Brussels — The European Parliament recently hosted a policy event that brought together affected communities, legal experts, scientists, and policymakers to discuss the ongoing issues surrounding PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) pollution. Hosted as a Renew Europe outreach event by MEP Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, the core focus centered on the argument that while citizens and lawyers are utilizing the courts to seek accountability, European policy should shift from reactive measures to proactive prevention.

The Frontline Battles: Communities Seeking Justice

see also reporting from EEB: https://eeb.org/en/ursula-von-der-leyen-refuses-to-meet-pfas-pollution-affected-communities

The first half of the event provided a platform for individuals who are actively involved in legal disputes with the chemical industry across several European regions:

Belgium: Isabel Larmuseau, an environmental lawyer, detailed her legal challenges regarding the Oosterweel infrastructure project and the company 3M. She stated that she successfully challenged the Flemish government’s PFAS standards for soil and groundwater, arguing that the limits were heavily inflated and exceeded health recommendations by 10 to 12 times. She noted that she is now initiating criminal proceedings in various alleged PFAS hotspots across Flanders.

Italy: Professor Claudia Marcolungo outlined the ongoing Miteni trial, noting that executives are facing potential imprisonment of up to 141 years on charges that include alleged crimes involving public safety, environmental disaster, and the poisoning of drinking water with chemicals like PFOA, GenX, and c6O4. During her testimony, Marcolungo alleged that chemical companies shared toxicological data and engaged in cover-up strategies under the guise of “confidential business information” during Plastics Europe meetings, claiming they deliberately kept workers and the public in the dark.

The Netherlands: Nienke Blauw, a citizen advocate and board member of PFAS Vrij Green Claims, shared her community’s concerns regarding the local Chemours plant in Dordrecht. Following an investigative report by the program Zembla—which claimed the company’s management knew about potential health risks as early as 1984—Blauw stated that she joined over 3,000 citizens in filing a criminal complaint.

France: Emma Feyeux, Head of Legal Projects on Environmental Injustices and Health for Notre Affaire à Tous, discussed the “Chemical Valley” south of Lyon, which has been identified as a contamination hotspot. She stated that her organization recently launched a major civil action representing roughly 200 residents, seeking about €36 million in compensation from Arkema and Daikin for alleged health and financial damages.

Germany: Jessica Schuldt, Head of Staff for the Unit for Municipal Affairs, Auditing and Law in Landkreis Rastatt, shared a case of agricultural contamination. She testified that between 2006 and 2009, a compost company distributed PFAS-laced paper sludge as fertilizer, which allegedly polluted 1,100 hectares of land and compromised a massive groundwater reservoir. Schuldt expressed concern that because the responsible company is too small to pay the €6.5 million in damages claims, the cleanup costs may ultimately fall on taxpayers.

Science and the Regulatory Lag

A recurring theme at the event was the perceived gap between scientific knowledge and regulatory action. Tatiana Santos, Head of Chemicals Policy at the European Environmental Bureau, framed the discussion by emphasizing the need to move from retroactive mitigation and litigation to proactive regulation as a first line of defense. It was noted during the panel that it took the EU 11 years to restrict PFOA after it was identified as hazardous, which panelists argued was decades after scientists first raised alarms.

Jacob de Boer, Emeritus Professor in Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology, stated that the scientific evidence of PFAS toxicity is now “overwhelming”. He cautioned lawmakers against implementing restrictions that include wide exemptions and long transition times, arguing that the chemical industry frequently creates new, slightly altered chemicals to bypass specific bans.

Policymakers acknowledged the complexities of the crisis. Paul Speight, Head of Safe and Sustainable Chemicals Unit at DG Environment, noted that the European Commission is taking the issue seriously and that the universal PFAS restriction process is currently moving through the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).

Meanwhile, Yenthe Peeters, Deputy Chief of Staff for climate and environmental policy in the Cabinet of Belgian Federal Minister Jean-Luc Crucke, summarized their national approach as a mandate to “act, anticipate, and transform,” calling for a systemic shift to prevent future issues. However, Peeters also cautioned that many of the highlighted court cases are ongoing, stressing that judicial independence should be fully respected and that it is not up to politicians to express opinions on active legal proceedings.

The Refrigeration Blind Spot: TFA and the Traceability Crisis

While the cases presented at the European Parliament focused on legacy PFAS contamination with clear point sources—chemical manufacturing facilities, industrial sites, agricultural distribution networks—the refrigeration and cooling sector faces a distinct challenge that highlights both the limitations of current legal frameworks and the complexity of diffuse pollution pathways.

The challenge is trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), a persistent PFAS compound formed when certain HFO (hydrofluoroolefin) refrigerants degrade in the atmosphere. Refrigerants such as HFO-1234yf and HFO-1234ze, promoted as low-GWP alternatives to HFCs, break down in the atmosphere to form TFA, which eventually deposits into water bodies, soil, and the broader hydrological cycle. Unlike the contamination hotspots in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, France, or Germany—where chemical plants, industrial facilities, or specific waste streams provide identifiable defendants and traceable pollution pathways—TFA presents what legal scholars and environmental lawyers characterize as an “attribution crisis.”

The Legal Accountability Gap

When HFO refrigerants are released into the atmosphere—whether through leakage during normal operation, improper handling during installation and maintenance, or end-of-life disposal—they undergo photochemical degradation. The resulting TFA molecules disperse globally through atmospheric circulation before depositing into ecosystems far removed from their point of origin. Current analytical and forensic chemistry methods cannot trace specific TFA molecules back to their source refrigerant, manufacturer, installer, or end user with the causal certainty and evidentiary threshold required for successful legal proceedings in courts of law.

This traceability gap creates a distinct dynamic from the cases presented at the Parliament event. In the Miteni trial in Italy, prosecutors can present evidence of specific chemicals (PFOA, GenX, C6O4) discharged from an identified facility into a defined water source. In the 3M cases in Belgium, environmental lawyers can challenge soil and groundwater contamination at measurable concentrations traceable to industrial operations. In the Chemours case in the Netherlands, citizens can point to decades of emissions from a specific plant affecting surrounding communities. In the Arkema and Daikin litigation in France, plaintiffs can seek compensation for health and financial damages linked to identifiable pollution sources.

However, demonstrating in court that TFA detected in drinking water originated from a specific brand of refrigerant in a specific cooling system, automotive air conditioning unit, or heat pump installation presents a fundamentally different evidentiary challenge. When the pathway from product to contamination passes through atmospheric chemistry, global air circulation patterns, and precipitation cycles, establishing the causal chain with legal certainty becomes, at present, unfeasible.

The Scale and Scope of TFA Emissions from Refrigeration

The magnitude of this issue is frequently underestimated or overlooked in policy discussions and environmental assessments. TFA formation from HFO refrigerants represents a significant source of PFAS contamination in European and global water systems.

Studies have documented that HFO refrigerants, particularly those adopted in automotive air conditioning and increasingly in stationary refrigeration and heat pump applications, degrade rapidly in the atmosphere with TFA as the primary stable end product. Given the scale of refrigerant use globally—millions of automotive air conditioning systems, commercial refrigeration installations in supermarkets and food distribution networks, residential and commercial heat pumps, industrial cooling systems—the cumulative atmospheric release and subsequent TFA formation represents a substantial pollution pathway.

This pathway has historically received limited attention in risk assessments. Industry communications frequently emphasize the low global warming potential of HFOs while providing less detail on their degradation products. Regulatory assessments have often focused on direct toxicity and flammability of refrigerants in use, with varying degrees of attention to the persistence and accumulation of degradation products in the environment.

TFA Persistence and Environmental Accumulation

As Jessica Schuldt stated regarding the agricultural PFAS contamination in Landkreis Rastatt: “We deal with this problem for generations… We are not able to clean this up. So it stays where it is, and this is a problem we will never be able to solve.”

The same persistence characterizes atmospheric TFA formation. Once HFO refrigerants degrade and form TFA, the contamination enters the global hydrological cycle. TFA cannot be filtered out of drinking water using conventional treatment methods. It cannot be remediated from soil or groundwater. It does not degrade. Unlike point-source PFAS contamination, which can theoretically be contained, atmospheric TFA deposition is inherently global and persistent.

Natural Refrigerant Alternatives

Natural refrigerants—ammonia (R-717), carbon dioxide (R-744), hydrocarbons such as propane (R-290) and isobutane (R-600a), water (R-718), and air—represent alternative technological pathways. Ammonia has been used in industrial refrigeration for over a century. CO2 systems are deployed in supermarket refrigeration and heat pump applications. Hydrocarbon refrigerants are standard in domestic refrigeration across Europe and are expanding into commercial applications with appropriate safety measures. These substances do not persist in the environment, do not bioaccumulate, and do not degrade into persistent metabolites.

Voices from the Frontlines: quotes from the event

On the Generational Impact of PFAS:

“We deal with this problem for generations… We are not able to clean this up. So it stays where it is, and this is a problem we will never be able to solve.” — Jessica Schuldt (Landkreis Rastatt, Germany), speaking on the challenges of agricultural PFAS contamination.

On Alleged Corporate Practices:

“They shared a lot of documents, emails, information, environmental reports… and they treated this information as ‘confidential business information.’ … What is shameful is the fact that the workers didn’t know anything. The only information the doctors and the Italian executives gave them was, ‘Oh, everything is under control…'” — Prof. Claudia Marcolungo (Italy), detailing allegations raised during the Miteni trial.

On the Need for Strict Regulation:

“I am very worried… Each time you see more exemptions, more transition times proposed… We have to test these medicines [and chemicals] before we go to use them. Otherwise, you’re here again, every 10 years.” — Jacob de Boer (Emeritus Professor in Environmental Chemistry and Toxicology), urging the EU to reject watered-down chemical regulations.

On the Failure of Reactive Policies:

“Anticipation is about prevention, and prevention is always more effective than remediation will be.” — Yenthe Peeters (Cabinet of Belgian Federal Minister Jean-Luc Crucke), on shifting away from a reactive approach.

On Political Responsibility:

“Delaying this decision is no longer an option. The cost of inaction is already far too high, and it is billed in human lives. So, stop PFAS pollution.” — MEP Saskia Bricmont, delivering the concluding remarks.

Disclaimer

This article summarizes statements, testimonies, and allegations presented during a public political outreach event at the European Parliament. The claims regarding specific corporations and ongoing legal proceedings represent the viewpoints of the respective panelists and speakers, and do not constitute independent factual findings or legal rulings by this publication.