Better management of hazardous chemicals

Jukka Mehtonen,
Senior Expert,
Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE),
Helsinki, Finland

Society benefits from using chemicals while aiming to minimize risks to the environment and human health. Chemicals are widely used in everyday life and many economic sector such as agriculture, manufacture of consumer products and energy production depend on chemicals.

The EU has advanced but complex chemicals legislation, which has generated the most comprehensive knowledge base on chemicals in the world. The EU has approximately 40 legislative instruments addressing amongst all the safety of toys, cosmetics, biocides, plant protection products, food, carcinogens in the workplace as well as environmental protection. The EU has also managed to reduce the risks to humans and environment for certain hazardous chemicals like carcinogens.

One of the main legislation on chemicals is the Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), which aims at the safe use and handling of substances and mixtures on the European market. After a rather slow beginning, REACH has speeded up the assessment and restrictions of the hazardous chemicals in the EU. Water Framework Directive (WFD) was established to protect inland surface waters, coastal waters and groundwater. The Fitness Check published in December 2019 concluded that WFD is broadly fit for purpose, but problems related to e.g. very slow process of revision of the list of WFD priority substances must be solved.

The production and use of chemicals are expected to increase in the future. Consequently, the total chemical burden on humans and to environment is likely to increase. The current single substance approach is not fit for assessing and managing the risks of the large number of chemicals on the European market. A shift towards tackling chemical groups rather than single substances would accelerate the risk management. Thus, EU’s chemicals policy needs to be further strengthened.

The European Commission adopted the EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) in October 2020. It is part of the EU’s zero pollution ambition, which is a key chemical commitment of the European Green Deal. The Strategy will boost innovation for safe and sustainable use of chemicals and increase protection of human health and environment against hazardous chemicals. This includes for instance prohibiting the use of the most harmful chemicals in consumer products as well as managing risks of chemical mixtures and groups. The Strategy also draws the attention of Member States to the possibilities of the Recovery and Resilience Facility to invest in the green transition of EU industries, including the chemical sector.

On the EU level the main instrument to control industrial releases is the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED), particularly through the sector specific BAT Reference documents (BREFs) and their key chapter “BAT conclusions”. The BAT conclusions are the reference and legally binding for setting the environment permit conditions for industry in all EU member states. However, BAT conclusions in most cases do not address hazardous substances comprehensively. HAZBREF project has developed a systematic approach that will help to utilize the existing information on chemicals between different regulatory frameworks such as IED, REACH and WFD in the preparation of BREFs.

The HAZBREF proposes not only general measures for improvement of information exchange but also to focus on what is to be improved, by which means and how in practice hazardous chemicals should be addressed in BREFs. In order to improve consideration of chemicals in BREFs and respectively in industrial environment permits it is crucially important to break down the silos between environmental and chemical authorities both at national and EU level. Additionally, we have to change work practices and co-operate more with each other. These changes are absolutely needed, and it is very delightful that the first positive signs for improved cooperation on EU level are already seen. The overall aim is to streamline and rationalize the work under the complex EU chemicals legislation both at national and EU administrative level. The intention is not to increase EU legislation but to enhance the implementation of current legislation.

The ongoing IED review provides a possibility to strengthen the BREFs with the proposals by HAZBREF concerning chemical management. The recent positive initiatives on EU level for better management of chemicals, such as the CSS and Zero pollution ambition can be seen as an opportunity for the EU to be a forerunner and a competitive player on global level in the production and use of safe and sustainable chemicals.

More information is available from reports of HAZBREF project (Hazardous industrial chemicals in the IED BREFs; funded by EU Interreg BSR Programme 2014-20) found on project website.

Email: jukka.mehtonen@syke.fi

Expert article 2872

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