SG 034/25
The European Union (EU) has launched a consultation on its proposal to replace unintentional trace contaminant (UTC) limits for several flame retardants. Comments will be accepted until March 18, 2025.
On February 18, 2025, the European Commission announced a four-week consultation on a draft delegated regulation to replace certain specifications for five polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants listed under Part A of Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2019/1021 on persistent organic pollutants (POP Recast Regulation, current consolidated version to October 2024).
These five PBDE flame retardants are:
- Tetrabromodiphenyl ether (TetraBDE, CAS 40088-47-9 and others)
- Pentabromodiphenyl ether (PentaBDE, CAS 32534-81-9 and others)
- Hexabromodiphenyl ether (HexaBDE, CAS 36483-60-0 and others)
- Heptabromodiphenyl ether (HeptaBDE, CAS 68928-80-3 and others)
- Decabromodiphenyl ether (DecaBDE, CAS 1163-19-5)
Under current legislation, the presence of these five PBDEs as UTCs in mixtures and articles is subject to review and assessment.
Highlights of the draft delegated regulation proposing changes to point 2 under ‘Specific exemption on intermediate use or other specification’ requirements for each of the five PDBE are summarized in Table 1.
It is worth noting that food contact materials (FCM) and articles are exempt from this draft delegated regulation, as these PBDEs should not, in principle, be present in these products according to Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 (current consolidated version to January 2025) on food contact plastics and Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 on food contact recycled plastics. Furthermore, UTC limit values are proposed for toys, childcare articles and products for the general public when they contain recovered materials.
| Point 2 under Part A of Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2019/1021 on POP | |||
|
| ≤ 10 mg/kg as UTC (sum) | Enters into force on the 20th day following publication in the Official Journal of the EU |
| ≤ 500 mg/kg as UTC (sum) | Date of entry into force | |
| ≤ 350 mg/kg as UTC (sum) | December 30, 2025 | ||
| ≤ 200 mg/kg as UTC (sum) | December 30, 2027 | ||
Mixtures or articles containing or made of recovered material in:
| ≤ 500 mg/kg as UTC (sum) | Date of entry into force | |
| ≤ 350 mg/kg as UTC (sum) | December 30, 2025 | ||
| ≤ 10 mg/kg as UTC (sum) | 18 months after date of entry into force | ||
| ¹Except FCM and articles subject to Regulation (EC) No. 1935/2004 ²Toys subject to Directive 2009/48/EC | |||
Table 1
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