Time to ensure the EU is on the path to a toxic-free environment – letter on EU chemicals strategy

We, the undersigned, warmly welcome the European Commission’s commitment to a future-proof and ambitious Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) that ensures health, environmental and economic resilience, and a toxic-free environment.

This week, we expect you to present a truly transformative CSS, driving the detoxification and decarbonisation of our economies, while creating millions of secure jobs. Shifting from toxic and linear resource-intensive production models to safer and circular sustainable ones seeking zero pollution and zero waste will improve the resilience of our economies. But this commitment will be undermined if the actions to be announced this week in the strategy are put under a general reservation of impact or innovation assessment.

As the impact of Covid-19 rumbles on, we are experiencing a human catastrophe: lost lives, widespread sickness, unprecedented social hardships, and job losses. Exposure to toxic chemicals increases our vulnerability to pandemics such as Covid-19, and yet the toxification of the planet is a growing threat to people and wildlife across the globe.

In the past decade, the chemicals regulatory system has improved the situation in Europe, but there is still a long way to go to achieve a toxic-free environment. The European Environment Agency warns that ongoing exposure to chemical pollution continues to negatively affect human health and the environment, with latent and irreversible damage to human health being of particular concern.

Letter continues…