Read the full article by Julia Robinson (Royal Society of Chemistry)
“A new study on the transport of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from the River Mersey, in the north west of England, out to sea reveals that levels of certain PFAS in the Mersey basin are among the highest recorded globally.
The researchers say their study is the first to consider temporal variability in flows and loads of PFAS, rather than just annual averages, and therefore provides the first robust estimates of PFAS transport in a European river system.
‘The Mersey is one of the largest river basins in the UK and it’s also one of the most densely populated – it has a very well-documented industrial past,’ says Patrick Byrne, a hydrology and environmental pollution researcher at Liverpool John Moores University and lead author of the study.
‘We know PFAS are found pretty much everywhere around the world now, but if you want to study a natural laboratory of how PFAS behaves in the environment … the River Mersey is a very good case study and the results [will] hopefully be representative of other similar industrialised urbanised river catchments around the world.’” …