28 Feb 2024
How unhealthy are our rivers? The latest Rivers Trust State of Our Rivers Report finds that: No single stretch of river in England or Northern Ireland is in good overall health. Just 15% of English, 31% of Northern Irish, and 50% of Irish river stretches reach good ecological health standards. Toxic chemicals persist in every […]
07 Feb 2024
The Guardian reports that seventeen landfills across England are known to be producing a highly toxic liquid substance containing some banned and potentially carcinogenic “forever chemicals”, in some cases at levels 260 times higher than that deemed safe for drinking water. However the government says it does not know where these landfills are. Over a […]
05 Dec 2023
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), has evaluated the carcinogenicity of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS). PFOA and PFOS are widely used chemicals in a large group of fluorinated compounds called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), sometimes called “forever chemicals” because they […]
29 Nov 2023
Potentially toxic “forever chemicals” have been detected in the drinking water sources at 17 of 18 England’s water companies, with 11,853 samples testing positive, something experts say they are “extremely alarmed” by. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – a group of 10,000 or so human-made chemicals widely used in industrial processes, firefighting foams and consumer […]
15 Nov 2023
The government has set out plans for an alternative transitional registration model (ATRm) to support UK REACH transitional registrations. This is “in response to concerns raised by the chemicals industry about the significant cost to businesses of accessing EU data packages”. According to the government, “This document outlines the government’s plans for an alternative transitional […]
25 Oct 2023
The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is calling on the UK Government to overhaul its drinking water standards after a new analysis reveals more than a third of water courses tested in England and Wales contain medium or high-risk levels of PFAS. This group, more commonly known as forever chemicals, is linked to a range […]
20 Sep 2023
Research from Pesticide Action Network (PAN) shows that the UK is failing to phase out pesticides that have been found to be harmful to human health and the environment at the same rate as the EU. Thirteen of the 36 chemicals are considered highly hazardous pesticides under UN definitions used to identify the most harmful […]
13 Jul 2023
The Guardian reported this week that the European Commission is poised to break a promise to outlaw all but the most essential of Europe’s hazardous chemicals. The pledge to “ban the most harmful chemicals in consumer products, allowing their use only where essential” was a flagship component of the European green deal when it was […]
Prev