A warning about the presence of toxic ‘forever’ chemicals in compost being sold to the public has raised questions about the management of organic waste in south-west WA. It is not clear what kind of risk the chemical pose to people who have used the compost on their veggie patches, but it has promoted a call to phase out the use of P-FAS chemicals.
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00:00Food and garden waste from homes across South West WA gets turned into compost here at Dardenup
00:09and sold to gardeners like Lionel Macken.
00:13This is some of the stuff that I've picked up.
00:16But it's contamination he can't see that has Mr Macken most worried.
00:21The environmental regulator has confirmed samples of the compost contained toxic forever chemicals known as PFAS.
00:27Are we poisoning our own families with this sort of stuff? I don't know. You can't get any real answers from anyone.
00:35PFAS chemicals are in thousands of products including disposable food packaging.
00:40If it's been found to be contaminated with PFAS it definitely should not be used as a fertiliser to grow vegetables for example.
00:51The council that processes the waste has paused the operation.
00:54We've got a licence about how much material we can have on site and we're exceeding that because we weren't able to keep up with the contamination.
01:03The state regulator has repeatedly found the facility non-compliant due to being over capacity.
01:09In 2023 it was even found to pose a contamination risk to surrounding waterways.
01:14But the council says the testing it's commissioned suggests the compost is safe.
01:19The results that I'm starting to see from the early testing is that people should be confident in what is in the material.
01:27The biggest risk about PFAS is it enters the food chain either via water or via food.
01:33So obviously we expect that that will be assessed and addressed as a matter of urgency.
01:40Mr Macken's not waiting for that to happen.
01:43So slowly I'm changing over to get rid of all this.
01:47I don't know where I'm going to put it.
01:49Residents say they want to see the site better regulated and to get more updates on potential contamination risks.
01:55Meanwhile Professor Tasker says he wants to see stronger national regulation to prevent PFAS from getting into these products in the first place.
02:19How há?