EU, Australia Shape Standards to Keep PFAS Off the Dinner Table

Preventing potentially harmful amounts of PFAS in food is a core driver of soil, sediment, and biosolids standards Australia and European countries are developing, regulatory officials said this week during a global conference.

US states setting regulatory and guideline standards for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) often take the Environmental Protection Agency’s health advisories for two of the chemicals—perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS)—into account. Neither the US Food and Drug Administration nor the Department of Agriculture has set PFAS limits in food or livestock.

But regulators from the Netherlands and the UK and a Danish environmental consultant said those countries are focusing on a 2020 recommendation the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) made as they determine the safety of soil and sediments. Plants, including crops, can take up PFAS from contaminated soil and water resulting in the chemicals being in meat and milk.

The regulators, scientists, and others spoke at the International Cleanup Conference in Adelaide, Australia, which continues through Sept. 15. The conference attracted 600 virtual and in-person participants from regions around the world.

Food, Soil and Sediment

EFSA’s recommended “tolerable weekly intake” is that people ingest no more than 4.4 parts per trillion (ppt) of four PFAS per kilogram of body weight. That limit should protect people from the possibility that the four chemicals—PFOA, PFOS, perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA), and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS)—would weaken the immune system, EFSA said.

The UK’s Environment Agency used that recommendation to develop internal guideline levels for the four PFAS to screen out residential, park, and commercial properties that are deemed unlikely to pose health risks, said Ian Martin, a principal scientist with the agency.

The Netherland’s National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) incorporates the EFSA’s recommendations into its risk assessments that determine whether soil and sediment containing PFAS can be reused, said Arjen Wintersen, a research coordinator at the institute. Much of the Netherlands is a delta for rivers and lies below sea level. To “keep our feet dry” and allow ships to pass, rivers are dredged with the sediments placed on land, he said.

Denmark has incorporated EFSA’s recommendation into action levels, or “criteria,” it set in 2021 to protect soil, ground- and drinking water from the four PFAS, said Søren Rygaard Lenschow, a senior project manager with the consulting firm NIRAS A/S. It set separate, higher, criteria for 22 other PFAS, he said.

Shaun Thomas, principal adviser for wastewater at the South Australian Environment Protection Authority, didn’t reference EFSA’s recommendations as he discussed PFAS standards for biosolids that Australia is developing. But safeguarding crops, meat, and products derived from meat is central to those standards, he said.

Australia will “imminently” release its updated, draft PFAS National Environmental Management Plan, which includes the biosolids standards, for public consultation, said Sara Broomhall, national PFAS coordinator for the country’s Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water. The plan sets out nationally agreed standards and guidance about the chemicals.

Analytical Flags, Limits

EFSA’s standards are flagging concerns.

RIVM has detected freshwater and marine fish with PFAS levels significantly above EFSA’s levels, Wintersen said.

Soil and groundwater levels of the chemicals show “we can’t prevent people from being exposed to EFSA’s limits,” even if production of all PFAS stopped, he said. But, governments can “try to bring total exposure down,” Wintersen said.

A major problem is that it’s hard, sometimes impossible, to measure PFAS at the low levels that would be protective based on EFSA’s standards, said Lenschow and other speakers.

Better analytical methods are needed if EFSA’s limits are going to drive safety conclusions, said Joerg Frauenstein, who works with the German Environment Agency.

Sea, Rain as ‘Game Changers’

Emerging Danish research on PFAS coming from the sea is revealing a new challenge governments face, Lenschow said. Ocean agitation, through storms and waves for example, tends to make the chemicals aerosolize and enrich sea foam with them, he said.

That’s likely contributing to the PFAS being measured in cows grazing on farmland that abuts the ocean, he said. All cows sampled by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries of Denmark have been above its level of concern, Lenschow said.

Wastewater treatment plants, incineration, offshore oil drilling, and rainwater are among the suspected sources, he said. Research published on Aug. 2 in Environmental Science and Technology found rainwater often exceeds Danish drinking water limits of 2 ppt for the sum of PFOA, PFOS, PFHxS, and PFNA and the levels set in the EPA’s interim health advisories of 0.004 ppt for PFOA and 0.02 ppt for PFOS.

PFAS “contamination from sea is a real game changer,” Lenschow said. It raises concerns about concentrations of the chemicals in fish, game, and livestock along coastal areas, he said. The aerosolization of PFAS and rainwater containing it also suggests that coastal areas’ drinking water supplies won’t be fully protected through controls on land, he said.