Environmental and health related criteria for buildings - ANEC

IBO - Environmental and Health related Criteria for Buildings
The General Product Safety Directive (GPSD) 101 can be taken as an example to support the
criticism concerning the use of weak phrases: The GPSD is intended to ensure a high level
of product safety throughout the EU for consumer products that are not covered by specific
sector legislation (e.g. cosmetics). It shall protect the consumers from dangerous products.
“Dangerous products” means products that are not safe because of their physical shape or
because of the content of dangerous chemicals (“products must be safe”). A numerous list of
European harmonised standards based on the GPSD has been established. Examples are
general safety requirements for outdoor furniture, stationary training equipment, children
furniture, soothers for babies and young children.
The Directive provides for an alert system (the RAPEX system – rapid exchange of information
on dangerous consumer products) between Member States and the Commission. Under
certain conditions (e.g. urgency is required or when Decisions are the most effective way of
eliminating the risk), the Commission may adopt a formal Decision requiring the Member
States to ban the marketing of an unsafe product, to recall it from consumers or to withdraw it
from the market. A Decision of this kind is only valid for a maximum of one year.
Chemical requirements are neither set in the GPSD nor are they a general feature in the
standards related to the GPSD. In the few cases where chemical requirements were
specified in the related harmonised standards, only a few chemicals were listed (like certain
heavy metals and nitrosamines). Almost all of the related harmonised standards merely refer
to the physical safety of the products.
Additionally, as the RAPEX notifications show, most of the unsafe products that are
withdrawn are withdrawn for physical reasons. Notifications for chemical reasons are mainly
made due to the lack of compliance with restrictions on chemical substances e.g. REACH
annex XVII (DMF, phthalates, aromatic amines) or because they do not comply with the
harmonised standards connected to the GPSD. Only few notifications (if any) are made due
to “products must be safe”. This means that loose statements do not seem to work for market
surveillance either. It is much easier to handle limit values.
Finally, the General Product Safety Directive does not provide an instrument to establish
chemical requirements for consumer products other than emergency measures for one year
and the instrument to establish standards. This means that only provisional rules can be set
by use of the General Product Safety Directive.
A committee procedure (comitology) is, however, in place for the process of adopting product
specific safety requirements which serve as a basis for mandates and existing (nonmandated)
standards connected to the General Product Safety Directive.
Restriction Of the use of certain Hazardous Substances (ROHS) Directive
The intention of the ROHS 102 Directive is to reduce the content of hazardous substances in
waste by e.g. limiting the presence of certain hazardous substances in products (preamble
no. 3). (POULSEN et al, 2010).
ROHS restricts the use of lead (Pb), mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd), hexavalent chromium (Cr
VI), polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) in electrical
101 Directive 2001/95E/EC on general product safety
102 Directive 2002/95/EC of 27 January, 2003
Final Report 129 31 03 2011