Bioaccumulation of preservatives and colouring agents
Level: Core
The purpose of the requirement is to avoid bioaccumulative preservatives and colouring agents in the products.These substances can accumulate in living organisms and become concentrated upwards in the food chain.
Details
- Type:
- Technical specification
- ID:
- 10226:1
- Group:
- Chemical products
Criterion text
Ingredient1 preservatives and colouring agents shall not be bioaccumulative, in accordance with Regulation (EC) 1272/2008 of the European parliament and of the Council on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP Regulation).
Exceptions
- Colouring agents approved as food additives in accordance with Regulation (EC) 1333/2008 of the European parliament and of the Council on food additives
- Preservatives with LC50, EC50 and IC50 over 100 mg/l or NOEC/ECx over 10 mg/l.
- Readily biodegradable preservatives whose degradation products have BCF or log Kow that fulfils the requirement.
- Preservatives that are not bioavailable (molar mass over 700 g/mole)
1Ingredient substances are all substances in the product, including additives such as preservatives and stabilizers. However, impurities from raw material production are not included. Impurities are residues from raw material production in concentrations below 0,01 percent by weight in the product. Substances added to a raw material deliberately and with a certain purpose are not considered impurities regardless of concentration.
2The distribution coefficient (Kow) between octanol and water should be less than 4 (log Kow <4) or experimentally determined bioconcentration factor (BCF) should be less than 500 (BCF <500).
Verification
The supplier shall, upon request, be able to present any of for example the following:
- Valid license for any of for example the following labels:
Good Environmental Choice for chemical products
EU Ecolabel for Hard surface cleaning products, (EU) 2017/1217
EU Ecolabel for Detergents for dishwashers, (EU) 2017/1216
EU Ecolabel for Industrial and institutional automatic dishwasher detergents, (EU) 2017/1215
EU Ecolabel for Hand dishwashing detergents, (EU) 2017/1214
EU Ecolabel for Laundry detergents, (EU) 2017/1218
EU Ecolabel for Industrial and institutional laundry detergents, (EU) 2017/1219
- Raw material supplier's safety data sheets for all preservatives and colouring agents in the product.
- Excerpt from ECHA's database showing that the preservative or colouring agent is not bioaccumulative with the specified logKow or BCF.
Proposed follow-up
Labelling
If the requirement is verified with a label, check that there is a valid license for the product in question. This can be controlled here: Good Environmental Choice, EU Ecolabel.
Safety Data Sheet
This requirement can be verified with safety data sheets for all the colouring agents and preservatives in the product, i. e not with the safety data sheet for the product. See section 12 "Ecological information" of the safety data sheet - for example, it can be stated that "the product is not expected to be bioaccumulative". If "data does not exist" is stated, check section 9 "Physical and chemical properties" - where log Kow values can be specified under "octanol / water distribution coefficient". Make sure that log Kow is under 4 or BCF is under 500. If data is missing in both sections 12 and 9, the supplier of the colouring agent or preservative needs to supplement the information in the form of, for example, test reports.
Excerpts form ECHA's database
If the requirement has been verified with excerpts from ECHA's database, make sure that the specified values for bioaccumulation are log Kow under 4 or BCF under 500.
Information about the criterion
Note that this requirement cannot be verified with the product’s safety data sheet. Safety data sheets for all the preservatives and colouring agents in the product are required. More information on this can be found under “follow-up”.
ECHA is the European Chemicals Agency. ECHA's website contains a searchable database for all the substances that have been registered in REACH.
The requirement covers only colouring agents and preservatives as these are primarily such raw materials that can have bioaccumulative properties.
Environmental goals
Versions history
The version date indicates when the sustainability criterion was created or last updated. Last reviewed dated tells when we last checked that the sustainability criterion still is relevant.
- Current ID
- 10226:1
- Version date
- 2019-05-07
- Review date
- 2025-09-25