3M’s ‘Forever Chemicals’ Crisis Has Come to Europe

3M is at the center of a major political scandal in Belgium, where the company produced PFOS from 1976 to 2002, after a fight over a tunnel project in Antwerp revealed extraordinary levels of toxins in the water, soil, and people near its factory.

The contamination was exposed last year, and has resulted in a criminal probe into the company, a parliamentary commission that’s hauled ministers in for questioning, and a public outcry over the potential health risks to tens of thousands of local residents.

At the end of October, the government of the Flanders region ordered 3M to shut down production of almost all PFAS chemicals. It’s the first time the company had been forced by a government to stop making PFAS—the perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances also known as forever chemicals.

View the full story by Bloomberg Businessweek’s Stephanie Baker here.