Environment Matters – Destination: Unknown? What the PFAS Plan could mean for PFAS regulation in the UK – S3E3

Simon Tilling (00:26)

Hi Mike.

Helena Sewell (00:26)

Hi Mike.

Michael Barlow (00:27)

Hi. So, as I mentioned, we’re going to be talking about PFAS.  And as those of you who are avid listeners will know, we’ve considered a number of key environmental issues on this podcast. But PFAS is one of those topics which keeps coming up time and time again.

PFAS, as you will know, is the term used for the thousands of manufactured chemicals, which often have long-chain chemical bonds. And it remains a really hot topic in the environment sector. And we’re recording this on Friday, the 24th of April. And this week has seen some further changes in relation to PFAS. And we’ll be trying to pick that up. And that’s the Environmental Audit Committee report into PFAS.

So, this is a very good time to be talking about this. But we’ll also be picking up the Government’s PFAS plan, which came out in February this year. And that’s a policy paper which sets out the Government’s PFAS vision for the future. As that plan notes, and this is in quotes, ‘the persistence and widespread presence of PFAS in our environment pose risks we cannot ignore’.

The plan can be seen as the output of years of building pressure from the press and public regarding the potential risks of PFAS. You may be aware that we have previously done a podcast on this topic. We looked in that one at liability imposed by the water, product stewardship and contamination legislation. That was in our Environment Matters Season 2, Episode 2.

So, if you’re interested in going back and listening to that and dealing with those issues, then please do. And this is an update, really, on that podcast. And in this episode, we’re going to be taking a high-level look at the more recent developments in the UK, as I’ve talked about, and also further afield. And we’ll be considering how we got here, what issues the Government’s PFAS plan raises for those operating in the UK and how the UK’s approach can be contrasted with that of our European neighbours and others.

So, I mentioned that the Government issued its PFAS plan in February, and then we’ve had the more recent Environmental Audit Committee report. But I think before we get into the detail of those and what they do, it’s probably worth just taking a step back and looking at how we got to this point. And obviously, as I mentioned, PFAS are chemicals. And so if we just sort of turn to how do we regulate chemicals in the UK, how have we been doing that up to this point?

Helena, do you want to pick that up?

Helena Sewell (03:11)

Yeah, yeah, happy to. I mean, I think this is a topic you could discuss at length because, as I’m sure people kind of operating in industries in the UK are aware, the UK chemical legislation landscape is just so fragmented. There isn’t one piece of legislation that regulates chemicals. Instead, we have very much kind of a patchwork of different regimes which together make up our chemicals framework.

They’re administered and enforced by multiple different bodies. They are all kind of doing slightly different, but fairly similar things. And it’s a slight minefield for people to kind of pick their way through to make sure that they’re compliant. Just to kind of illustrate this, for example, you’ve got the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals regime, otherwise known as REACH.

And that applies to all substances being imported into or placed on the market in the UK in quantities of one tonne or more a year. You’ve also got the Persistent Organic Pollutants regime, which is otherwise known as POPs. That applies to substances which have toxic properties, resist degradation, bioaccumulate and are transported and deposited far from their place of release.

You’ve got the Biocidal Products Regime or BPR, which applies to substances or mixtures containing substances with the intention of destroying or controlling harmful organisms. And there are various other regimes like the Control of Pesticide Regulations, Prior Informed Consent Regulations, classification, labelling and packaging regimes, regulations controlling the shipment of waste. The list really goes on, and you can hear how they all sound quite similar and yet they’re all doing slightly different things.

Michael Barlow (04:57)

So doing different things and in different ways, I think, is probably the key point there. And also a barrage of acronyms, which obviously we’ll try and avoid as we go through this as much as possible. So, you’re given an idea there of the patchwork of legislation. And I think it’s probably fair to say, isn’t it, that that presents a challenge for those that are operating in the UK as to how they comply with bits of legislation and what piece of legislation covers what bit of their activities.

Helena Sewell (05:31)

Yeah, so I think, I mean, as I said, picking through all the different types of legislation can be a challenge. I mean, I suppose one thing to note is that most of our chemicals regulation is EU derived. So effectively, post-Brexit, we lifted and shifted a lot of our chemicals regulation into English law and obviously devolved law around the UK.

And in some ways, that’s helpful because it means that there was some continuity for businesses post-Brexit and they could apply their understanding of EU regimes to the UK and vice versa. And particularly at the moment, there isn’t a huge amount of divergence between them, albeit I’m sure we’ll come on to kind of how the EU is pressing ahead on certain things later on. But I think more generally, it’s just kind of perhaps a symptom of the lack of thought that was given to chemicals regulation in the run-up to Brexit. I think there was very much a kind of expectation that the UK would just continue to be part of this well-established EU framework of chemicals and that ultimately didn’t happen. And now you’ve got the Health and Safety Executive, who holds a lot of responsibility for chemicals regulation in the UK and that’s not necessarily been their wheelhouse historically.

So, I’d say kind of since Brexit, chemicals regulation in the UK has been fairly low profile. And I’m sure operators will be- will no doubt be aware of the various transitional deadlines that keep getting pushed back and pushed back again. And perhaps that’s been because of the kind of focus on decarbonisation and other things in the UK instead. But, I think it’s also probably fair to say that the Health and Safety Executive has struggled with the various administrative roles it’s taken on since Brexit.

Simon Tilling (07:21)

Yeah, I agree entirely Helena. And I hate to say I told you so, but if you look back, this is exactly what the Burges Salmon team were saying was going to be the real challenge. I think when we were right on the Brexit vote back in 2016, we were asked what are going to be the most difficult regimes to unravel. And the answer we always gave then, or one of those has always been chemicals, because it’s a single market mechanism. It’s not just about the environment. It’s not land-based. It’s about products. It’s  the global supply chains. And the only way that these frankly very ambitious chemicals regimes that the EU put in place and when REACH came through, it came through as acknowledged to be a hugely ambitious, and some argue too ambitious, piece of legislation.

But it was only going to be achievable because you had, you know, you had nearly 30 member states plus a well-funded European Chemicals Agency in Helsinki to be able to evaluate all this data and make regulatory decisions and rely on the member state competent authorities to feed into that. And we said, not only have you got the task of replicating all of that in a much smaller Great British single market,

You’ve also got to either create or find a regulator who can move from just being the competent authority for one small part of it  to actually taking over the whole function. So, the EU has 27 member states, all with competent authorities, all of whom share out the workload and a well-funded European Chemicals Agency. And what the UK has ended up with is the Health and Safety Executive taking on that role. So, I don’t think it’s a surprise that the lack of resource and expertise has meant a much slower pace of change than in the EU. But that’s exactly what we have seen over the last six years since exiting the single market.

But I also think, I think it’s not just a question of HSE resource and capacity. I think it’s also a question of political ambition because we had a well-heralded chemical strategy that was going to come down the line. Back with this hashtag green Brexit concept, we’re going to have a chemical strategy. We’re going to have some clear visions and we simply didn’t get it. It didn’t arrive and of course, now it’s been shelved. There are chemicals as part of the Environmental Improvement Plan but there’s not a huge amount in there and certainly not a huge amount of ambition. So, you can see that I think, as Helena rightly said, there have been other objectives for the UK Government and I think really chemicals has not been given the attention it deserves which is why we are where we are.

Michael Barlow (10:11)

Yeah, I think I agree with that, Simon. The point I would add, I agree it’s a single market mechanism, but what the consequences are of chemicals, of course, is, or can be, very local in terms of what goes into our drinking water and what’s in our land and so on. And then we’ll come on and talk about that in a minute. But I think it’s important to bear in mind

Simon Tilling (10:25)

Yeah, absolutely.

Mm.

Michael Barlow (10:34)

Both those aspects, the wider regime and actually the environmental consequences of it.

Simon Tilling (10:40)

Absolutely, and I think when we do, we’ll talk about the PFAS plan, but in a way that’s one of the steps that’s to its credit because it can look at all these issues, whereas of course the EU mechanisms we’ve been talking about are intended to be single market mechanisms. So actually, you know, there’s a structural point there, but you’re right, these have local impacts.

Michael Barlow (11:03)

So, I think that was a really useful summary of how we’ve got to where we are now. Helena, do you want to just sort of pick up and give a bit of an explanation about the sort of current state of play?

Helena Sewell (11:17)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, obviously, this podcast is about PFAS. So, I suppose looking at our kind of chemicals framework through the lens of PFAS, I’d say there are probably two headline regimes that it’s worth talking about in a bit more depth. And that’s REACH and POPs, which I mentioned at the start of this podcast.

I think in the last podcast, we talked about restrictions being brought in on PFAS under REACH. So particularly kind of aqueous firefighting foams or AFFF. So that’s been kind of one mechanism through which the Government has tried to kind of start restricting PFAS. And there have been consultations recently on those restrictions. I think when we get into the detail, on the plan that you mentioned earlier, there is definitely a kind of a move towards using REACH to tackle PFAS and kind of introduce new restrictions to kind of limit the use of PFAS and the placing of PFAS on the market.

So, I think one other point to kind of mention about REACH is the Government has been recently consulting on the alternative transition model and earlier this year produced its response to that consultation. One of the kind of key aspects to the alternative transition model is effectively trying to reduce the burden on those who are subject to REACH by allowing them to not necessarily have to repeat all of the testing and data obligations under REACH when they’ve already completed that under EU REACH. So there is a kind of a general view or a general move towards kind of using REACH more effectively to regulate chemicals in the UK.

And that includes applying it to PFAS. And then just picking up on POPs, there are also moves to restrict.

Simon Tilling (13:12)

Yeah

Helena Sewell (13:15)

Certain types of PFAS under POPs as well. So, the Health and Safety Executive is currently consulting on changes to that regime, which includes the addition of LCPFCAs to the list of prohibited substances. So, we can see how these different types of chemicals regimes are all sort of moving together to try and restrict PFAS in different ways. But more generally, I’d say that there is also a move towards closer alignment with the EU and potentially also trusting some of the decisions or taking some of the decisions made by the EU Chemicals Agency and applying those to our chemicals regime here in the UK. I mean, ECHA has just announced quite a wide-ranging ban on PFAS, haven’t they? So, it’ll be interesting to see how that comes into things.

Simon Tilling (14:06)

Yeah, and I think that’s the stark contrast, isn’t it, that everybody’s looking at what the UK’s doing and what the EU’s doing and the EU is pressing ahead. ⁓ I was going to say racing ahead, but that’s not right because they do have to follow their process. And I think even in the EU, there’s some that commentate that the actual REACH process takes a long time. But that to one side. There is a process started by a dossier of three member states and now with the European Chemicals Agency looking at a group-wide ban on PFAS that’s not trying to regulate all the thousands of chemistries that make up the PFAS chemistries but to do them as a group using the OECD definition of PFAS chemistries and then ban that group through a REACH restriction, albeit with limited derogation.

So, it’s worth knowing where we are with that process, not least because we can compare and contrast it with what the UK is doing. But the status for the EU process, and like I say, it’s a rigid process they must follow. It’s with the European Chemicals Agency. We’ve just had- they’ve got two committees that look at it. One looks at it from a risk approach. They’re looking at the risk of the substances. That’s RAC, the Risk Assessment Committee. and they look at whether the regulatory measures are the right ones for the risk of the product.

So, is this the right and proportionate measure to restrict it as a whole class? They look at it on a risk base. And there’s another committee, which is a socioeconomic committee.  that looks at it from a is it proportionate from a socio-economic perspective, you know, the value to the chemistry is for society. And we’ve got a final decision of the RAC and a draft decision of SAAC, the Socioeconomic Committee that’s now out and actually the SAAC decision is out for consultation until I think the 25th of May. And the broad outcome of that is that they are pressing ahead with a restriction of the class of PFAS. There will be some limited derogations, but they will be limited on the RAC and SAAC proposals. Like I said, that’s still got to go through a consultation. Then it will be reviewed. That’s probably the end of 2026 before we get that. Then the decision goes to the European Commission, who will have to bring through a legislative change under the EU system and that goes to the REACH Committee which is made up of member states in 2027. So there’s still a journey and I would also say just while we compare and contrast the UK and the EU and it’s relevant to some of the points I think we make later about the UK’s approach and watching what the EU is doing, there are many who think that this may be an overstretch of EU law.

And so, this has been watched very, very closely. I predict a good degree of litigation. I suspect there will actually be litigation and challenges to this process as it works through into its legislative stages, which will be at the end of in 2027. So it’s got a long way to go. But what you can clearly see is this delivery of this stated ambition to tackle PFAS as an entire group of chemistries on block.

Michael Barlow (17:35)

So, thanks, Simon. That’s a really good summary of the EU process and direction of travel. As I mentioned at the start, and we’ve sort of mentioned as we’ve been going through, we’ve got the Government’s PFAS plan now, which came out in February.

Compare and contrast the Government’s approach under the PFAS plan with the EU approach and tell us a little bit more about what it covers.

Simon Tilling (18:02)

Sure, yeah, absolutely. I mean I think the, and I’ve already teed this up haven’t I, that the UK approach is, some would say slower, some might use the word methodical, they themselves use the word science-based and proportionate and indeed evidence-based. And before I go into what it is.

In terms of a principle, the idea that regulation is based on evidence and you understand what it is you’re regulating as you’re deciding what the regulatory management should be, I think is fundamentally unobjectionable. The reason this is getting such attention is because many people want to see a rapid pace of change like the EU is doing and others are saying, especially those who use PFAS chemistries and consider them very valuable chemistries, are saying in contrast actually a scientifically-led and evidence-led approach where we actually understand these things is precisely the way to go. And let’s not forget when the UK left the EU, one of the things I heard time and time again, talking to those involved in the regulation of chemicals is that, we’re gonna miss your, the UK sort of very pragmatic, sensible and evidence-based policymaking at the table. So, fundamentally, what we’ve got out of PFAS strategy is purported to be a science-based, proportionate and evidence-led approach. So, what does it actually do? Well, you won’t be surprised to hear quite a lot of it is about finding out more and doing more monitoring and exploring our limitations of the testing methodologies and how we test for PFAS and how you test for PFAS as a group. There’s still quite a lot of issues, I think, that people are pointing to the EU approach saying, yes, but we don’t really have the laboratory techniques to be able to identify full groups of PFAS, et cetera, to the standards you’ll need to deliver this. Well, the UK version, the UK PFAS plan very much has these building blocks as part of it. But there are also clear signs of an intent to regulate the PFAS chemistries.

What the PFAS plan, I think can do and does do, and this is because of course it’s just for the UK, is take a full life-cycle approach to it. So, it really is looking at PFAS, not just placing it on the Great British market, but actually it’s where it’s manufactured, how do you control it at the manufacturing sites, what emissions control will be needed for your manufacturing, what information is going to be required when you either make a product and put it on the market or you import, and the requirements and considerations about making sure that British manufacturing is not disadvantaged by imports being able to have PFAS when UK manufacturing is more restricted. It’s looking at PFAS in waste and waste, both waste such as landfill being a potential source of PFAS into the environment. It’s also looking at the appropriate disposal and destruction of PFAS chemistries. And that links very much to POPs, which Helena has already been talking about. And we are also in our PFAS plan talking about the regimes that Helena has teed up. We’re talking about using REACH.

We are talking about using POPs. But at this stage, it’s very much looking at restrictions of PFAS in particular products. It’s looking at, obviously, we’ve already mentioned, Helena’s already mentioned the firefighting foams. You’ve got, changes to POPs, it’s looking at whether more PFAS chemistries need to go onto the lists of substances of very high concern, which themselves require more reporting when they’re placed on the market and therefore more consumer awareness and awareness of those who are buying the products.

So, we have these measures. What we don’t have in this PFAS plan is an outright commitment to following the EU approach. It’s very much equally there’s not a commitment not to, it’s very much a process of yes we need to do some more work over this side, we are looking at the appropriate regulatory controls, we’re looking at it throughout the life cycle and we are looking at a number of different regulatory mechanisms because of course this is about a UK approach rather than a of European Chemicals Agency approach just to looking at a single-market aspect.

So, there are things to commend it, but the significant feedback from many quarters has been that it’s not as ambitious as the EU. And as Mike said, right at the top of the programme, we have only this week had the Environmental Audit Committee releasing its report, which says very much that the UK is not doing enough and should be doing a lot more.

There’s lots of interesting ideas and maybe we pick a few of those apart. But one of the things that comes out right away to say that we should be following the EU approach. And just on that as well, just in terms of the mechanisms of that, there’s still work that the UK needs to do and Helena’s touched on this too, to move REACH into this closer alignment that we’ve already said is a policy objective between trusted other jurisdictions, most notably the EU, which is code for yes, we may well be following the EU. Of course, there’s nothing stopping the UK. It’s not going to write it down in its PFAS plan. There’s nothing stopping the UK seeing how the EU sweeping restriction works, how it’s accepted or not, how much litigation it goes through, whether industry accepts it etc and then in due course following that but that’s something that it’s you know it’s clearly going to it’s not simply going to write in this PFAS plan that it’s just going to wait and see what happens in the EU and then maybe follow it later. There’s lots more in this plan that’s for now, but you know who knows that could be down the line

Michael Barlow (24:09)

Yeah, thanks. And Helena, have you got thoughts? I know you’ve got thoughts on the PFAS plan.

Helena Sewell (24:15)

Yes, well, I mean, yeah, I obviously agree with Simon. It’s difficult to find a science-based approach objectionable, particularly in principle, but I think one of the criticisms that’s particularly been levied through the Environmental Audit Committee’s report on PFAS, which, as you said, was published just yesterday, was that whilst this approach is very methodical, and whilst you are being led by the science, the risk is that it’s so slow that the damage or the potential damage to the environment, to human health posed by some of these chemicals or suspected to be posed by some of these chemicals will continue for such a period of time whilst you actually end up determining that they are harmful or not and then putting in place the restrictions or not to manage them.

I think one of the kind of key standout bits in the Environmental Audit Committee’s report was that they kind of likened the UK Government approach to whack-a-mole, where essentially they just kind of focus on key specific types of PFAS and restrict those. But in the meantime, you’ve got all of these other chemicals on the market that are potentially creating impacts to the environment and human health. In the meantime, you’re increasing your monitoring and you’re looking at the impact of them, but in practice, the actual use of them continues. So yeah, it’s an interesting conundrum for the Government to deal with.

Simon Tilling (25:56)

Yeah, I think there are some points that are consistent and I think everybody accepts now that you can’t possibly fully research each PFAS chemistry and then restrict it one by one because that is the very definition of whack-a-mole and we’ve already seen from that approach that we’ve had particular PFAS compounds restricted and then we’ve had manufacturers move to a very similar chemistry, but it is not the same and therefore not restricted and they’ve turned out, and those chemistries have turned out to have toxicological and ecotoxic issues. You know, these are the chemistries that have been identified as having toxicological issues and ecotoxicological issues. You know, then we call that regrettable substitution.

So, I think obviously the Environmental Audit Committee report was very much we want to avoid that and you have to do it by looking at PFAS as a group. And to the credit of the UK Government, I think its PFAS plan does make it clear that it has to look at groupings of PFAS chemistry, and you can’t do it that way. That does inevitably also raise the fact that there are many, chemistries and we don’t know if they’re all. They certainly don’t all have the same toxicological ecotoxic issues. They certainly don’t have the same chemical properties. Some of them probably are not particularly troublesome, but of course they also break down, they degrade and these are, you know, these are long, some of them are longer chain carbon chains and they can break down into smaller ones that look a lot like the PFAS that have been found to have issues.

So, it’s undoubtedly an issue. I think a grouping approach is probably the only way you can deal with it. The question then is exactly what does that regulatory management technique look like and is it going to be the same REACH restriction we have on the EU side or is it going to be a different way of trying to crack that nut?

Michael Barlow (28:03)

Yeah, and I think just adding to that thought, of course, some of the uses that PFAS are put to are hugely beneficial. So, they’re used in medical devices and so on. And you might say that’s very different to cosmetics, for example, which they’re in as well. And so, it does need quite a sophisticated approach, I think, to how you take it forward.

Simon Tilling (28:31)

Absolutely, and one of the big debates we’ve had on the EU side of it is their concept of essential use because it’s exactly these uses. Everybody recognises EU, UK, everyone looking at the PFAS problem recognises there are some really valuable essential uses. The question is who defines essential and what’s the criteria for it? So there is a lot to be grappled with.

Can I make one more point about the PFAS plan and sort of what I think the Government’s intent and hope might be as well. There are quite a lot of references to funding substitution, finding alternative, safer chemistries. And actually, the UK is looking to be a supporter of that and actually do some research and innovation and support that with funding to try and drive those changes. We shouldn’t forget one of the strong drivers of the way the chemicals regulations are set up is that you have these long, some of the processes take a long time, but what they’re doing is signposting so the industry can look at substitution. That’s what you really want. Ideally, you don’t actually need to get to banning much or by the time you’ve got to banning it, no one’s putting it on the market anyway because industry has already seen the direction of travel quite clearly and has already decided to or invested the time and the money in finding substitution.

Now some of this, as Mike’s already said, is quite hard to find chemistries that do the same things as the very strong, very durable carbon-fluorine bond that makes PFAS chemistries so multi-use and helpful. But, it’s clear that the UK is hoping that there will be some substitution.

We do see, it is a question really about whether the PFAS, the concept of PFAS has become pretty toxic as a brand. So regardless of the toxicity of the chemistries, you know, from a brand reputation perspective, it’s, you know, that’s been toxic and there’s quite a lot of drive to get consumer information about which products contain PFAS chemistries.

And I think the UK Government, as well as waiting to see what the EU will do, is hoping quite a lot of this will be driven by industry and will be part of a growth agenda of coming up with new chemistries. And you can see that through the PFAS plan too, which of course is a good outcome.

Helena Sewell (30:51)

I mean, this was very much kind of mooted through the Environmental Audit Committee report as well in terms of, I suppose, motivating industry to find alternative chemistries. I’d say, though, the approach, particularly under the kind of Environmental Audit Committee report was, I’d say more stick than carrot, as you’re kind of alluding to this, I think the reference to a PFAS remediation fund that producers would have to pay into and kind of trying to drive change through making PFAS quite a challenging set of substances to actually use in industry as well is perhaps another way that the Government might consider trying to promote those kind of alternative chemistries as well.

Michael Barlow (31:47)

And so, I think just before we sort of wrap up, I think your reference to a remediation fund is interesting. Because I think probably one more point that we pick up, which is a classic point for environmental lawyers. But in the PFAS plan, it talks about using the contaminated land regime in relation to clean-up and the challenges there. And then that sort of links to the remediation fund in the Environmental Audit Committee. I mean, I think we know the Environment Agency is quite focused on this and the use of Part 2A contaminated land regime, which of course is the sort of thing that it was set up to do. But we know it has some challenges. But I don’t know if either of you got thoughts on how successful that is going to be. And maybe just touch on what those two documents say about it.

Simon Tilling (32:38)

Well, in terms of how successful it will be, I think environmental lawyers have known through experience over many years now of the contaminated land regime in action how difficult it is to remediate through the contaminated land regime. I think that part of the requirements here will be to streamline and make that more efficient. Obviously the EAC’s restoration fund will provide if that, to be clear, of course, it’s just a parliamentary committee. So, we wait to see what the Government thinks of the ideas the parliamentarians have come up with.

But the, you know, that sort of concept clearly would free up money because that’s the really challenging part of the contaminated land regime. It’s getting somebody to stump up the cash, especially for legacy contamination. So, I think absolutely this is something that needs to be watched. And to Helena’s point, it’s clearly a very big stick rather than a nice juicy carrot. there are challenges. It’s not a panacea. And I think, the Government will know that when it looks at the EAC report and seeks to respond.

Helena Sewell (33:37)

Yeah, I’d completely agree. I think there is a clear direction of travel in all of the kind of environmental strategies that we’ve seen released over the past sort of 6 to 12 months that there is perhaps a move to trying to utilise the contaminated land regime more.

I mean, particularly in the Environmental Improvement Plan that was published at the end of last year, there was very much a focus on trying to sort of rejuvenate the contaminated land regime, trying to engage local authorities in it. But, I think one of the key challenges that you’ve got when trying to use that regime for PFAS is that what constitutes, there aren’t really standards that set out what level of PFAS you need to have in a piece of land for it to be contaminated or to, you know, to be designated as contaminated. So, you’ve got this challenge of, well, it sounds like it should, it should be relevant.

And it sounds like it would be the right regime to, to start trying to, to make, make some kind of moves in terms of remediating PFAS contaminated sites, but actually in practice, how do you actually facilitate that? It’s quite difficult. But I think what everyone could probably agree with is the fact that we need to find some way of managing these sites. I think on the last podcast, we talked at length about the EA’s report that referred to the remediation costs for PFAS contaminated sites running into the hundreds of billions. I think that’s quite sobering when you think about that in the context of the amount of touch points that PFAS has in kind of our everyday lives.

Michael Barlow (35:21)

Yeah, so I think for me, there’s a couple of real challenges, which I think you’ve touched on one, which is the ability of local authorities to deal with this. And obviously, contaminated land starts with them. So it’d be interesting to see whether they can be upskilled and given the funding to be able to do it. And then I think there is, similar to your point, Helena, a real challenge on establishing that sites reach this sort of possibility of significant harm test based on the current science on harm for a lot of the PFAS substances. So, I think there’s some real challenges there.

But anyway, I suggest we draw it to a close there. And many thanks to Simon and Helena for another really engaging discussion. It’ll be really interesting to see how PFAS regulation develops in the UK. And I think one thing we can say is although we don’t know where it’s going to end up, it’s certainly not going to be straightforward, I think, for the reasons that we’ve talked about on the podcast.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Environment Matters. We hope you enjoyed this episode. This and all our other podcasts are available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. So, please look out for our future episodes, which we’re looking to produce every month. If you’d like to know more about our Environment team and how our experts can work with you, please contact me, Simon, or the rest of our team via our website.