Response to interpellation 2024/25:358 on limit values for PFAS in food
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
KD argues that the government takes PFAS spread seriously and that Livsmedelsverket has chosen a low limit value for drinking water 1. KD considers that limit values for animal-based foods are established jointly in the EU based on scientific risk assessments that need to be updated 1 2. KD argues that TFA does not pose a health risk based on current knowledge but that more research is needed 1 2. KD does not want toxic substances in food or drinking water and wants to limit the spread as well as push for a phase-out 3 4. S wants to ban PFAS, have limit values for all foods and a national strategy 5 6 7. S wants a knowledge center in Uppsala 6 8. S argues that Sweden can lead the way and be stricter than now 9. S wants a total ban and phase-out of PFAS in the entire EU 8. S emphasizes that PFAS is carcinogenic and reproductive-inhibiting 9.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! I have been asked what measures I intend to take to introduce limit values for PFAS in all food products, how I plan to support municipalities such as Ronneby that are forced to act due to elevated PFAS levels in local environments and food, and what the government is doing to ensure that limit values for PFAS in animal-based food products are reviewed and updated regularly based on the latest research.
The Government views the spread of highly fluorinated substances in the environment and in the food chain, where they pose a risk to consumers' health, very seriously.
The Swedish Food Agency has had national action limits for PFAS in drinking water since 2014. In 2022, the agency decided on new drinking water regulations due to the European Parliament and Council's directive on the quality of drinking water. The Swedish Food Agency has chosen to set a limit for PFAS in drinking water as low as possible. The new limit shall begin to be applied on 1 January 2026.
Since 2023, the EU has had common limit values for PFAS substances in animal-derived food. All limit values for PFAS are based on a risk assessment published by the European Food Safety Authority, Efsa, in 2020.
Based on what we know today, the amount of trifluoroacetic acid, TFA, that we ingest through food and drinking water poses no health risk, but more knowledge is needed. The risks to humans are currently being evaluated, and Germany has submitted a proposal to the European Chemicals Agency that TFA should be classified as toxic to reproduction. Efsa is currently conducting a risk assessment of TFA to establish safe exposure levels for humans. The limit values that may be set for new PFAS compounds in food and for new categories of food are determined jointly in the EU.
The Swedish Food Agency continuously monitors and analyzes the scientific developments regarding risks linked to PFAS substances in food, including drinking water. The agency also represents Sweden in several different EU forums where EU legislation on foreign substances in food is handled.
In the current situation, there are no further decided measures. The Government, however, continues to follow the issue closely in order to both ensure that consumers' health is not risked and, to the greatest extent possible, prevent drinking water producers, farmers, and professional fishers from being affected by problems resulting from contamination with PFAS.
According to the Act on Public Water Services, the municipalities are responsible for the public drinking water supply, and they have the right to charge fees to finance this. It is important that the development of fees in the municipalities over time corresponds to the investment needs, including for the procurement of necessary purification technology for drinking water production.
The Government is aware of the PFAS-related problems that some municipalities – especially the smaller ones – may face, partly in connection with the new limit value for PFAS substances in drinking water starting to be applied in 2026, partly as a result of local PFAS contamination such as that in Ronneby, and therefore follows the developments closely.
Magnus Manhammar (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you for the answer, Minister!
I am glad that we are here and talking about this, but of course very unhappy that we even need to talk about these things and that PFAS even exists.
Before we begin this discussion, I think it is important, even for those listening to the debate, to find out what PFAS is. The Minister mentioned it a little, and I think I can mention something more.
PFAS are fluorinated chemicals that are very water-resistant. They are also fat-repellent and generally resistant to all external influences. They are used today largely in industry. They are used in food production, unfortunately. They are used for clothes, for makeup, for disposable items, for all sorts of things, so PFAS really are everywhere.
In this glass of water I just took in this house, there are approximately 4 nanograms of PFAS per liter. If you go out and drink water from Mälaren, you will be poisoned, because there is so much PFAS there now, unfortunately.
PFAS is in everyone's bodies today because PFAS has spread so much in the world. PFAS has even been found in polar bears in the Arctic because it spreads and does not break down. It is a very long-lived and extremely difficult-to-degrade chemical.
PFAS is used because it increases durability. That is obviously good for industry – one can earn more money and build things that have good properties. But what one did not know, or at least did not know from the beginning but knows today and has known for several decades, is that these are very dangerous chemicals. When they accumulate in the body, the risk of cancer and various diseases in our organs increases. They damage fetuses in the mother's womb. They harm us humans very much.
We truly have a PFAS crisis in Sweden and in the world. Now it has become relevant because PFAS has also started being found in food – not just in drinking water, which is very much noticed.
Now people have also started talking a lot about that there is PFAS in pesticides, that is to say what we spray our crops with – apples, potatoes, rapeseed or whatever it is. PFAS makes pesticides or insecticides, plant protection products, much more persistent. It is clear that if you spray it on the food and we then eat the food, the amount of PFAS in our bodies increases, so having limit values for PFAS in food is incredibly important.
For me, this has become relevant again recently.
The first time it was about Ronneby, my neighboring municipality, where the large PFAS scandal had been in the village of Kallinge with about 5,000 inhabitants. The Ronneby river flows past Kallinge, past Ronneby's town center, and then out into the Baltic Sea. There, the municipality has now issued dietary advice and said that one should not fish or eat the fish in the Ronneby river because it is so heavily contaminated that it is quite seriously dangerous for one's health to eat it. Then it became relevant again, and there were many discussions at home. Above all, those who are already affected by PFAS, i.e., everyone who lives in Kallinge and also those who were born to parents who have lived in Kallinge, are very worried. It is clear that one is if one has already ingested as much PFAS as one received in Kallinge, where PFAS was discovered in the drinking water in the autumn of 2013. Then it was not 4 nanograms per liter of water, as it is here in our water, but it was 10,380 nanograms per liter in the drinking water.
It is clear that those in Kallinge, but also everyone else in Sweden, are now worried when they are going to eat food. When one is going down to the cafeteria here or when one goes to Ica or Coop at home, should one then buy food with PFAS in it? We must ensure that it is not that way. We must ban PFAS, and we must have limit values for PFAS in all food products.
Gustaf Lantz (S)
Madam Speaker! I would like to begin by thanking colleague Magnus Manhammar for raising the issue of PFAS and thank the Minister for his answer.
I also want to thank the environmental network within the Social Democrats in Uppsala who have engaged in the issue and helped me ahead of this debate. A special thanks to Camilla Sjöström and David Sörme, who are sitting in the gallery today.
Madam Speaker! PFAS is a collection of chemicals that have rapidly spread in nature and in the Swedish drinking water. Chemicals often pose a major health risk and can cause cancer, reduced fertility, high cholesterol levels, and weight impact in newborns. PFAS are called forever chemicals because they do not break down in nature but remain for all foreseeable future.
In less than 11 months, companies that produce drinking water containing excessively high levels of PFAS must have initiated measures to reduce these. Hardly all of Sweden's municipalities are ready for this. Our water flows freely without considering municipal boundaries, and so do the emissions. We need to increase our knowledge about PFAS. The knowledge that exists regarding the many different PFAS substances must also be spread effectively to various social actors.
A national strategy to fight a borderless problem such as PFAS emissions and for purification must be based on science. What is missing today and what is needed on a national level is more research, educational initiatives, and cooperation for innovation. More communication initiatives, seminar activities, special analyses, and development of treatment technologies are also needed.
Madam Speaker! We must find the most cost-effective methods for filtering, tracking emission sources, and identifying new toxic PFAS substances. PFAS is a group of over 10,000 chemicals, and only 21 of these are regulated today.
I have received an excellent proposal from my party's local environmental network to establish a national knowledge center in Uppsala for PFAS management. Uppsala has its own experience of harmful levels of PFAS substances in drinking water, and leading European research in PFAS purification is already being conducted today at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. Uppsala also has a municipal water company that is at the forefront. The purification remains costly, and the work on this continues. Uppsala also has relevant actors for a national strategy, such as the Swedish Food Agency, the Geological Survey of Sweden, and the Academic Hospital.
My question to the Minister is what his position is on the idea of a national knowledge center for PFAS in Uppsala. In addition, I want to ask a question about something the Minister touched upon a little bit. It concerns those municipalities that now have a particularly important role to play in the upgrading of the defense and which have sites where NATO troops will be training in the future. They will become extra sensitive to the emissions of PFAS and have also taken great responsibility for the defense. I wonder if there is reason to look extra closely at those municipalities. In Uppsala, we have had a legal dispute between Uppsala Vatten and the Armed Forces, where Uppsala Vatten won. It would have been desirable if one could have avoided those types of disputes and could regulate the compensation for remediation through grants instead of through expensive processes.
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! I would like to thank both the interpellor and the co-interpellor.
Firstly, we do not want harmful substances in our food or, for that matter, in our drinking water. As we all in this discussion know, however, it is difficult to avoid completely. Some substances, such as mold chemicals, occur entirely naturally. Others, such as PFAS, are a result of pollution. It has been mentioned here that the big problem with PFAS is that the substances break down extremely slowly. Despite remediation efforts, they will therefore remain in the environment for a long time and continue to pose a risk in the food chain.
To protect consumers, we within the EU have introduced limit values for PFAS in animal-based foods and in drinking water. For the first time, there are now also minimum requirements within the entire European Union for PFAS in drinking water. In Sweden, the Swedish Food Agency has, as stated, chosen an even stricter level, which will enter into force in 2026.
Trifluoroacetic acid, i.e., TFA, is present in the environment because it is frequently used as a solvent in refrigerants and heat pumps. It also arises when certain other PFAS substances break down, but unlike other PFAS substances, TFA does not bioaccumulate in the body. That TFA can be present in fruit and vegetables is known and has previously been analyzed by the EU's reference laboratory for pesticide residues. Based on what we know today, the amount of TFA we ingest through food and drinking water poses no health risk. But as said, there is great uncertainty, and more knowledge is truly needed.
The Swedish Food Agency, as the responsible authority, follows the evaluations that are carried out. When the scientific bases are available, the Swedish Food Agency can also assess whether there is a need for additional risk management measures.
In Sweden, 19 active substances containing PFAS are approved in a total of approximately 70 plant protection products. These constitute 3.5 percent of the annual sales of plant protection products. The Swedish Chemicals Agency published a list on its website this summer of active substances in plant protection products that contain PFAS.
Naturvårdsverket has the government's mandate to, with the support of Livsmedelsverket and Jordbruksverket, improve knowledge about PFAS in food and the environment. The mandate shall be reported by February 28 this year at the latest. Jordbruksverket has decided on two new studies on PFAS. They concern partly plant protection products in potato cultivation, and partly how the substance moves in cycles when plant protection products containing PFAS are used.
I think, as I have said, that it is good that limit values for PFAS in food and drinking water are decided jointly within the EU and that they are based on scientific risk assessments from Efsa. The latest risk assessment was published in 2020, and the government shares the interpellant's view that the limit values need to be updated in line with new research.
Magnus Manhammar (S)
Madam Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer!
It is very good that we are discussing this. I wish that we all in this chamber had had a whole day, a whole week, or perhaps two weeks together, because we must get somewhere in this – and quickly. If one is to be completely honest, immediate measures are needed. We who live here in Sweden and in the world are being poisoned every day because of PFAS. I really appreciate the answers, but I also appreciate it if we can get a bit further together.
There are countries that are ahead. The Minister mentioned that the Swedish Food Agency has adopted one of the strictest limit values for drinking water that one can have. This is true to some extent, but not entirely. Denmark has 2 nanograms, and Sweden has 4 nanograms. One can therefore be stricter than Sweden. Denmark has started to take the lead and bans PFAS in clothes and in shoes. One can also start to take the lead as a country. Sweden has over the years been internationally known for taking the lead in environmental policy and when it comes to protecting people and the environment. I think we can do that also regarding this, and preferably across party lines. It is nothing we need to have prestige in, whether to the right or the left, but this is everyone's interest.
I saw the joyful news that the minister will soon be on parental leave. I was not so long ago, and it is absolutely wonderful to be. I would have gladly been it all the time actually, because it is the most wonderful thing there is. One does, however, reflect quite a bit on what our children – all the children we who live here in Sweden have in common – will inherit for a world. We are letting them inherit a society and a nature full of, among other things, PFAS. We must do something about this.
Örebro University came out in the autumn with new figures that showed exactly how much TFA – that is, this small component, the small molecule of PFAS – there was in baby food products. We know that 4 nanograms per liter is the limit value for common PFAS. I wrote down what the average is in baby food, i.e., baby food puree and orange juice. Örebro University checked this and found that the average was 34,000 nanograms per liter. That is much more than we would want to allow in drinking water at all, but that is how much TFA there is in the baby food and in the orange juice.
The Minister mentioned Germany, which is moving forward and wants to ban TFA, because TFA is in any case probably reproductive-inhibiting. It is probably very serious. It was only recently that people really started talking about PFAS being carcinogenic – it took a long time.
I entered the Riksdag in 2014, and it was ten years ago that the elevated values were discovered in Kallinge. One of the first issues I raised in the Riksdag concerned PFAS, but at that time we did not know how serious it was, for example that it was carcinogenic. There were suspicions, just as with TFA, but one did not really know. In that case, it is reasonable to have a precautionary policy, that one tries to reduce the toxins as much as possible.
Many of those who have been poisoned by PFAS in Kallinge, Blekinge, have been noticed. One of those who has been noticed recently is a girl named Lovis who is now eight years old. She was born after the PFAS scandal, that is, after they stopped using PFAS in the drinking water in Kallinge. But she has very elevated levels of PFAS in her body because her mother ingested PFAS, and it continues generation after generation.
We must stop PFAS now. Obviously, PFAS should have been banned already yesterday, and the limit values for food should be as low as possible, preferably today.
Gustaf Lantz (S)
Madam Speaker! In Upsala Nya Tidning, we can see the headline today: The Poison Scandal Grows. Most recently in December, a widespread contamination of several drinking water wells in the vicinity of the air wing in Uppsala was highlighted.
Now it turns out that there are significantly higher values of PFAS in the water than what has been stated, specifically about 50 times higher. Residents in Kallinge and Uppsala are in the same boat. Drinking water is our most important food. Toxic water that can cause cancer and other serious diseases is a nightmare for those affected.
One who is experiencing this anxiety now is Calle Pålsson in Uppsala. He is worried, like all parents, mostly for his adult son. Calle Pålsson says that it is clear that he is worried. The son has, after all, drunk the water from the porridge and onwards.
One thing is compensation to those affected, and processes are ongoing there. But when PFAS causes cancer in humans and when fetuses are affected, those are damages that no amount of money in the world can compensate for. Therefore, we need to stop the emissions of PFAS. Now, a national mobilization is needed to protect our environment, our water quality, and ourselves. That is why it is important that the government takes the issue with the utmost seriousness and returns with clear regulations of PFAS, not least regarding how substances may be used in industry or in defense.
The Social Democrats want to see a ban and a phase-out of PFAS in the entire EU, and I wonder if the Minister shares our view on that issue.
I also want answers to my first question regarding a knowledge center. One thing is to have an authority that regulates target values, but then we must reach those with purification processes and knowledge. Can Uppsala become a relevant location for such a knowledge center?
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! I apologize for not having time to answer the question. It is difficult for me to speculate directly here in the rostrum on where we should place national centers for different issues. We will have to come back to that. But it is a fact that there is a lot of knowledge, not least at SLU.
We do not want PFAS. We do not want toxic substances in our food or in our drinking water. Here we have an important task ahead of us regarding how we are to move forward.
It is good that PFAS is on the agenda within the European Union, and there are now common limit values. Thus, we can build on the work in this issue. We also have skilled experts in our agencies who follow the issues very closely.
The new limit will enter into force after a transition period and will apply from January 1 next year. My perception is that on the water side, the water sector has been aware of the tightened requirements and what investments it may entail for a long time. In December 2024, the Water Supply Inquiry presented the report Increased Water Preparedness. The inquiry contains proposals on how the municipalities can finance and plan their investments in the water supply. The Government is now preparing the proposals and, of course, is following the developments closely.
When it comes to the responsibility for PFAS contamination, the principle in the Environmental Code applies that the one who causes a damage shall also bear the costs. At the same time, older emissions can be difficult to link to a specific actor, which makes the issue more complex, not least considering the substances' incredibly long life cycles.
The government and the Swedish Food Agency monitor the scientific developments and also participate very actively in the EU's work to ensure that the rules are updated and based on the latest research. The EU's drinking water directive requires that the limit values are reviewed at least every five years, which provides the opportunity to adjust them as new knowledge emerges.
Of course, our ambition is that consumers shall be secure, while at the same time municipalities and drinking water producers have reasonable conditions to meet the requirements that we will also set.
Magnus Manhammar (S)
Madam Speaker! I thank you for the answer, Minister.
It is very good that we have discussed the issue, and I look forward to more opportunities to discuss it. I think all parties in the Riksdag can join hands to help each other in the work against PFAS. It is something we need to get rid of as soon as possible.
I am glad that the Swedish Chemicals Agency is one of the authorities pushing for a PFAS ban in Europe. What is happening now is that negotiations are taking place in the EU, and between the lines we hear that because there are interests in the business sector and the chemical industry that want to continue to make money from PFAS, there is a risk of a watered-down proposal. This means there will be no total ban on PFAS, which of course is what is needed. It might become a watered-down proposal that only applies to certain parts.
I strongly urge our minister to continue to push forward on the issue. If the EU does not adopt a total ban, we in Sweden can lead the way. It would be fantastic if other countries could purchase goods from Sweden that are known to be as toxin-free as they can be. It would be fantastic if, above all, food can be toxin-free.
It is good that there are limit values for animal products today, but there are not for other food. We eat a lot of other food as well. It is obvious that there should be limit values for those as well. All sorts of things appear in the news about salad and sweets containing PFAS. We should not be getting those into our bodies either. Therefore, I urge the minister that we shall fight together to establish limit values for all foodstuffs and also help those already vulnerable. Lovis is an example, but there are so many in our country who unfortunately are already damaged by PFAS. And they deserve all the help and support they can get.
Let us act together against PFAS – and thank you for the debate.
Landsbygdsministern Peter Kullgren (KD)
Madam Speaker! I want to emphasize once again that PFAS is a serious problem that we must handle with both determination and long-term perspective. These substances break down extremely slowly and will affect our environment for a long time.
I am actively working to limit the spread and drive a phase-out of PFAS nationally and within the EU. As I have mentioned previously, the limit values must be adjusted as new research emerges, and we ensure that Sweden is also a strong voice in the EU's work to update the rules. At the same time, we are aware that stricter requirements entail challenges, particularly for smaller municipalities. We are following the developments closely and reviewing how we can support those who are affected, not least municipalities with large PFAS problems, such as Ronneby.
It is also important to prevent, as far as possible, that drinking water producers, farmers and professional fishers are negatively affected by the compounds.
I also want to thank you for an important and good interpellation. On return!
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.