{"id":102153,"date":"2020-09-01T09:01:37","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T07:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/?p=102153"},"modified":"2020-10-29T12:19:18","modified_gmt":"2020-10-29T11:19:18","slug":"eu-microplastics-ban-set-to-make-a-growing-problem-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/eu-microplastics-ban-set-to-make-a-growing-problem-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"EU microplastics ban set to make a growing problem worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world is being smothered by a growing cloud of toxic plastic particles, which the EU has pledged to ban. But the typical cast of powerful industrial polluters has secured a loophole that excludes nano, the most dangerous form of microplastic.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The EU has promised to\u00a0tackle microplastic pollution<\/a>. Its own scientists are warning that the situation is out of control<\/a>\u00a0and will be a \u201cwidespread risk<\/a>\u00a0within a century.\u201d<\/p>\n

Relentless and\u00a0rapidly growing<\/a>\u00a0plastic production and largely\u00a0uncontrolled waste<\/a>\u00a0are creating an immense cloud of plastic particles that are polluting all known environments: the\u00a0air<\/a>\u00a0we breathe, the food we eat and\u00a0throughout our bodies<\/a>, in\u00a0Arctic snow<\/a>,\u00a0mountain soils<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0deepest oceans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That seafood meal you enjoyed on your summer holiday? Microplastic is found in\u00a0all<\/a>\u00a0commercial fish species. You can\u2019t see it, but it is there and it is everywhere. This irreversible plastic sludge, mostly Polyethylene or Polyurethane, is saturated with toxic chemicals added or\u00a0absorbed<\/a>\u00a0from chemical pollution. Recognising the threat, EU leaders have spoken about plastic as\u00a0a health hazard<\/a>\u00a0warranting swift Europe-wide legal action.<\/p>\n

So last year, the European Chemicals Agency\u00a0proposed<\/a>\u00a0banning all microplastics added to cosmetics, paint, detergents and nearly all other consumer and commercial products where they are used to fill, bind, coat, absorb, thicken, be abrasive or control the release of medicines or pesticides.<\/p>\n

The ban would stop 10,000 to 60,000 tonnes of plastic leaking into the environment every year. Compared to the plastic that breaks up on beaches, rivers, the soil or spewing out of our washing machines, the stuff poured into products is the tip of the iceberg. But 60,000 tonnes per year is not nothing, and the EU is drawing a line in the sand by saying that all this plastic production and careless pollution should stop. So far, so good.<\/p>\n

Enter the lobbyists<\/h4>\n

Enter a familiar cast of big polluters: firms hooked on plastic, such as BASF, Chemours, Chevron, Dow, DuPont, Exxon and Ineos. They twist arms in Brussels while hidden behind front groups like\u00a0PlasticsEurope<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0CEFIC<\/a>. They have been joined in the effort by the intensive farming lobby and big cosmetics firms under\u00a0CosmeticsEurope<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These are powerful players. CEFIC members alone report a turnover of\u00a0\u20ac565 billion<\/a>\u00a0per year and chemical plants are owned by some of Europe\u2019s\u00a0richest<\/a>\u00a0and most\u00a0politically powerful<\/a>\u00a0men. Though most of those asked to help the EU understand the problem\u00a0remained silent<\/a>, industry as a whole became unusually vocal once a ban was on the table.\u00a0Their pressure<\/a>\u00a0paid off.<\/p>\n

The chemicals agency secretariat has overruled warnings from its own experts to greatly weaken its proposed microplastic ban. Oily industry fingerprints are easy to spot. An analysis by the European Environmental Bureau shows how published industry positions have been visibly\u00a0copied into the legal text<\/a>. The result will be an EU initiative so badly warped that, unless corrected, it will end up making the problem worse, not better.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For starters, the agency has dutifully excluded many sectors from the ban. Then there are the regulatory holidays that are so long, as much as eight years for some products, that when the law enters into force in\u00a02022<\/a>, the only immediate improvement will be a ban on microbeads in cosmetics that the sector already volunteered to put in place years ago and that will tackle just 0.2% of estimated emissions. This sluggish pace means the EU initiative will only cut microplastic pollution by half in 2028 and 90% by 2030. But it gets worse.<\/p>\n

Swapping micro for nanoplastic<\/h4>\n

The agency\u00a0acknowledges<\/a>\u00a0that nanoplastic is a \u201chazard\u201d, \u201cpoorly understood\u201d and could \u201clead to greater potential for adverse effects and bioaccumulation\u201d. Its experts were clearer still,\u00a0warning<\/a>\u00a0of the higher toxicity of nanoplastic and that excluding smaller plastic particles from the EU ban will lead to \u201cregrettable substitution\u201d, a market shift towards something we will later regret.<\/p>\n

Nanoplastic may be more harmful to human and animal health because it can more easily\u00a0get inside<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0harm<\/a>\u00a0living cells. Despite all this, the agency secretariat has accepted industry\u2019s request to exclude nanoplastic from the ban, twisting the very definition of microplastic to suit industry and giving manufacturers a perverse incentive to shift from micro to more risky nanoplastic.<\/p>\n

Will there really be a shift to nano? The ink and cosmetic industries are already using nano in place of microplastic, and an incredibly high number of industry comments asked for the nano exemption.<\/p>\n

On top of this, the secretariat wants to exempt \u2018biodegradable\u2019 plastic that does not degrade in some real world conditions, giving a false solution a reassuring but misleading stamp of approval. NGOs\u00a0oppose<\/a>\u00a0this exemption as even microplastics that are considered to degrade in the environment are able to harm\u00a0aquatic life<\/a>, arguing instead for a shift away from throw-away plastic and towards reusable alternatives.<\/p>\n

So an EU law meant to solve the problem could make it worse. That would be an environmental policy failure reminiscent of the EU\u2019s\u00a0biofuels disaster<\/a>, which caused so much virgin forest destruction around the world.<\/p>\n

A final round of\u00a0public consultation<\/a>\u00a0on the microplastic ban ends today. Member state governments will vote in 2021 and a final law is expected to come into force in early\u00a02022<\/a>.<\/p>\n

EU\u00a0Ecolabel products<\/a>\u00a0are already free of microplastic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world is being smothered by a growing cloud of toxic plastic particles, which the EU has pledged to ban. But the typical cast of powerful [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":102154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,128,3,4],"tags":[361,331,344],"class_list":["post-102153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chemicals","category-industry-health","category-news","category-press-release","tag-banned-chemicals","tag-microplastics","tag-plastics"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/1280px-Nurdles_01_gentlemanrook.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eeb.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}