A team of researchers must advise the authorities on how to contain pollution with environmentally dangerous PFAS substances.
This is what DTU – the Technical University of Denmark writes in a press release.
PFAS are also called forever chemicals because they are difficult to get rid of.
They have been used since the early 1950s and are found both in the soil, in the sea and in several places in the drinking water.
One of the urgent problems that the researchers have to help deal with is PFAS contamination seeping from landfills.
This is explained by professor at DTU Anders Baun, who will lead a new research center focusing on PFAS.
– We assist the authorities in dealing with the acute problems – for example, that today we have 3,000 old landfills in Denmark, from which PFAS can leak into the environment, says Anders Baun.
He also says that the environment “is full of PFAS” and that the problem is so big “that we can’t clean everything up”.
– In order to prioritize the effort, we create new knowledge in a number of research areas, says Anders Baun in the announcement.
The new research center will be located at DTU, and it will be established in a collaboration between DTU, the University of Copenhagen, the University of Southern Denmark and Aarhus University.
PFAS was on everyone’s lips when a subgroup of the substances called PFOS was detected in beef at a cow-grazing association in Korsør in 2021.
It turned out that the substances had seeped into the surroundings from a nearby fire station, where PFOS had been used in fire-fighting foam.
The substances are not acutely toxic, but they accumulate in the blood and organs and are suspected of increasing the risk of, among other things, cancer and hormonal disorders.
It is the long-term effects of the substances on health that cause concern.
Last year, the government presented an action plan against PFAS, which bans the substances in clothing, shoes and impregnation agents from 2026.
The research center is financed by a grant of DKK 45 million from the Ministry of the Environment.
/ritzau/
Source: www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk
