They are designated under the acronym of PFAS, English term referring to treacherous substances and polyfluoroalkylas. So many chemicals considered to be “eternal pollutants” that are found in many everyday objects such as textiles, cosmetics or food packaging, and which accumulate over time in air, soil, water or food. And at the end of the chain in the human body, especially in the blood and the tissues of the kidneys or the liver.
While the National Assembly adopted in February a law to prohibit from 2026 the manufacture and sale of textile and cosmetics products containing PFAS, the Academy of Sciences published this Tuesday a report on these pollutants, which pose “major challenges to our companies” due in particular to the difficulty of replacing them. Believing that it “is possible, as the law recently voted in France provides, to consider limiting, or even better to prohibit, the non -essential uses of PFAS, it is essential to understand that some of these substances have become essential to many industrial sectors”, underlines the Academy in its report.
PFAS traceability “must become the rule”
She takes the opportunity to deliver five recommendations, in particular on the traceability of these chemicals which must “become the rule. “The PFAS is omnipresent in our daily lives, but their presence is rarely indicated on the products we use, for lack of regulation”, underlines the report, which therefore recommends that “the labeling of the products must mention precisely the PFAS which they contain, like the obligation to declare ions in mineral waters. »»
The institution also requires the prohibition of “any rejection of PFAS in the environment, in particular downstream of industrial production sites” as well as the launch of a large public-private research plan to find alternatives to these polluting chemicals. The Academy of Sciences finally urges to accelerate research “on the detection, characterization and evaluation of the effects of PFAS on health and the environment” because “the available scientific knowledge is still extremely limited. »»
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