‘Forever pollution’: Europe’s PFAS contamination. Belgium, what happened?

28 comments
  1. Do we just have more data than the other countries or is it really that bad? And why the south has barely any contamination? Is it the lack of data or some other reason?

    Source: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2023/02/23/forever-pollution-explore-the-map-of-europe-s-pfas-contamination_6016905_8.html

    EDIT: As /u/michilio mentioned, we do have more data because it is required by law.

    Source: https://www.vlaanderen.be/omgaan-met-uitgegraven-bodem-de-regels-van-het-grondverzet

  2. We have a lot of chemical industry. Given past scandals, we test more. Other countries may be in ignorant bliss?

  3. remember that during COVID we had very high numbers of death compared to other countries?

    After covid there was analysis that showed that other countries the statistic excess deaths was a lot more and that we were spot on comparing the excess deaths and the reported covid deaths.

    We test more and we have no shame in showing the real numbers.

  4. Everybody has pfas in their bloodstream, from here to the Amazon River.

    Look at the coast line, it can never stop like that on the border. We measure differently. Only explanation.

  5. It looks very obvious that there are certain locations where they actually take samples to measure PFAS, in Switserland, along the Rhine and Seine rivers, amsterdam region. And other regions where they do no measurements like southern France and eastern Germany.

  6. What happened is more extensive and thorough testing. Borders aren’t a magical forcefield that keep pollution contained within 1st level subdivisions of a country.

  7. Notice the “known”. Perhaps we are more diligent?
    Also, notice how all of it is around Europe’s most industrious zones. No coincidence.

  8. This is covid contaminations and deaths all over again. We test more, we get more numbers, we get more bad results

  9. I’d like to add that this map has absolutely no value. Sure we see light red and dark red spots but what do they mean? Is it an indicator for the amount of cases with contamination if so, what even is the threshold? Is it representative of the concentration of PFAS?

    No legenda on a figure like this is like a plot without values or names on the axes. Useless. It says nothing.

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