In recent years hundreds of chemical substances included in numerous products and materials with which we are in contact with each day have been included by authorities of different countries in a special register that includes all those products whose safety is at issue, requesting the European Union (EU) to study them in depth.

However, since 2012, only 94 of the 375 substances included in that list have been analyzed. And the results are totally alarming: almost half of them (specifically 46) have been described as dangerous for human health and for the environment.

The slowness in investigations is due, in many cases, to chemical companies hiding the data required by the authorities. The truth is that they can continue to be marketed (during the study period the substance is not banned cautiously, but is still used by the industrial; in fact, some substances have been distributed for 16 years before being banned).

And to this we must add, in addition, that surely there are many more substances harmful to the health of people than the 375 registered, since there are actually tens of thousands of chemical components currently used in the manufacture of all types of materials.

It is certainly an alarming situation that, according to the authors of a recent report (1) published by the European Environment Office (a network of more than 150 citizen environmental organizations based in more than 30 countries) and which denounces the situation implies a huge exposure of the population to these substances, "contributing to a 'silent epidemic'".

Source:

"Chemical evaluation Achievements, challenges and recommendations after a decade of REACH". Jeremy Wates, Dr. Hélène Loonen, Dolores Romano, Tatiana Santos and Elise Vitali. European Environmental Bureau (EEB). February, 2019.