This week, the UK government published its long-awaited PFAS Action Plan, setting out how it intends to respond to the growing crisis posed by the ‘forever chemicals’. While CHEM Trust welcomes the government’s acknowledgement that PFAS pose a serious risk to human health and the environment, the plan, in our view, does not yet deliver the decisive action needed to protect people and nature.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of over 10,000 synthetic chemicals often called ‘forever chemicals’ because they last for generations in the environment. They have contaminated air, water, soil, wildlife, and even our blood.
Worse yet, some PFAS are linked to hormone disruption, immune system damage, liver disease, and even certain kinds of cancer in people and wildlife. Despite this, the UK has fallen dangerously behind our European neighbours in regulating these toxic chemicals.
In July 2025, CHEM Trust and partner NGOs published a PFAS Action Plan setting out the actions needed to tackle this crisis to protect people’s health and environment. In this article, we assess the government’s new plan against these crucial actions.
Monitoring instead of prevention
A central weakness of the government’s plan is its heavy focus on monitoring, research and evidence-gathering, rather than on stopping PFAS pollution at source. While better data is important, PFAS are already well-documented as harmful and persistent. More than 10,000 high-risk PFAS contamination sites have been identified across England, which will cost billions to clean up. The EU has compiled hundreds of pages on PFAS use, exposure, and emissions.
The NGO action plan, therefore, prioritises prevention at source, calling for restrictions on PFAS uses to avoid further pollution. The government plan delays action by committing largely to “exploring options” and future consultations, rather than introducing immediate regulatory controls.
Unclear commitment to align with the EU’s protective PFAS ban
CHEM Trust and other NGOs have repeatedly called on the UK to match, and not fall behind, EU protections on chemicals, including the planned restriction covering around 10,000 PFAS substances.
While the government’s PFAS plan repeats its promise to align more closely with EU standards, it fails to mention the EU’s proposed PFAS ban at all. This silence creates real uncertainty about the UK’s direction, particularly given the plan’s acceptance of the ongoing use of some PFAS.
NGOs have also called for commitment to catching up with EU PFAS measures introduced since Brexit. The plan says it will merely “consider” UK action on existing EU restrictions, but this is not enough. The UK must urgently implement these measures, not delay behind cautious language.
Lack of binding phase-out timelines
Urgency matters with PFAS. Each year of delay increases contamination both of the environment and our bodies, and also increases future clean-up costs. The NGO action plan, therefore, sets out the need for clear, legally binding timelines to phase out non-essential uses of PFAS.
By contrast, the government’s plan contains no binding deadlines. Many actions are framed as long-term ambitions or exploratory work, offering little certainty that meaningful restrictions will be introduced in time to prevent further harm.
No binding limits for water and the environment
The NGO plan highlights the need to align with wider EU PFAS action, such as drinking water, soil and surface water limits and guidelines, to prevent falling UK standards of health and environmental protection. The EU has recently introduced limits on PFAS in drinking water.
The government’s plan stops short of this, committing instead to further monitoring and consultation on a statutory limit for drinking water. Without binding limits, regulators and water companies lack the tools needed to act decisively, and the public remains exposed to these chemicals.
Polluters still not paying
PFAS pollution is already widespread in the UK, yet the government’s plan offers no clear strategy for the remediation of contaminated sites. It focuses on improving understanding of legacy pollution but does not commit to a funded clean-up programme.
One of the most striking gaps is the failure to properly apply the polluter-pays principle. The government plan does not set out mechanisms to ensure PFAS producers and users are financially responsible for monitoring, clean-up, and health impacts.
Without this, the costs of PFAS pollution risk falling on taxpayers, water companies, and local authorities — rather than those who profited from producing and using these chemicals.
Giving responsibility to the consumer
The government’s PFAS action plan mentions supporting informed consumer choices. However, the responsibility of controlling PFAS exposure is not the public’s. It is the government’s responsibility to make sure that people are not exposed to products containing PFAS in the first place.
Support for PFAS innovation
The government’s plan does commit to promoting innovation through collaborative events and forums. As the NGOs set out in their action plan, many companies are developing alternatives to PFAS, including in solar cells, wind turbines, heat pumps and the medical sector. But a commitment to protective PFAS regulation would be the clearest signal the industry needs to drive innovation.
Dr Shubhi Sharma of CHEM Trust said:
This is not the action plan we were hoping for from the UK government. Action has been deferred to an indefinite date in the future. This crisis needs immediate action, but what we’ve got instead is a government green-light for polluting industries to keep on contaminating our bodies and environment.
Conclusion
PFAS pollution is a long-term problem that requires bold, preventative policy. Incremental steps and further evidence-gathering are not enough. The government must now strengthen its plan to match the scale and urgency of the PFAS crisis, to ensure that people and the environment are properly protected.
CHEM Trust will continue to call on the UK government to:
- Align with EU chemical regulations, including a universal PFAS restriction, and quickly catch up with PFAS protections introduced since we left the bloc;
- Immediately phase out PFAS in key sectors, such as firefighting foams, food packaging, textiles, and cosmetics, as other EU countries have done;
- Ensure the costs of remediation of contaminated sites are paid for by PFAS producers and users—based on the “polluter pays” principle.
