Greenpeace's alarm on contaminated water in the Turin area:«PFAS detected in over 70 municipalities»

The association obtained and analyzed data from some regional public bodies:"The problem is bigger than we thought"

Over 125 thousand citizens living in the province of Alessandria and the metropolitan city of Turin may have drunk contaminated drinking water.The alarm is raised by a relationship published in recent days by Greenpeace Italia, based on official data from Piedmontese public bodies that the environmental association obtained through a request for access to documents.Greenpeace's analysis shows that in several areas of Piedmont, including the city of Turin, citizens may have drunk water contaminated by PFOA, a molecule classified as carcinogenic to humans and which is part of PFAS.The latter were renamed «forever chemicals», because they tend to accumulate in humans and in the environment, resisting normal degradation processes.

What are Pfas

«For years it was believed that PFAS contamination in Italy only affected the Veneto or the Alessandria area in Piedmont, areas that have hosted or still host industrial plants dedicated to the production of these dangerous molecules.Unfortunately, however, PFAS pollution is much more extensive", explains Giuseppe Ungherese, head of Greenpeace's Pollution campaign.In fact, Piedmont is home to the only active production of PFAS in Italy.This is the Solvay Specialty Polymers chemical hub in Spinetta Marengo, in Alessandria.According to theEuropean Environment Agency, these chemicals “can have adverse health effects such as liver damage, thyroid disease, obesity, fertility problems and cancer.”A European directive will introduce a maximum concentration threshold for PFAS starting from 2026, with many countries already complying in advance.In Italy, however, there is still no law that prohibits the use or production of these chemical substances.

The report data

Regarding the data obtained in the Alessandria and Turin areas, Greenpeace speaks of pollution "not yet recognized" nor "under control".This is demonstrated not only by the data obtained from Turin public bodies, but also by other surveys conducted independently by the environmental association, which recorded the presence of PFAS in other unmonitored areas.The problem, then, could be even larger than expected, considering that only some Municipalities responded to requests for access to Greenpeace documents.