Not really, PFAS have been almost completely unregulated. It is just in the last 2 years that we are starting to see PFAS regulations globally. Up until that point, we allowed companies to literally just dump them down the rain or in a lake.
If regulations were so worthless, you should be asking yourself why every single industry fights new ones. Why the supreme court in the US has taken a position to kill Chevron Deference which weakens federal agencies ability to regulate.
The failure isn’t regulations, the failure is a government system that severely neuters the ability of a government to regulate. The failure is a bunch of science denying corporate captured politicians that don’t care how they destroy the planet.