PFAS: How dangerous are they, really? | Euronews Tech Talks

On 26 June 2025, a court in Vicenza (Italy) handed down what was hailed as a historic ruling, convicting 11 former managers of the chemical company Miteni to a total of 141 years in prison. 

The executives were held accountable for polluting a large aquifer in the northwestern Italian region of Veneto with PFAS. 

Miteni, which declared bankruptcy in 2018, had begun operations in Veneto in the mid-1960s and had been aware of the water pollution since the 1990s. 

In 2021, a trial began, with Miteni on one side of the courtroom and 300 members of civil society on the other. 

The proceedings concluded in June 2025, with the judges imposing a sentence even harsher than that requested by the prosecution on the managers. 

But what exactly are PFAS? And are they really that dangerous? 

Euronews Tech Talks put these and more of your questions to chemist Martin Scheringer, research scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich). 

What are PFAS?

PFAS are a group of over 10,000 man-made chemical products with remarkable resistance characteristics, including the ability to repel water and grease, as well as withstand fire.

Thanks to these properties, PFAS are used in several consumer products such as outdoor clothing, pizza boxes and even disposable and reusable menstrual pads. 

However, it is complicated to know for sure whether a product contains PFAS, as companies in the European Union (EU) are only required to classify and label certain forever chemicals, but not all of them. 

The secret behind PFAS’s resistance lies in the chemical bond between carbon and fluorine, which is also the root of many problems.

“We need more energy than what’s available to break that bond, and that is the reason why they [PFAS] accumulate in the environment in a way, forever, and that’s why we called them ‘forever chemicals’,” Scheringer told Euronews Next. 

This unbreakable quality makes PFAS problematic: while useful for the industry, they pose risks to human health. 

Are PFAS actually that toxic?

Given the large number of substances classified as PFAS, it is complicated to determine the specific health effects of each one. 

“They [PFAS] are toxic in an unspecific way,” Sheringer explained. “They interfere with many processes in the body and cause a wide range of diseases and health impacts,” he added. 

In 2023, the World Health Organization classified two PFAS as carcinogenic and possibly carcinogenic to humans. 

These included perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), both banned in the EU. 

The bloc has also banned undecafluorohexanoic acid (PFHxA) and its related substances. 

In fact, studies suggest that this forever chemical may be associated with multiple health issues related to liver enzymes, thyroid hormones, and blood pressure. Yet, there’s no certainty about this association. 

People can be exposed to PFAS in multiple ways: drinking water contaminated by PFAS, eating food grown in polluted soil, using consumer products, or even working in specific industries. 

Firefighters, for instance, face particularly high exposure because firefighting foams have long been loaded with forever chemicals for their non-flammable qualities. This puts firefighters in a category exposed to cancer risks. 

But they are not the only group at risk. 

In June 2025, for instance, an analysis conducted in the Brussels municipality of Uccle revealed PFAS pollution in the soil and groundwater around the Sicli factory site. 

Sicli, which is now bankrupt, used to manufacture fire safety equipment such as the PFAS-impregnated foam. Additional exams are ongoing to better comprehend the scale of the pollution in this area, but residents have been advised not to use water from their wells and to avoid consuming fruits, vegetables, and eggs produced in their gardens.

Is there a safe level of PFAS contamination?

According to Schringer, it has become easier and easier to determine the level of PFAS in water and blood. What is more challenging is understanding what levels of PFAS are safe.

“We have seen over the last 10/20 years that more and more effects may occur at lower and lower concentrations of PFAS,” Scheringer warned. 

The chemist explained that, although there may be some thresholds for determining the danger of PFAS contamination, these levels are not fixed and can change rapidly as discoveries emerge.

Despite the uncertainty, institutions are trying to find indicators. For instance, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) currently considers 4.4 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per week as the tolerable weekly intake for the sum of four specific PFAS. 

To better understand the extent of PFAS contamination in Europe, 29 journalists from 12 different countries got together in 2022 to realise a cross-border journalistic investigation on PFAS. 

The Forever Pollution Project resulted in an accessible and interactive map, showing that about 2,300 sites in Europe can be considered as “hotspots” for PFAS pollution.