Detergents legislation: a victory for the environment and people’s health

Today, negotiators from the Parliament, the Commission and the Council reached an agreement in trilogue negotiations on the revision of the legislation on detergents and surfactants. A revision of the current legislation was necessary since these chemicals can present risks to human health and the environment.

Majdouline Sbai MEP, Greens/EFA Member of the Committee on the Environment and Public Health and European Parliament rapporteur for the regulation on detergents and surfactants, comments:

“Detergents are part of our daily lives. The revision of the two decade old regulation was absolutely necessary in order to improve consumer information, protect workers and reduce the harmful impact on our health and ecosystems.

“Despite relentless lobbying during the negotiations, we have reached an agreement. The agreement we have reached is less ambitious than we would have liked, but does bring significant improvements. We obtained major advances such as a ban on animal testing, new criteria for the biodegradability of products, greater responsibility for non-European producers and greater protection for users through better information. With a view to phasing out phosphorus, we are calling for a rapid impact assessment for new phosphorus limits in household products. We are also calling, for the first time, for phosphorus limits  in industrial products, and possible new legislation.

“Every year,  anti-poison centres in Europe receive nearly 600,000 calls concerning household accidents linked to chemical products. Most of these involve children. This revision will make it much easier to relay information so that these accidents can be dealt with more effectively. As rapporteur for this text, I have been working on this for a year and I am delighted that we have found a final compromise with the Polish Presidency. This is just the beginning of our fight to protect the health of Europeans.”