A new study has found a common "forever chemical" in mineral water from several European nations.
What's happening?
Researchers from the Pesticide Action Network Europe looked at 19 mineral waters from European countries and found that 10 of them contained trifluoroacetic acid, a type of PFAS. The Guardian reported on the findings, calling them "startling because mineral water should be pristine and insulated from manmade chemicals." However, TFA was found at levels up to 32 times over the threshold that should trigger regulatory action from the European Union, according to the publication.
The study's authors believe the contamination stems from the application of pesticides containing TFA.
"This has gone completely under the radar and it's concerning because we're drinking TFA," Angeliki Lysimachou, one of the paper's co-authors, told The Guardian. "It's much more widespread than we thought."
Why is this study concerning?
TFA is on the rise in our environment and can be found in drinking water, rain, and our bloodstreams, according to another article from The Guardian, which added that scientists believe the substance could impact fertility and fetal development.
Like all per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, this forever chemical is incredibly persistent in the environment and widespread across the globe. For instance, another recent study in Michigan found the substance in all rainwater samples tested.
What's being done about TFA?
TFA is especially difficult to remove from water, making large-scale solutions expensive.
"There's no way to get TFA out," David Behringer, an environmental consultant who has studied TFA in rain for the German government, told The Guardian. "Reverse osmosis is massively expensive and not scalable, so the logical course is to stop the input."
To that end, countries such as Denmark and Germany have set limits for TFA in drinking water, the publication reported.
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Meanwhile, the European Commission proposed a ban on the pesticides flufenacet and flutolanil, which break down into TFA.
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