The presence of eternal pollutants in our foods continues to worry.
These per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS, are a large family of more than four thousand chemical compounds.
They have non-stick, waterproofing properties, resistant to high heat and have been widely used since the 1950s in industry, in textiles, food packaging, non-stick coatings for pans but also in cosmetics and in phytosanitary products.
However, these products have a polluting nature that is very resistant over time.
According to several NGOs, the presence of pesticides containing PFAS exploded between 2011 and 2021 in plants consumed in the European Union, particularly in summer fruits.
Strawberries, peaches, apricots…
According to an analysis of official data from Member States' national monitoring programs for pesticide residues in food carried out on 278,516 samples of fruits and vegetables, the volume of fruits contaminated by PFAS residues increased by 220% between 2011 and 2021.
The most affected are in particular summer fruits, such as strawberries (37% contaminated in 2021), peaches (35%) or apricots (31%), indicates this report published by several associations including Générations Futures and Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe, already authors of a first study on the subject in November 2023.
For vegetables, proportionally less affected by this contamination, the increase is 247% over ten years, with endives (42%) and cucumbers (30%) being the most contaminated in 2021.
In the 20 EU countries studied, fruits and vegetables grown in the Netherlands (27%), Belgium (27%), Austria (25%), Spain (22%), Portugal (21%), Greece (18%) and France (17%) are those which contain the most traces of PFAS.
“Chronic risks for human health”
According to the report, the most common agricultural use PFASs between 2011 and 2021 were the fungicide fluopyram, the insecticide flonicamid, and the fungicide trifloxystrobin.
For Générations Futures and PAN Europe, the results of the report “show that the use of PFAS in pesticides leads to an increasingly common ingestion” of residues of these substances “among European consumers” and that “this source of contamination is not should not be minimized compared to that due to other PFAS”.
“The continued accumulation of PFAS in soils, waters, the food chain and resulting cocktails poses chronic risks to human health.
It is urgent to ban (...) them in all food products and animal feed in order to protect the health of European citizens, believe the two associations.
Last year, the European Union took a first step towards restricting the use of PFAS.
But pesticides classified as PFAS are excluded from the scope of this restriction, because phytosanitary products are regulated by their own text.
A collaborative survey launched by Le Monde and 17 partners drew up a first “map of eternal pollution” in Europe.
More than 17,000 sites are believed to be contaminated, including more than 2,000 at dangerous levels, according to environmental analyzes carried out between 2003 and 2023.
In January 2024, 11 European political leaders had PFAS measured in their blood, to raise attention on this subject, and to demonstrate that those living near chemical factories are not the only ones concerned: the blood of each of these leaders contained it. , with indicative safety thresholds exceeded in 5 of them.