Remediating PFAS pollution in Europe could cost €100 billion a year

A new study suggests Europe could spend more than €100 billion (£85 billion) a year remediating PFAS pollution while still capturing less than 2% of current emissions.¹ Researchers say the findings reinforce the need to prioritise reducing PFAS use and releases at source rather than trying to clean up contamination after it occurs.

PFAS are a class of anthropogenic chemicals used in industrial and consumer goods, such as fire retardants and non-stick cookware, and their persistence in the environment has been linked to cancer and thyroid dysfunction in humans. Historically, PFAS production focused on long-chain compounds such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) but increasing regulatory restrictions have prompted industry to shift toward short-chain PFAS and other replacement fluorinated chemicals. As a result, ultra-short-chain compounds such as trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), which is also formed from the environmental degradation of many fluorinated chemicals, are a growing concern. Their high water solubility, low sorption affinity and high mobility make them particularly difficult to remove from contaminated water.

A 2026 report by the European Commission predicted soil remediation and drinking water treatment costs of up to €80.2 billion per year and health costs of up to €39.5 billion per year in the period 2024–2050, depending on the level of preventative action. Now, a team led by Ali Ling from the University of St Thomas in Minnesota, US, has analysed publicly available datasets to estimate the cost of treating current and future PFAS pollution in Europe. ‘The European Commission’s report looked more broadly at societal costs, including healthcare costs, [whereas] our report focusses on a more comprehensive analysis of remediating PFAS,’ explains Ling.

The new study details two possible scenarios for PFAS remediation. The first, which Ling and co-workers call the legacy scenario, considers the cost of treating historic long-chain PFAS in drinking water, landfill and heavily contaminated soil sites using current remediation technologies such as granular activated carbon adsorption and ex situ soil washing. The second, called the emerging scenario, extends to continuously remediating both long- and short-chain PFAS from future wastewater effluents. Based on these scenarios, Ling and co-workers estimate the cost of legacy remediation at €37 billion over 20 years, equivalent to €1.8 billion per year, and emerging remediation at €100 billion per year.

However, these estimates account for only a fraction of future emissions because they do not include industrial wastewater and air emissions and ambient soil and water treatment. ‘I had this niggling question in the back my mind: “How much PFAS are we actually getting at with this level of remediation?”’, says Ling. ‘The emerging scenario that we presented is quite an aggressive remediation strategy and I wanted to know how much PFAS we can remediate with that strategy. I ran the numbers and it came out as less than 2% of current emissions. Frankly, I didn’t believe it. [This finding] frees us from the paralysis of feeling that we need to clean it all up – we just can’t. We need to focus on reducing uses and emissions and taking care of people.’

‘This study highlights how limited remediation can be in addressing ongoing emissions’, agrees Marta Venier, an expert in persistent organic pollutants from Indiana University in the US. ‘It reinforces the need for stronger source controls and for regulators to consider emerging PFAS, including TFA, before environmental and public health costs escalate further. Consumers are going to pay for this even though they never asked for these chemicals to be used and it would be more cost-efficient for companies to control their emissions at source rather than remediating at the end.’

‘The main takeaway is the call to action,’ concludes Venier. ‘It’s important to act now to prevent future contamination rather than to remediate.’