Dataharvest 2023 - the European Investgative Journalism Conference

They're ingredients of Teflon or Scotchgard: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), aka “forever chemicals”. They don’t degrade in the environment and can be found in every drop of rain, tap water… or blood. The Forever Pollution Project looked into the magnitude of PFAS contamination in Europe with innovative “peer-reviewed” journalism. As well as collecting dozens of studies monitoring data in water and soil, the team created an original dataset containing tens of thousands of presumptive contamination sites across Europe such as military sites, airports, paper mills or textile factories. To build the first ever Map of Forever pollution in Europe, they adapted methodology developed by a team of scientists to locate PFAS contamination in the United States (with their support). The initial five-country team gathered so much knowledge that they shared it with colleagues from other countries with the clear goal to widen the reach of their work, and to impact continuing European public debate. The final product is a work of journalism that led to major national investigations in several European countries. It also provided regional media companies, impacted community members, citizens, researchers and regulators with a transparent tool to work with and deepen the discussions around one of the biggest environmental problems we currently face.