Stay up-to-date with news about substitution!
In the news section, we will highlight initiatives and strategies for substitution, events as well as relevant news on chemical regulation. News will be provided in English and in German.
In November 2020, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs will award the 13th German Hazardous Substances Protection Award. The topic this time is: “Stop cancer at the workplace”.
The award recognizes new ideas and concepts for safe work with carcinogenic hazardous substances. From the introduction of alternative substances, products and processes, to employee training initiatives or the development of innovative solutions for the safe handling of carcinogenic hazardous substances – the approaches can be diverse.
The best submissions will be awarded a total of 10 000 euros by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Applications can be submitted until March 31, 2020 under gefahrstoffschutzpreis@baua.bund.de. A letter and a short presentation of your activities are sufficient, for interesting projects you will be asked for additional information.
Flyer “13. Deutscher Gefahrstoffschutzpreis: STOP dem Krebs am Arbeitsplatz”
Further information can be found at www.gefahrstoffschutzpreis.de.
The International Association for Soaps, Detergents and Maintenance Products (A.I.S.E) and the European Council of the Paint, Printing Ink and Artists‘ Colours Industry (CEPE) hosted a workshop about Preservation of Paints & Detergents on the 15th May 2019 in Brussels.
Last year the European Commission invited Member States, industry and NGOs to initiate actions towards finding alternatives to active substances in areas where innovation is needed. Preservation for products during storage was identified as one of the priority areas.
Current innovations in the fields, challenges faced by industry, and possible solutions under the Biocidal Products Regulation were discussed with all interested parties.
The proceedings and presentations of the workshop can be found here.
In the framework of the 14th Good Practice Award competition, 6 organisations were awarded and 4 organisations were commended that take an innovative approach to successfully tackling the risks posed by hazardous substances.
The award recognises organisations with an outstanding commitment to occupational safety and health (OSH) and promote practices that protect workers and boost productivity. The 2018-2019 competition is a key part of EU-OSHA’s Healthy Workplaces Manage Dangerous Substances campaign https://healthy-workplaces.eu/.
The awarded examples include the use or substitution of hazardous substances from the hairdressing sector to the construction sector.
Learn more about the examples in the Good Practice Awards booklet: https://osha.europa.eu/en/tools-and-publications/publications/healthy-workplaces-good-practice-awards-2018-2019/view.
The award ceremony will take place at the Healthy Workplaces Summit in Bilbao in November 2019.
The French National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks (INERIS) offers information provided by companies on the alternatives available for three families of substances: bisphenols, phthalates and alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEOs) on the information platform „Chemicals substitution“.
In the latest newsletter (September 2019), applications and alternatives for alkylphenol ethoxylates (APEOs) were summarized. APEOs are nonionic surfactants. The two most prominent subgroups are ethoxylated octylyphenols and ethoxylated nonylphenols. For the latter group of substances, alcohol ethoxylates can be used as substitute.
Read more about APEOs: https://substitution.ineris.fr/en/newsletters/archive
On 09.09.19, Federal Development Minister Dr. Gerd Müller presented a new national textile label “Grüner Knopf” (http://www.gruener-knopf.de/). 27 companies are taking part in the initial phase. They have all successfully passed the demanding requirements of social and ecological sustainability (e.g. free from SVHC) for the textile label. Details can be found in the press release of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Further, useful links:
On 28th May 2020, an information and dialogue event will take place at the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA) in Dortmund on the topic “Perspectives of the substitution of isothiazolinones as preservatives (In-can preservatives) in paints, varnishes and adhesives”.
The event will focus on:
Further information on the program and registration formalities will be published here.
ECHA has published the presentations of the „Second meeting of the substitution and innovation network“, which took place in Helsinki on 29th May 2019.
In order to promote innovative and sustainable solutions for substitution, ECHA organised a network meeting with the focus on the exchange of experience and information between different stakeholders.
Read more about the meeting (here) and what Dr. Michaela Clever said about SUBSPORTplus (Presentation).
For additional information: ECHA Website section on substitution, in particular documentations of further substitution events.
The FPS Economy, the Ministry of Economy of Belgium, led a study in 2019 to examine how to develop a global vision for the substitution of substances of very high concern (SVHC) in the Belgian context.
This study comes to the conclusion that an effective Belgian strategy should be organised around two pillars:
The study also contains a wealth of information on European, federal and regional support programmes, including the conditions for obtaining financial support.
Study „Development of a strategic roadmap for the substitution of SVHC as part of a sustainable economy“ (April 2019)
Source: https://economie.fgov.be/fr/nouveautes/substitution-des-substances
The OECD has published an analysis on approaches to support substitution and on alternatives assessment and a synthesis report of the workshop on these topics organized in May 2018.
The first report (dated Feb. 2019) describes and gives a list of approaches developed across countries and by different stakeholders to support alternatives assessment and substitution of chemicals of concern.
The second report (dated Feb. 2019) is a summary of the workshop on chemicals substitution held in May 2018, among the topics:
• the approaches used to support substitution and alternatives assessments;
• the strengths of the approaches and challenges to design and implementation;
• initiatives to facilitate data sharing and other collaborative efforts.
For additional information: http://www.oecd.org/chemicalsafety/testing/substitution-of-hazardous-chemicals.htm
The European Commission has published a study „Substitution of chrome plating for the rolls of skin-pass mill“ in 2016. This is the final report of the project CrFreeRolls, which intended to scan and evaluate techniques potentially replacing chrome plating in the skin-pass application.