of inaction
Action is urgently needed to mitigate potential harm. In a report entitled “The cost of inaction: A socioeconomic analysis of environmental and health impacts linked to exposure to PFAS”, costs related to identification, screening and remediation of sites contaminated with PFAS across Europe is estimated to be around €10-20 billion per year. This cost covers immediate interventions and does not account for costs related to, for example, increased healthcare demands, ecological damage, property loss, and impacts on the agricultural sector. Including those costs raises the overall cost to the European Economic Area to around €52-84bn per year.
Currently, European chemicals legislation is developing to be more protective and safeguard clean water, as outlined in the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability towards a Toxic Free Environment, released in 2020. Importantly, in April 2023, new hazard classes for PMT substances and vPvM substances were introduced into the Classification, Labelling and Packaging regulation (EC) No. 1272/2008, paving the way for a better protection of human health and the environment by identifying and managing chemicals with specific properties.
ZeroPM: Zero pollution of persistent, mobile substances
Given the far-reaching effects of PMT/ vPvM substances in the environment, it becomes clear that preventative approaches that proactively address the problem are needed. By preventing the production, use, and release of PMT/vPvM substances, downstream, reactive measures will be needed less. This is the approach taken in the European Horizon 2020 research and innovation action project called ZeroPM, which stands for Zero Pollution of Persistent, Mobile Substances. ZeroPM interlinks and synergizes three strategies to protect the environment and human health from persistent, mobile substances: Prevent, Prioritize, and Remove. To prevent, ZeroPM has developed scientific, policy, and market tools for the substitution and mitigation of prioritized PMT/vPvM substances to safer and sustainable alternatives. To prioritize, ZeroPM has identified the groups of PMT/vPvM substances requiring the most urgency to act upon, considering the sustainability aspects of removal. To remove, ZeroPM has investigated real-world scale remediation solutions and found the limits of their sustainability. The results from ZeroPM can be used to guide policy, technological, and market incentives to minimize the use, emissions, and pollution of entire groups of PMT/vPvM substances.
The unique feature of ZeroPM is the interdisciplinary team of partners that have been instrumental in advancing the awareness and providing scientific evidence of the human and environmental concerns of PMT/vPvM substances. Regulators and academics who were instrumental in recent policy updates (from The German Environment Agency, the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute and the German Water Centre), work together with leading environmental researchers and toxicologists (from Stockholm University, EMPA, the University of Luxembourg, Fraunhofer ITEM, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Chalmers University of Technology, the University of the Aegean, NIVA, TGER), as well as social scientists (from the University of Vienna), policy analysts (from Milieu Law and Policy Consulting) and a well-known NGO (ChemSec) to tackle the problem of PMT/vPvM substances in the environment.
The key results and outcomes of ZeroPM, all of which are fully findable, accessible, interoperable, and reproducible, include the following:
PREVENT
- The ZeroPM Alternative Assessment Database – ZeroPM to find safer and more sustainable chemicals to persistent and mobile substances.
- The PFAS Guide – Find PFAS chemicals in your products (chemsec.org) that can be used by companies to find out if PFAS is in a product or supply chain.
- The ZeroPM Regulatory Watch – ZeroPM to scan for relevant policy developments.
PRIORITIZE
- ShinyTPs interface to curate transformation products from text mining results from Hazardous Substances Data Bank and PubChem on GitLab and in a peer-reviewed publication ShinyTPs: Curating Transformation Products from Text Mining Results | Environmental Science & Technology Letters.
- Peer-reviewed paper focusing on substance grouping Grouping strategies for assessing and managing persistent and mobile substances | Environmental Sciences Europe | Full Text.
- Peer-reviewed paper showing an application of substance grouping for risk prioritization Informing the decision- making process for potential PMT/vPvM chemicals through the adoption of a risk-based prioritization framework: the ZeroPM approach | Environmental Sciences Europe | Full Text.
REMOVE
- Peer-reviewed publication identifying suitable ion exchange resins to remove PFAS from water The effect of inorganic anions on the adsorption of perfluoroalkyl acids to various polymeric anion exchange resins – ScienceDirect.
- Peer-reviewed publication showing optimized parameters for the treatment of sewage sludge. Impact of granular activated carbon, voltage application and sewage sludge pretreatment on mesophilic anaerobic digestion performance and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances removal – ScienceDirect.
Working in such a holistic manner will support a better protection of the environment and human health from PMT/vPvM substances and allow the goals of the Chemical Strategy for Sustainability to be realised.
