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Firefighters used water contaminated with PFAS chemicals to put out a blaze at a waste processing plant in Gelderland that was operating illegally.
Aalden municipal council said the water would have to be pumped out of the sewage network to prevent it polluting drinking water supplies, because the purification system is not able to filter it out.
The blaze in Dinxperlo, a village on the German border, burned for several hours on Monday night after a large pile of wood chippings caught fire, covering an area of 20m by 30m at its height.
Firefighters pumped water from Het Blauwe Meer, a nearby recreational lake that has been closed to swimmers since 2024 because of high levels of PFAS. Most of the water subsequently drained away into the sewage system.
The council said it was investigating the impact, but there was no reason to avoid drinking tap water. “At the moment there are no consequences for the use of the sewage network by residents,” a spokesman said.
Police are also investigating the fire. The waste processing plant was shut down in November 2025 on the orders of the council for “serious breaches of environmental regulations.”
No permits
The operators burned large quantities of waste that they did not have permits for and mixed different types of waste that should have been separated, the council found.
Recent studies found that high levels of PFAS are present in Dutch drinking water supplies, particularly in western areas where the water is taken from rivers that have been contaminated by agricultural use.
PFAS chemicals are widely used in pesticides, packaging and products ranging from waterproof clothing to non-stick cooking pans.
They are known as “forever chemicals” because of their high durability, but have also been linked to illnesses such as cancer, diseases of the immune system and complications in unborn babies.
The public health agency RIVM has called for a total ban on PFAS in pesticides by the EU, a move also supported in Germany and the Scandinavian nations.
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