Consumers are always concerned about the scarcity and veracity of information that revolves around the possible toxicity to the health of the products they buy, whether they are food packaging, everyday objects, cosmetics or auxiliary products such as paints, insulators or other elements.

In the world of fake news it becomes difficult to establish, for example, whether the water contained in plastic bottles, under the effect of the heat of the sun or light, can be contaminated by its PET packaging, or if the polymeric coating of a can of peas can yield harmful substances to food or if the creams we put on the body can create long-term problems for the body.

For these reasons it was necessary that, at the government level, the problem of chemical compounds that could create damage to health should be addressed, trying to catalog and possibly ban, once and for all, the compounds considered dangerous.

According to recent information, the European Union would be creating a list that would contain up to 12,000 chemicals, which are now used to make many products and which it would like to consider dangerous for health.

The aim would be to ban its use thus creating the largest list of banned substances that has ever appeared in Europe.

The project, as Arthur Neslen describes in his article, seems to be supported by the analyzes and studies carried out by a number of scientists who claim that the pollution rate from chemicals present in many products, would lead to irreparable consequences if action is not taken as soon as possible.

For example, synthetic blight is thought to be pushing some species of whales to the brink of extinction, and has also been blamed for declining fertility rates human and 2 million deaths a year.

This list prepared by the EU was conceived as a first step to definitively transform the current situation, managing in every way to use existing legislation, to outlaw toxic substances related to cancer, hormonal disruption, reprotoxic disorders, obesity, diabetes and other diseases.

Tatiana Santos, head of chemical policy, said: “EU chemical controls are generally and painfully slow, but the EU is planning the biggest restriction we have ever seen. 

This list promises to improve the safety of nearly all manufactured products and to rapidly reduce the chemical intensity of our schools, homes and workplaces."

The plan focuses for the first time on entire classes of chemicals, including all flame retardants, bisphenols, PVC plastics, chemicals toxic in disposable nappies and PFAS, also known as "chemicals forever" due to the time they take to degrade naturally.

All of these will be placed on a list of substances to be considered for restriction by the European Chemicals Agency.

The list will be regularly revised and updated, ahead of a significant revision of the EU Reach Basic Regulation for chemicals, scheduled for 2027.

The chemicals identified in the new document include substances in food contact materials, disposable diapers, PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) and for children's playgrounds.

But the industrial groups argue that the inclusion in this list of some chemicals would also risk hitting the high end of the market, where crene and perfumes are found , in which chemical compounds that the EU would like to ban would be used.

"Many different ingredients fall into the skin sensitizer group, so a wide range of cosmetic products could be affected," said John Chave, general manager of Cosmetics Europe, a commercial entity.

"The effect of these restrictions would potentially lead to a reduction in supply, less choice and less functional effectiveness for cosmetic products, without any advantage in terms of safety because the ingredients were already safe ".

In addition to cosmetics, products affected by downgrading may include paints, cleaning products, adhesives, lubricants and pesticides.

The Reach system in Europe is already the largest chemical registry in the world and new bans could affect more than a quarter of the sector's annual turnover, equal to about 500 billions of euros per year, according to a study by the commercial group Cefic.

"Some of the restrictions could have a significant impact on the industry and supply chains," said Heather Kiggins, a spokesperson for Cefic.

The industry advocates a more restrictive approach, with incentives and import controls to help develop safer alternative products.

However, the European Chemicals Agency prefers to treat chemicals in larger groups, because chemical companies have, over time, circumvented the ban on chemicals. individual chemicals by changing their recipes, to create sister substances that may also be dangerous, but which require lengthy legislative battles to regulate.

The industry tactic, known as "regrettable substitution", has been criticized by environmental groups for allowing the substitution of substances such as bisphenol A, which alters the endocrine system, with other bisphenols.

Santos described it as "a cynical and irresponsible tactic of the chemical industry to replace the most harmful banned chemicals, with other equally harmful ones not yet judged by We have seen a ten-year pattern of continuous substitutions to avoid the regulation of substances ".

We consider that there are more than 190 million synthetic chemicals registered globally and a new industrial chemical is created every 1.4 seconds on average.

The UN says the current global value of the sector is over $ 5 trillion and will double by 2030 and quadruple by 2060.

EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius said the new restrictions "aim to reduce the exposure of people and the environment to some of the most harmful chemicals. "

EU Commissioner for Internal Markets, Thierry Breton, said that achieving a toxic-free environment would require transparency and visibility from the commission .

"The chemicals restrictions plan provides that visibility and allows companies and other stakeholders to be better prepared for potential upcoming restrictions," he said.

Millions of tons of chemicals were used by industrial giants such as BASF, Bayer, Dow Chemicals and ExxonMobil without completing safety checks between 2014 and 2019 , according to research by German environmentalists.

Automatic translation. We apologize for any inaccuracies. Article originarle in Italian.