Ep 16 - Helena Hinrichsen, Sweden "It is a nasty contaminant we still have lots to investigate about just how toxic it is and I think it needs to be more known to the public what PFAS is."

Helena Hinrichsen is an Environmental Engineer from EnvyTech Solutions AB, Sweden was a presenter at the 2019 Clean Up Conference held in Adelaide between 8-12 September. I caught up with her at the conference for a short interview, where we discuss some of the challenges with remediation of PFAS. Helena believes there is not one solution for a PFAS problem, and that collaboration is key to solving the PFAS problem. She says the main three treatments for PFAS are thermal, chemistry and mechanical and Helena says "by combining them we can get a better solution than just using one of them." Helena is involved in, what she believes is the first project in the world, where they are using two combined methods for stabilisation both for groundwater and unsaturated soil, which is the soil above the groundwater. Today's talk is a bit technical but it was great to hear about some methods for treating PFAS. Helena also says, "I think what we all need to know is that we actually are moving forward. It is not always bad things. Yeah it is bad, it is really bad, but good things are happening. Man created it and we are really good at creating things so solutions are coming along so I see there is hope."

Show Note Links:

Guest speaker Helena Hinrichsen, Project Manager, EnvyTech Solutions AB Sweden http://envytech.se/om-envytech/

"Helena has long experience in planning and project management of remediation works and possesses top-level expertise in soil and groundwater treatment techniques. Helena also has long experience of working with overall commitments on remediation projects, which includes all information from the notification and public contacts to planning, project management, monitoring and final reporting."

CRC Care has published a link from the 2019 Clean Up Conference where you can download presentations from a range of sessions, including many PFAS sessions. This is where you can see the full presentation by Ian Cousins, Stockholm University, Sweden (mentioned briefly in today's episode) - you will see where he got the number of 4700 PFAS chemicals as well.

IPEN has some great reports on PFAS - here is their latest report referred to briefly in today's episode