Sweden Notifies EU Commission of Nanomaterial Reporting Proposal

Sweden's Board of Trade has notified the European Commission of plans to change its Chemicals Inspectorate Regulations with regard to nanomaterials.

Although the detail of the proposal will not be finalised until 14 June, the plan is that notifiers to the country's chemicals inspectorate product register will have to include information about any nanomaterials in an item.

This will include those that have been carefully added to the product, regardless of the concentration of nanomaterials.

The notification to the Commission's Technical Regulation Information System (Tris) lists several exemptions, including:

nanomaterials that are naturally occurring or accidentally produced;

for companies with annual sales of less than SEK 5m; and

pigment nanomaterials.

Exemptions will last three years while an evaluation is carried out. Those exempted will only have to supply information on whether a component of a product is a nanomaterial.

The Board of Trade says the aim is to create an overview of the nanomaterials used in Sweden. Any data collected will help identify them and provide statistics on their use.

These, it says, can be used for "supervision and as a basis for future regulatory development in health, the environment and the work environment".

In April 2016, it was reported that the Swedish Chemicals Agency (Kemi) was drafting a regulation for companies to provide information on nanomaterials in chemical products to the country's products register by 28 February 2019.