Speeches by Gardiner.

“I want to return to the bloodletting that you mentioned earlier in the town of Bentham. I notice that some chap called Orlando Bloom recently paid £10,000 to have his blood purified from microplastics and PFAS. Picking up on what you said about specific professions, given we know that the aqueous film forming foams—or …”

“Professor Depledge, you are well experienced in this area from your time at the Environment Agency; you will have appeared many times before Committees like this. When we are framing recommendations to the Government, what should our recommendations be for the approach to chemical regulation in general, and to the inte…”

“If this Committee were to make recommendations, which we will have to, you are suggesting that there should be a principle that we should know that chemicals will do no harm and whether they are persistent. Would you recommend that we determine safe exposure levels of any new chemicals for human beings? New chemicals a…”

“Given that the EU is seeking to apply the essential use concept to regulation, how should critical and necessary use in industry be determined? In a sense, as I asked earlier, what is essential use, and how do we weigh up the competing interests? Is there a framework for that, or should we be recommending that there is…”

“What could the UK learn from the EU’s safe and sustainable design framework? How can we avoid regrettable substitution? I know these are used as technical terms, but, Professor Depledge, can you put them in layman’s language for us?”

“Thank you very much.”

“That is very interesting. The Government therefore have a role to play in ensuring that there is capacity to get this right.”

“My goodness! We have established from what you have said that this is pretty toxic and long-lasting stuff.”

“Mr Spence, I saw you nodding. Did you want to add to that?”

“I thought we had UK REACH, and that we regulated our chemicals. That was one of the most important things that we did after Brexit: we imported the REACH regulations into the UK. Dr Cloy talked about new chemicals being produced and the sub-groups that have been restricted, but I understand that no sub-groups have been…”

“That would be a heck of a lot of energy used to get rid of some of the materials in compostable paper cups.”

“What lessons do you think we can learn from other countries that have successfully reduced PFAS in their consumer goods, Mr Hirlam?”

“Perhaps only if the Government set those very clear regulatory targets will that way be found.”

“You are all indicating that you want to speak. Let’s bring in Linsey Cottrell.”

“It certainly would send out a signal, yes; and of course, all other companies might be able to go through the OJEC procedures and apply that way, rather than just Delipac. What challenges does your company face? You said, “We didn’t know whether we had and we had difficulty finding out.” How difficult was it for you to…”

“Indeed, but what one could do, I suppose, is to regulate to at least insist on transparency, so that if the public is looking to purchase a product, then they can either go to Mr Spence and get his PFAS-free fire extinguisher, or they can go to another product that specifically says, “We contain PFAS”. They can then at…”

“I want to return to the bloodletting that you mentioned earlier in the town of Bentham. I notice that some chap called Orlando Bloom recently paid £10,000 to have his blood purified from microplastics and PFAS. Picking up on what you said about specific professions, given we know that the aqueous film forming foams—or …”

“Spoken like a true Yorkshireman, if I may say so. Thank you very much. That was robust and helpful. I wanted to ask you about the way in which PFAS may be being reintroduced into the environment through biodegradable or compostable materials. We can perhaps look not only to you, Mr Hirlam, but to others to talk about t…”

“Dr Cloy, you are telling us that at the moment we spray our children’s school uniforms with a substance that we know has the potential to cause cancer, and that can interfere with their fertility in the long term. That seems quite incredible, doesn’t it? What happened to the precautionary principle that you mentioned?”

“Indeed; that would be prevention rather than cure. Dr Rajapakse, you speak as a scientist and you have been involved in this. Does incineration actually get rid of the PFAS? Does it break it down? We have been told that these are incredibly persistent chemical compounds.”