Chemours is feeling the pressure. In February, RIVM and four other European health services published a proposal that amounts to a total ban on the production, import and sale of products containing PFAS. Such a ban is a direct threat to the income of the American company (turnover 2022: 6.3 billion euros). The Chemours factory in Dordrecht would then no longer be allowed to make Teflon: Teflon is a PFAS.
Chemours is having a lobbying strategy developed by a European lobbying firm that will share it with clients in April. These customers are spread across all kinds of production chains, from the automotive industry to textile manufacturers. Chemours calls on all these companies to inform Brussels quickly that its PFAS have unique properties and cannot simply be replaced.
“It is crucial to act now,” Chemours writes to its customers. “The process is becoming increasingly political (and less scientific) […] The period to submit data is limited – ACT NOW”
This is stated in documents that Chemours distributed to customers and industry associations. NRC has two documents that explain step by step how companies can submit comments on the ban to European authorities – and with what arguments.
Chemours’ goal is to keep fluoropolymers out of the ban. These are plastics with fluorine in them, such as Teflon. The exemption for Chemours products should last forever, the documents say: “The industry needs an indefinite exemption for fluoropolymers.” And if that fails, time must be bought. Then the ban must be postponed for several years for as many products and applications as possible.
The strategy follows the line of a broad PFAS lobby that the chemical industry has rigged since 2021. Two European trade associations are taking the lead in this. They also advocate an exception for fluoropolymers. Chemours is a member of both industry associations and at least four other organizations lobbying against a ban on PFAS, the documents show.
Cables and catheters
PFAS is a collective term for a group of thousands of fluorinated substances. They have special properties: they are stable and repel both water and fats. That is why they have been incorporated into all kinds of products in recent decades, from pizza boxes and raincoats to cables and catheters.
Manufacturers such as 3M and DuPont (of which Chemours is a spin-off) have polluted the environment with PFAS, which can be harmful to health. High exposure to PFAS can lead to kidney or testicular cancer. And in the longer term, PFAS can also disrupt the endocrine system or the immune system in low concentrations, so that vaccines, for example, work less well.
People living in the immediate vicinity of fluorine chemical plants are often exposed to high concentrations of PFAS. This week, Belgium started a major blood test among residents near a 3M factory in Zwijndrecht. But PFAS are everywhere: in the Netherlands, people ingest too much PFAS through food and water, the RIVM calculated in 2021.
In February, the health services of the Netherlands and other European countries presented a proposal for a total ban on all PFAS within the EU. If the European Commission adopts the ban, at the earliest in 2025, products containing PFAS may no longer be sold, imported or produced.
Medicines and pesticides containing PFAS are excluded from the proposal. A temporary exemption is possible for other products, but only for a period of five or twelve years, and only if the industry can demonstrate that the PFAS in them cannot yet be replaced. From March to September, companies and other stakeholders can submit information and comments to the chemicals agency ECHA to advocate a delay for a particular product or application. To date, more than 400 responses have been received by this EU institution.
This public consultation is the perfect time for a coordinated lobby, they see at Chemours. To develop a strategy, the company enlists the help of lobby office FTI in Brussels, which assists many large companies, such as Google, TikTok, Pfizer and Heineken. Chemours paid between 50,000 and 100,000 euros to the lobby office last year, according to the European lobby register.
Loose claims
“We are not naive, we know that there is a lobby going on,” says Richard Luit of RIVM. He was involved as an advisor in drawing up the proposal for a PFAS ban. “It’s great when Chemours customers step forward and share useful information with us. There are still gaps in our knowledge, we do not know where which PFAS are used and why. But if companies send loose claims, for example if they state that fluoropolymers are safe or cannot be replaced without substantiation, we ignore them.”
The consultation is presented in the strategy as a last resort. It is “a unique opportunity for the industry,” writes Chemours. “You can influence the final outcome.” Waiting is not an option, the production chain must act now. “Without data and information on fluoropolymers and other PFAS you use, they are likely to be banned.” A twelve-year delay also means a de facto ban, the company warns. It then makes no sense for producers to invest in these substances.
Read also: Europe is slowly starting to realize how great the PFAS danger is
Chemours also whispers the arguments for customers to use. They should emphasize when fluoropolymers are “irreplaceable by non-existent alternatives” [sic]. If such alternatives do exist, then their disadvantages must be highlighted, such as costs, environmental and health risks. The more difficult it is to find an alternative, the more likely temporary postponement is the idea behind it. Companies can also join political discussions in Europe or a member state, Chemours suggests: emphasize, for example, that fluoropolymers are important in the climate transition, the construction or installation of fast internet and 5G networks.
And most importantly: companies must state that fluoropolymers are safe. Chemours says the ban is based on the assumption that PFAS don’t break down, accumulate in humans and animals and move quickly, and that they can be harmful to humans and the environment. “It is up to the fluoropolymers production chain to prove otherwise.”
Chemours urges companies to make contrary claims. Suppose that polymers do not move, do not accumulate in the body and the environment and that they are not toxic, says the strategy.
To substantiate that claim, companies can refer to scientific literature, specifically to two articles that are published in the magazine Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management. Co-authors of those articles: Chemours employees.
The consultancy firm FTI, which drafted the lobbying documents, takes no responsibility for the claims made in them, such as the claim that fluoropolymers are safe. “It’s Chemours’ name above it,” says Caroline Vogt, director at FTI. “They spread it. We only advised on communication.”
Stable in the pan
Richard Luit of RIVM has often heard the argument that fluoropolymers are safe. “Nevertheless, we are certainly concerned about polymers. Teflon can be stable and safe in the pan, but it is also about what happens before or after: other PFAS can be released during production or processing as waste. It is the whole chain that we are concerned about.”
Rainer Lohmann, professor of environmental chemistry at the University of Rhode Island, is also familiar with the safe polymers argument. He previously published reactions to the scientific articles and sees them as attempts at greenwashing by the fluorine industry. “It is impertinent to say that the end product is safe, when the production has turned out to be so polluting. Do I blame them for trying to find a loophole? No, given the scope of the ban. Is it misleading? Yes. But some of these companies have been misleading the public for 40 years.”
Yet this is the message that PFAS producers keep hammering away at. They do this mainly through the two European industry associations: FPP4EU, a part of the European Chemical Industry Council, which was founded in March 2021, and the 10-member Fluoropolymers Product Group (FPG), part of Plastics Europe. Chemours, like other major PFAS producers in Europe, is a member of both.
The sector organizations are supported by consultancy firms. This is how FPG called in Chemservice – company slogan: We help you overcome regulatory barriers – to a analysis of options for PFAS regulation. The gist: fluoropolymers are safe, difficult to substitute and should be exempt from a ban. The authors of the report base this conclusion mainly on one of two scientific articles written by employees of PFAS producers themselves. Industry is therefore the financier and source of the analysis.
PR agencies distribute Chemservice’s analyzes to journalists. Sometimes this leads to media attention. Broadcasting Zeeland published an article based on a meeting that Chemservice organized in Brussels. Since April, Chemours has also been advertising on nrc.nl and fd.nl with advertorials. There, too, the message is: fluoropolymers are non-polluting and not harmful to humans.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of May 27, 2023.