Since Saint-Théodorit, the fight against eternal pollutants has been forged

Arnaud Gras présente le système de filtration installé en amont de son circuit d’eau en cuisine. Camera obscura – STEPHANE BARBIER

Faced with the negligence of industrialists and the impotence of politicians in the fight against PFAs, a collective is experimenting with an effective filtration system for water contaminated with TFA.

“With this filtration system, we go from water with TFA pollution at 18 micrograms per liter to, after filtration, 0.58 micrograms per liter… “Suffice to say that Arnaud Gras, a resident of Saint-Théodorit, has, of course, heard the alarm sounded in February 2024 by the association Générations futures led by François Veillerette revealing the alarming rate of TFA, a member of the family of eternal pollutants, PFAs, in the water flowing near the Solvay company located in Salindres.

With this filtration system, we go from water with TFA pollution of 18 micrograms per liter to, after filtration, 0.58 micrograms per liter…

Exceptionally high levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyls (PFAs) in surface water and drinking water in municipalities neighboring ones who then question these Théodoritois. Formed into a “Citizen Collective of St-Théodorit (Gard) against the eternal pollutants in the drinking water of the Gardon”, the group launches an appeal for participatory financing and collects “a kitty of €650 to carry out studies on the water. We obtain results of 19 micrograms of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) per liter of water” reveals the fifty-year-old.
The laboratory therefore confirms the pollution but the political world, discovering the extent of the phenomenon, limits itself to the values ​​authorized by the State that the regional health agency communicates to it. Thus, in June 2024, the collective published a press release from the ARS specifying that “the water is drinkable according to the standards in force” while emphasizing that TFA is a special case not included in the list of 20 Pfas identified for detection…

It is an invisible, impalpable pollution and, as in the asbestos scandal, they are waiting for it to explode.

200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000

“At that time, we asked ourselves what we could do,” recalls Arnaud Gras. We then contacted several companies offering filtration systems and one of them, Filtrabio, granted us a loan of a pollution control filter. They financed the cost of the control by a laboratory (Ianesco in Poitiers) and revealed these results (a division of the pollution rate by about 31 Editor's note) Knowing that the European standard for all Pfas is 0.5 micrograms per liter. We are almost within the standard. It is effective. »
Installed today on the circuit of his kitchen, the equipment for rent, costing €30 per month (it is also for sale but more expensive) will be replaced at the end of the fourth year of use or 150,000 liters of water treated. An effective process but a citizen initiative that saddens Arnaud Gras. “I am not an ecologist from the beginning, but I do not want to poison myself and let myself be poisoned by my elected representatives. That is what annoys me the most, they do not react because it is an invisible, impalpable pollution and, as in the asbestos scandal, they wait for it to explode. “

 

” We are always learning from these pollutions “

The company Filtrabio, born from the meeting in 2018 of Mickael Ferry and Kostia Steckmeyer, is alerted to the quality of drinking water during the broadcast of an investigation by Élise Lucet in 2022, on the subject of pollution of the soil, air, water but also breast milk with perfluorinated compounds around the Arkema industrial site in the suburbs of Lyon.
Already involved in the treatment of water polluted by heavy metals, drug residues or pesticides, the company, at the request of an impacted municipality, is working to develop a PFA filtration technology. “We have modified our devices until we obtain significant reduction rates validated by a Cofrac-certified laboratory”, explains Mickael Ferry on the phone.
Since then, the company has been improving the quality of treatment as health scandals have arisen. The publication by the newspaper Le Monde of a new pollution of water supply networks by vinyl chloride monomer, a substance classified as carcinogenic, is the latest example. “  We are always learning from these pollutions. When one of them is revealed, we detect the most contaminated place and we place our devices there for crash testing.  ” Naturally refusing to disclose the technology used in the system used by the resident of Saint-Théodorit, the device nevertheless has the advantage over reverse osmosis (another decontamination process) of not filtering mineral salts and other molecules from the water. The only problem is that once the cartridge is loaded with eternal pollutants, incineration remains, for the time being, the only treatment cycle. “But if we want to be eco-responsible, this is not satisfactory, warns Mickael Ferry. This is why we are in contact with companies for the reuse of bio-sourced materials from our media that have trapped Pfas. “
If designers call for ” not to move towards plastic bottled water, also a source of pollution or towards the miners themselves impacted by pollution, it is also to remind that the natural resource of water remains the future. On condition that the polluting industrialists are also the payers of this decontamination that they have generated…

I subscribe to read the rest