In August, the EU’s chemical agency published a new, revised proposal for a universal ban on PFAS. It included the shock revelation that recycled plastic material will be allowed to contain PFAS until 2050.*
In Brussels jargon, this is known as a “derogation” – you can avoid the ban for a certain period. The proposal’s longest derogation is 13.5 years. But recycled plastic, and products using it, have almost twice as long – 23.5 years to be exact.
If you include the time it takes for a ban to come into force, that means PFAS in plastic until 2050.
ChemSec is in favour of derogations. It makes sense to identify PFAS uses where it will take time for alternatives to be developed, and to give industry time to adjust.
But 23.5 years? That’s an entire generation! A lot of recycled plastic will mean a lot of PFAS. And the signal it sends to producers is that there is no urgency about removing PFAS from their products. So why make such a big exception for recycled plastic?
It is not a hard thing to find PFAS free plastic.
Anna Forsgren, senior sustainability manager, Marshall Group
Big holes in the logic
The explanation, says the revised PFAS restriction proposal, is as follows:
- 1. Plastic is everywhere
- 2. PFAS is everywhere
- 3. So there is no PFAS-free plastic to recycle
- 4. The recycling process cannot separate out the PFAS
- 5. Plastic lasts a long time, so recycling needs a long derogation.
The key step in that logic is No. 3. Here, the revised proposal has a huge blind spot. Major companies have already invested in producing PFAS-free plastics using recycled materials.
PFAS-free plastic, including recycled or virgin plastic, for electrical products is now becoming increasingly available, says Anna Forsgren, senior product compliance and sustainability manager at Marshall Group, manufacturer of the iconic amplifiers, speakers and headphones.
“As these plastic manufacturers are major suppliers to many consumer electronic brands, I would say it is not a hard thing to find PFAS free plastic,” Forsgren says.
For example, LG Chem – South Korea’s largest company – produces a PFAS-free plastic made mostly from recycled materials. Star Plastics, a major plastics producer in the USA and China, has a PFAS-free product range that also uses recycled materials. Star Plastics is not alone.
Step 4 in the logic is also flawed. The revised proposal refers repeatedly and exclusively to industry statements that PFAS-free recycling is impossible. It makes no mention of recycling techniques that CAN deal with the PFAS.
It is true these techniques are still in their infancy. However, solvent-targeted recovery and precipitation (STRAP), for example, can be used to remove PFAS, phthalates and other plastic additives during recycling, and to do so economically.
The derogation seems not to be based on all available information.
Anna Forsgren
This punishes innovation
The proposed 2050 derogation for PFAS in recycled plastic punishes innovative companies like this and destroys incentives for developing new recycling methods.
Marshall Group’s Anna Forsgren says: “The signal to all our suppliers who have invested in PFAS free technology would be tragic. It would mean that innovation and availability in PFAS free plastic, and many other components, will decrease. At Marshall we will continue to use PFAS free plastic, but we fear that ongoing exciting research in PFAS free products will not make it to the market if this derogation is approved.”
After the original proposal for a universal PFAS restriction in 2023, the submitters received thousands of demands from industry to allow continued use of PFAS in different sectors. The absurdly long derogation for recycled plastic shows that this pressure from industry has had an impact.
As Forsgren says, however: “An approval of the derogation seems not to be based on all available information.”
A problem with the process
This appears to be a problem with the PFAS restriction process as a whole. Companies that are already going PFAS-free have not engaged with the process because a PFAS ban will not affect them.
The information from the consultation process is therefore heavily biased in favour of companies that want to continue using PFAS.
The dossier submitters, and the European chemicals agency ECHA, need to recover the ambition they had in 2023 to protect human health and the environment – and to encourage innovative and available solutions to the PFAS crisis.
* With the exception of food-contact material, food-contact packaging, and toys
