During its ten years of existence, the SIN (Substitute It Now!) List has been a useful source of information on hazardous chemicals that are likely to be restricted in the EU in the future.
Building on the same criteria as the EU Candidate List, the SIN List puts pressure on legislators in the EU to speed up the restriction process and challenges chemical companies to revise their portfolios and go beyond simple legal compliance.
At the same time, it provides progressive consumer close companies with a definitive list of hazardous chemicals to avoid in products and supply chains.
“It now also lists the safer alternatives”
So far, the SIN List has focused solely on the bad options – what not to use – but due to ChemSec’s newest project Marketplace, it now also lists the safer alternatives.
In case you haven’t heard about the Marketplace before; it is a website that connects buyers and sellers of safer chemical alternatives. Its aim is to short-circuit the otherwise complicated communication routes between supply and demand, and make it easy to find safer options to hazardous chemicals.
What is maybe not so clear is how closely connected the SIN List and Marketplace are.
“Marketplace lists the do’s while the SIN List lists the don’ts”
The criterion for advertising alternatives on Marketplace is that they cannot contain any SIN List substances, which effectively makes alternatives on Marketplace “SIN-free”.
You could say that Marketplace lists the “do’s” while the SIN List lists the “don’ts”.
The connection between the two is now even more obvious, as alternatives that are available on Marketplace are now shown on the SIN List.
Searching for phthalates on the SIN List, for example, will show you a variety of safer alternatives for the different phthalates listed. Clicking on an alternative will then take you directly to Marketplace, where you can read more about it.
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