Vials containing PFAS samples sit in a tray at a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lab in Cincinnati, on April 10, 2024.Joshua A. Bickel/The Associated Press
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault is moving to curb a broad class of “forever chemicals,” so named by critics for their persistence in the environment long after use in everyday consumer products.
Mr. Guilbeault said during a press conference Wednesday the government will designate the compounds as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
That classification will give the government wide latitude to crack down on their use and disposal, including imposing bans.
Many of the roughly 15,000 compounds, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), have been liked to liver damage, thyroid disease, infertility and cancer.
“We’re at the forefront of international regulation for these substances,” said Mr. Guilbeault.
Canada’s announcement follows similar moves elsewhere. Last month, lawmakers in France voted to ban the use of PFAS in a variety of consumer goods. The European Commission is working on a ban for member states.
First discovered in the 1930s, PFAS are used in a wide array of consumer goods. They tend to be resistant to heat, water and oil, making them ideal components for producing non-stick cookware, stain-proof furniture and flame-resistant firefighting gear.
But industry experiments starting in the 1950s showed that certain PFAS were toxic and even fatal to rats and monkeys at high levels. By 1975, producers became aware that some of the compounds tended to build up, or bioaccumulate, in human tissues.
Today, PFAS are present in the human blood samples from every corner of the globe – including 98.5 per cent of Canadian population, according to 2017 biomonitoring figures from Statistics Canada.
A government report released on Wednesday states that PFAS exposure can affect the liver, immune system, kidneys, thyroid, metabolism and reproductive organs. Several of the chemicals have been linked to cancer.
The government outlined a three-phase approach to tackling the compounds. Starting this year, it will seek to address the use of PFAS in fire-retardant foams used by airports, military bases and firefighter training centres across the country.
Several government-owned sites contaminated with PFAS-bearing firefighting foams have become the subject of lawsuits, with nearby residents claiming the foams tainted their drinking water. In the U.S., such lawsuits have yielded more than US$11-billion.
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Phase 2 will aim to target PFAS exposure from non-essential consumer goods, such as food packaging, textiles and cosmetics.
The final stage will likely prove the most difficult: restricting PFAS among essential sectors where alternatives may not be readily available. PFAS are used throughout the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, for example, and substituting chemical formulations could affect health outcomes.
That’s just one reason Scott Mabury, a professor of environmental chemistry at the University of Toronto who has been researching PFAS for more than 25 years, rejects the government’s approach.
“I think it’s a spectacularly bad idea to ban a whole class of chemicals,” he said. “The impact will be a significant negative and examples in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical area will exemplify the problems.”
Prof. Mabury noted that while some PFAS persist and bioaccumulate in the environment, many do not, challenging the accuracy of the “forever chemicals” label.
Starting in 2008, Ottawa had been addressing PFAS on a chemical-by-chemical basis with the prohibition of PFOS, a component of firefighting foams hydraulic fluids and stain-resistant upholstery. Eight years later, it effectively banned two more PFAS.
Early regulator efforts appeared to be working. Measured PFAS levels in Canadian blood samples fell by half between 2007 and 2017, according to Statscan.
But today, the full list of PFAS numbers around 15,000 by some estimates, dwarfing the government’s ability to track and test individual compounds, many scientists and environmental groups say.
“We’re talking today about ending this regulatory whack-a-mole where we go substance by substance,” said Cassie Barker, senior program manager for advocacy group Environmental Defence. “We’ve got a handful of regulations on the books, but we’re talking 1000s of chemicals where the regulated one can be replaced with an unregulated one.”
Later this year, the government plans to require companies to report any disposal or release of 163 different PFAS through the National Pollutant Release Inventory.