The National Agency for Health Security ANSES will propose to Europe to reduce the number of chemicals present in baby diapers, she said on Wednesday.
This proposal will be formally filed "in October 2020" and "aims to prohibit or limit the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), dioxins, furans, PCBs and formaldehyde" in the layers, said the health agency.
A potential risk "in the long term"
This announcement by ANSES comes a year after its report which had highlighted a potential risk "in the long term" linked to "exceeding health thresholds for a certain number of substances". In the wake of the report, the government asked companies in the sector to eventually remove certain substances from their layers.
In September, at the end of a progress report with the industrialists, the repression of fraud (DGCCRF) had estimated that their commitments were "generally respected at this stage", taking into account the observations made by its agents.
A “stakeholder consultation” until the end of March
Disposable diapers are subject in the EU to general regulations on consumer products and not to specific rules such as certain cosmetic products or protections for urinary leakage.
To justify its proposal "within the framework of the European regulation of Reach chemicals", ANSES must prepare a dossier. Its goal: "to collect useful information, especially on the use of substances identified as of concern in the diapers," she said on Wednesday. This is why it has just opened a "stakeholder consultation", which will end at the end of March, in order to gather "essential information for carrying out the scientific evaluation in support of the dossier".
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