2023-09-24 16:06:00
Dangerous pollutants can also be found in some cuddly toys.
Foto: imago/Gottfried Czepluch
Nonylphenol ethoxylates are not only a tongue twister, the chemicals from the group of non-ionic surfactants also pose significant risks to people and the environment. Therefore, their use in detergents or in textile production has been banned in the EU for many years. However, this does not stop local manufacturers from exporting these materials on a large scale. As a recently presented study by the environmental association BUND showed, 700,000 tons of chemicals are exported every year that are either banned or have severely restricted use in the EU. This is about agricultural pesticides, but the majority are industrial chemicals such as nonylphenols. “It is absolutely irresponsible that the German chemical industry simply exports its poison to countries that have hardly any capacity for controls or environmentally friendly disposal,” criticizes BUND managing director Antje von Broock.
In the debate about supply chain laws, which almost exclusively focuses on imports of raw materials and intermediate goods, we should therefore also think in the other direction. In addition to such national regulations, there is also a struggle for a global approach. This is what the 5th World Chemicals Conference, which begins on Monday, is all about. For five days, around 1,500 representatives from politics, the chemical industry, civil society and science in Bonn will discuss a stronger political framework for dealing with chemicals. It is the first conference of its kind since 2015. The reasons for the long distance are not only interruptions caused by the pandemic, but also controversies and the complexity of the subject matter.
In 2006, a political framework was created for the first time at the UN level: The “Strategic Approach for International Chemicals Management” (SAICM) set the goal of sustainable handling of synthetic substances from production to use and disposal by 2020 to reach. This was missed by a wide margin. Non-governmental organizations attribute this primarily to the lack of commitment and insufficient funding. It was precisely these points that were the subject of the most heated debate during the preparations for the Bonn conference. Around 100 NGOs are calling for the promotion of new technologies, a ban on particularly toxic substances and overall resource-saving production and disposal that does not put further strain on people and ecosystems. The priority is prevention and avoidance as well as the concept of “polluters pay”: a tax of 0.5 percent on all industry sales of basic chemicals in order to enable the development of environmentally friendly management systems in the global south.
The lack of progress to date is also due to the fact that, despite the serious accidents in Seveso in 1976 and Bhopal in 1984, the chemical industry has been able to prevent stricter regulation through good lobbying to this day. And chemicals are rarely the focus of political debates. Wrongly: “They are one of the main causes of global warming, the loss of biological diversity and environmental pollution,” says the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). Global production has increased 50-fold since 1950 and is expected to triple again by 2050 compared to 2010. Although the estimates are now somewhat more cautious due to the selective declines as a result of high energy prices, with global sales of around 7.68 trillion euros, the chemical-pharmaceutical industry was still one of the dominant sectors in 2022 – with particularly high margins in some cases. And the World Health Organization (WHO) attributes at least 1.6 million deaths worldwide every year to exposure to chemicals.
The UBA also points out that the number of chemicals, their complexity and the complexity of their applications and areas of use are constantly increasing. It is often not known which products and technical processes use which substances and how the individual chemicals and cocktails affect people and the environment. Soil, air and water are contaminated with huge amounts of chemicals, some of which are very persistent. Per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, or PFAS for short, are even considered “forever chemicals” because they are practically impossible to degrade. A ban has been in the works for a long time in the EU, but the industry has so far been able to drag out the decision.
It is estimated that around 100,000 chemicals are in use worldwide. Most recently, only 64 substances were strictly regulated under SAICM, according to a request from the Greens to the former federal government in 2021. Added to this is the extensive ban on products containing mercury through the Minamata Convention of 2013. After all, the SAICM process, which critics also admit, provided funds for capacity building in countries in the global south, environmentalists are included in all negotiations, and the mandate is open, so that advice can also be given about newly identified problems. In addition to nanotechnology and drug residues in the environment, these recently also included endocrine disruptors (substances that disrupt the hormonal system), including nonylphenols.
The problems remain enormous. Production increases are occurring precisely in countries in the global south, where there are large gaps in environmental law and the means to implement existing regulations are lacking. This also comes at the expense of employees and residents, who are exposed to particular risks.
But the dangers cannot simply be shifted to the global south. According to BUND, nonylphenol ethoxylates are exported from the EU to countries such as Mexico, India and Taiwan, where they are used in the clothing industry to wash textiles during dyeing and are released into the environment in large quantities. But they also come back again, as the study says: “The pollutants in finished textiles are imported into the EU and enter the waterways through washing.”
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