Event
Washington, DC
16 - 19 Sep
NSSGA Legislative & Policy Forum 2025
By Eunan Kelly, Head of Business Development Europe at CDE Group and Emma Wilson, Senior Solutions Engineer at CDE Group
Two major publications, Le Monde and The Guardian, have published investigations that laid bare the staggering scale of PFAS pollution across Europe and beyond.
Le Monde estimated that the cost of depolluting PFAS-contaminated sites in Europe could reach hundreds of billions of euros in Europe only. Meanwhile, The Guardian highlighted the global nature of the crisis, pointing to the widespread presence of PFAS in soil, water, and even human blood, and the mounting pressure on governments and industries to act.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often called “forever chemicals,” are among the most persistent pollutants known to science. They resist degradation, accumulate in ecosystems, and pose serious health risks including cancer, infertility, and immune dysfunction. While headlines rightly focus on the dangers and costs, this crisis also calls for collective resilience and innovation. Tackling PFAS contamination is a shared challenge and a chance for technology providers, communities, local governments, material processors and the construction industry to come together and work toward redefining how waste is managed, protect public health, and build a cleaner, more resilient future.
We believe PFAS contamination is not just a crisis to be managed, it’s a challenge to be redefined. With over 23,000 confirmed PFAS-contaminated sites in Europe, more than 57,000 in the United States, over 10,000 potential sites in the UK, and with 1,630 confirmed contaminated sites as well as 260,000 potentially contaminated sites across Australia the need for scalable, sustainable solutions has never been greater. And that’s exactly what we’re delivering.
PFAS in Soil: A Crisis Demanding Innovation
PFAS contamination in soil is particularly challenging. It threatens groundwater, food crops, biodiversity, and creates major barriers to land reuse and urban regeneration. Traditional remediation methods such as excavation, landfilling, and incineration are carbon-intensive, costly, and often unsustainable.
What’s needed is a solution that not only removes PFAS but also recovers value from contaminated land. That’s where our wet processing technology comes in.
Our Circular Approach to PFAS Remediation
We’ve spent over 30 years transforming complex waste streams into valuable resources. Our soil washing systems, enhanced by advanced water treatment, offer a future-ready alternative to traditional PFAS remediation.
By physically separating PFAS-contaminated fines from clean, reusable materials, our systems reduce contamination levels while recovering high-quality sand and aggregates for reuse in construction, landscaping, and infrastructure. This process is supported by closed-loop water treatment and can be tailored to handle co-contaminants like hydrocarbons, heavy metals, VOCs, and pesticides.
In projects across Belgium, Norway and Australia, our systems, combined with advanced effluent treatment, have achieved all required removal rates bringing the contaminated soil under legal thresholds.
Beyond Removal: Toward Total Recovery
Today, we can recover 70 to 80% of contaminated material through soil washing. But that still leaves up to 30% as filter cake, a by-product that often ends up in landfill or incineration. For us, that’s not the finish line - it’s the next challenge.
The challenge is to remediate 100% of the contaminated material, not just removing it from soil but eliminating it from the entire process. That means developing new techniques to liberate PFAS in more efficient and effective ways, testing advanced filtration and adsorption technologies and combining innovative treatment solutions into modular systems to achieve improved results.
We’ve done it before - transforming highly contaminated material like frac sand, quarry waste, road sweepings or trommel fines into high-value reusable materials. Now, we’re applying that same mindset to PFAS.
Turning Environmental Liabilities into Opportunities
PFAS remediation isn’t just about removing risk, it’s about recovering value. Our approach supports:
- Land reclamation: Safe reuse of previously contaminated land for housing, infrastructure, and ecological restoration
- Sustainable construction: Recovered materials reduce reliance on virgin resources and support circular economy goals
- Regulatory readiness: Our solutions help clients stay ahead of tightening PFAS regulations
Raising the Bar for the Industry
Too often, remediation success is measured by what’s removed, not by what’s recovered. We believe the benchmark should be minimal by-products, maximum recovery. Every tonne of material recovered is a tonne that doesn’t need to be quarried, transported, or disposed of. Every site rehabilitated is land returned to communities, developers, and ecosystems.
A Future-Ready Response to a Global Challenge
Our PFAS removal systems are already treating hundreds of tonnes per hour. But the real innovation lies in our mindset: we don’t just build plants we build pathways to a cleaner future.
As awareness grows and regulations tighten, the industry must move beyond containment and toward regeneration. That means embracing technologies that not only remove PFAS but reimagine what’s possible with contaminated land.
As Le Monde and The Guardian have made clear, PFAS pollution is a crisis of unprecedented scale. But it’s also a call to innovate. We’re not just responding to the PFAS crisis, we’re reshaping the narrative. From risk to resource. From waste to opportunity.
Join the Movement Toward Sustainable PFAS Remediation
The cost of inaction is astronomical but the potential for innovation is limitless. If you're ready to move beyond containment and toward circularity, we are here to help
Meet us at Remtech on 18 September and at ENSOr v6 on 14 October to get more insights and contribute to the discussion.
Discover CIRCLE 2026: Closing The Gap where PFAS will be a central theme.
