Zero Waste Europe calls for safer chemical regulations
The body seeks tougher chemical policy from the European Commission's Circular Economy Act.
A briefing report, Building a healthy circular economy: Integrating chemicals, products and waste under the Circular Economy Act (CEA), warns that disregarding chemical policy within the CEA will have significant public health and economic costs.
The CEA is due to be adopted in 2026, and Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) urges the European Commission to incorporate regulations to help develop a healthy, safe and non-toxic circular economy.
Toxic-Free Circular Economy Policy Officer at ZWE, Dorota Napierska, says, ‘It’s difficult to understand why, after decades of mounting evidence about our exposure to highly hazardous chemicals and their impact on our health, so little action has been taken.’
She adds, ‘Safer chemicals and a high level of transparency should automatically be integrated into new policy regulations, in order to benefit our health and economic security.’
The briefing emphasises the need to increase chemicals transparency and traceability across the value chain to tackle issues of human chemical exposure and material contamination.
It also advises putting an end to trade-offs between increasing recycling rates, and minimising consumer and environmental exposure to harmful chemicals, for the circular economy transition to be sustainable in the long term.
Lauriane Veillard, Chemical Recycling and Plastic-to-Fuels Policy Officer at ZWE, says, ‘The entire system needs to change in order to stop producing products that contain dangerous chemicals, and to start systematically tracing existing chemicals in the value chain.
‘We cannot request recyclers to address all the problems related to a material without even knowing what chemicals it contains.’
