Step forward in the fight against forever chemicals

Since 2024, Mouvement Ecologique has been working together with other environmental organisations to push for stronger regulation of forever chemicals (PFAS) – and especially the smallest among them, trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). For decades, this man-made chemical was ignored, with devastating consequences: Europe-wide studies, to which Meco contributed samples from Luxembourg, revealed an almost ubiquitous contamination of all water bodies – rivers, streams, groundwater, tap water, and bottled mineral water.

Now there is a first success: during the EU negotiations on the Water Framework Directive, TFA was, for the first time, included in the sum of PFAS limit values for surface waters.

The road ahead is still long: groundwater remains unprotected, and the implementation of the new rules will stretch until 2039 or even 2045. Nevertheless, this step marks an important partial victory. Our joint pressure is paying off – TFA is now firmly on the EU’s political agenda!