Greenpeace Files Chemours PFAS Enforcement Request In The Netherlands

The Chemours PFAS enforcement request filed by Greenpeace Netherlands asks DCMR Milieudienst Rijnmond to stop alleged unpermitted air emissions and discharges to the municipal sewer at the company's Dordrecht site. The request was submitted on 3 September 2026 and copied to national and provincial authorities.

Greenpeace alleges that releases without the required environmental authorisation breach Article 5.1 of the Dutch Environment and Planning Act. Chemours and DCMR have not, through this filing, been shown to accept those allegations. The request is not a regulator finding, permit withdrawal or new general duty for Dutch industry.

Chemours PFAS Enforcement Request Names Six Release Routes

The filing identifies sewer discharges of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), perfluoropropionic acid (PFPrA), o-PFPrA, tetrafluoropropionic acid (TFPrA) and difluoroacetic acid (DFA). It separately alleges unpermitted TFA emissions to air. Greenpeace asks DCMR to use administrative coercion, rather than further penalty payments, until Chemours can produce adequate permits.

The legal position is narrower than that demand. DCMR supervises air emissions and indirect discharges through the municipal sewer on behalf of the Province of South Holland. Rijkswaterstaat is responsible for direct discharges to the Beneden Merwede. Existing DCMR measures concerning TFA and TFPrA form part of the wider permitting history. The new request does not automatically replace those decisions or close the plant.

TFA also has an evolving hazard status. The European Chemicals Agency's Committee for Risk Assessment adopted an opinion on 5 June 2026 that recommends classification as toxic to reproduction category 1B, persistent, mobile and toxic, and very persistent and very mobile. That opinion is not yet a harmonised Classification, Labelling and Packaging entry, so it should not be described as a binding new classification.

What Applies Now And What Could Change

Chemours must continue to comply with its current permits, enforcement orders and generally applicable Dutch environmental law. Other manufacturers receive no new duty from Greenpeace's filing. DCMR must assess the request and can accept it, reject it or take a different enforcement approach based on the evidence and its statutory powers.

Chemical sites should still treat the case as a warning about substances that appear in emissions or wastewater but are absent from old permit inventories. Compliance teams should reconcile raw-material, by-product and degradation-product data against each permitted release route. Wastewater contracts do not replace environmental authorisation for indirect discharges.

The request links emerging hazard classification with site permitting. Even before a future CLP classification becomes binding, new hazard evidence can increase scrutiny of whether a substance was fully disclosed, assessed and minimised under a current permit.

Businesses should review permit inventories against monitoring data for short-chain PFAS. The review should clearly separate authorised limits, pending applications and third-party allegations. Related Foresight coverage explains the earlier Dutch PFAS discharge and permitting position.