Document pBKwk1r631dVngvra5wXk4Evd

Ref. Ares(2023)3210906 - 08/05/2023 From: , Executive Director, Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) To: Frans Timmermans, European Commission Executive Vice-President Virginijus Sinkevicius, European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market Stella Kyriakides, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Brussels, 21 November 2022 Object: Request for a handover meeting of international civil society manifesto for an urgent ban of `forever chemicals' PFAS Dear Executive Vice-President, Dear Commissioners, We are writing to you on behalf of over 82 civil society organisations from across the European Union and beyond who have developed and supported a joint manifesto to demand the urgent ban of the highly persistent chemicals PFAS. With this letter, we would like to request an in-person meeting to deliver this important document to you and discuss its key demands. The manifesto reflects the increasing public concerns about the unacceptable risks that PFAS pose to our health and the environment, and the urgent need to address them as an entire group in order to put the brakes on and prevent further accumulation of these harmful chemicals in our bodies and across environmental media - air, water, and soils. Widespread PFAS use has created an irreversible harmful legacy of global contamination. The highly persistent, bioaccumulative and often extremely mobile intrinsic properties of PFAS not only mean that they cannot easily be removed from the environment once they have been emitted, but also that exposure levels and associated negative impacts will keep going up unless strict regulatory action is taken. We are already all contaminated by PFAS, with exposure also happening for children in utero. High levels of these `forever chemicals' have also been found in very remote places far from their emissions sources, including in pristine areas of the Arctic. The situation is so dire that scientists now consider that PFAS pollution has now exceeded planetary boundaries. The Ban PFAS manifesto, supported by a large and representative span of health and environmental constituencies as well as community groups directly affected by PFAS pollution, summarises civil society demands and is an urgent reminder of the high public expectations for concrete action towards your EU leadership. Our priority demands include the following: Stop adding to the PFAS pollution burden We call for a phase-out of all PFAS uses in consumer products (e.g. food packaging, cosmetics, clothing) in the EU by 2025. We call for complete phase-out of all PFAS production and use in the EU by 2030. This is achievable through the restriction of the whole PFAS group under the European Chemical Regulation REACH. We express our support for the development of a strong and effective restriction proposal currently in preparation by Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands. Address the existing burden of PFAS pollution: We urge EU governments to develop a swift and efficient plan for decontaminating soil and drinking water of affected communities and allocate sufficient funds for such remediation projects. The polluter-pays principle must be applied consistently, in particular to guarantee that the burden of cost is borne by the polluter, including the producer, rather than the taxpayer. The full list of demands is available in the manifesto - attached to this letter and available online at: https://banpfasmanifesto.org/en/. We thank you for your response and look forward to delivering the manifesto to you in Brussels. Yours sincerely, , Executive Director, Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) On behalf of the initiators of the manifesto: , Chairman, Arnika , Executive Director, CHEM Trust , Managing Director Politics & Communication, BUND , Secretary General, European Environmental Bureau (EEB) , President, Tegengif And the 82 signatories of the manifesto. Contact: health.org , Programme Lead, Health and Chemicals at HEAL, @env- , Senior Communications Officer at HEAL, @env-health.org