I came across this topic in a recent LinkedIn post by investigative journalist Daniel Drepper. An international research network investigated the spread of PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) to unveil the scale of pollution. This group of chemicals are linked to various deseases such as cancer and infertility. As a result, PFAS are estimated to account for 52 and 84 billion euros in costs for European health systems – each year. Making this thread tarnsparent to the public is the aim of the Forever Pollution Project.
I built a Shiny app that allows to
- quickly get an overview about the entire dataset; that is, all 33 countries instead of just Germany, for example,
- filter for specific characteristics (only groundwater sites in Hamburg, Germany),
- access all information for a specific site, and
- come across biases and flaws in the data.
You can read more about this little project here or jump directly to the app.