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MOSCOW (MRC) -- The European Commission
today adopted the EU's chemicals strategy for sustainability, describing it as
the first step towards a zero-pollution ambition for a toxic-free environment
announced in the European Green Deal, reported Chemweek.
The strategy includes actions
that prohibit the use of the most harmful chemicals in consumer products such as
toys, childcare articles, cosmetics, detergents, food contact materials, and
textiles, unless proven essential for society, and ensures that all chemicals
are used more safely and sustainably, the Commission says.
The strategy
sets out concrete actions to make chemicals safe and sustainable by design, and
to ensure that chemicals can deliver their benefits without harming the planet,
and both current and future generations, according to the Commission. Several
innovation and investment actions "will be foreseen to accompany the chemicals
industry through this transition," it says, although no further details were
provided. The strategy also draws the attention of EU member states to the
possibilities of the Recovery and Resilience Facility to invest in the green and
digital transition of EU industries, including in the chemical sector, according
to the Commission.
“We owe our well-being and high living standards to
the many useful chemicals that people have invented over the past 100 years.
However, we cannot close our eyes to the harm that hazardous chemicals pose to
our environment and health. We have come a long way regulating chemicals in the
EU, and with this strategy we want to build on our achievements and go further
to prevent the most dangerous chemicals from entering into the environment and
our bodies, and affecting especially the most fragile and vulnerable ones,” says
Virginijus Sinkevicius, Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and
Fisheries.
Some of the main initiatives of the strategy that aim to
increase the protection of human health and the environment from harmful
chemicals include the phasing out from consumer products of the most harmful
substances, such as endocrine disruptors, chemicals that affect the immune and
respiratory systems, and persistent substances such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS), unless their use is proven essential for society. Others
include minimizing and substituting as far possible the presence of substances
of concern in all products; addressing the combination effect of chemicals
(cocktail effect); and ensuring that producers and consumers have access to
information on chemical content and safe use.
The actions announced in
the strategy will support industrial innovation so that safer and more
sustainable chemicals become the norm on the EU market and a benchmark
worldwide, the Commission says. It aims to capture the economic opportunity that
arises with this and enable the green transition of the chemicals sector and its
value chains, it says.
Actions within the strategy that aim to boost
innovation and promote the EU's competitiveness worldwide include developing
safe-and-sustainable-by-design criteria and ensuring financial support for the
commercialization and uptake of safe and sustainable chemicals; ensuring the
development and uptake of safe and sustainable-by-design substances, materials
and products through EU funding and investment instruments and public-private
partnerships; and stepping up enforcement of EU rules considerably at the
borders and in the single market. Others include putting in place an EU research
and innovation agenda for chemicals, and simplifying and consolidating the EU
legal framework.
The Commission says that it will promote safety and
sustainability standards globally, lead by example, and promote a coherent
approach so that hazardous substances banned in the EU are not produced for
export.
The adoption by the Commission today is in line with the European
Parliament’s call on the Commission in July to come up with a strategy that
effectively ensures health and the environment are well protected by minimizing
exposure to hazardous chemicals, and includes measures to protect vulnerable
groups such as children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and the elderly.
As MRC informed before, in
mid-July, 2020, The European Commission approved PKN Orlen’s acquisition of
Grupa Loto,. The approval is conditional on full compliance with a commitments
package offered by PKN Orlen.
We remind that n H1 September 2019,
Honeywell announced
that PKN ORLEN had licensed the UOP MaxEne process, which can increase
production of ethylene and aromatics and improve the flexibility of gasoline
production. The project, for the PKN Orlen facility in Plock, Poland, currently
is in the basic engineering stage. Honeywell UOP, a leading provider of
technologies for the oil and gas industry, first commercialized the UOP MaxEne
process in 2013. The process enables refiners and petrochemical producers to
direct molecules within the naphtha feed to the processes that deliver the
greatest value and improve yields of fuels and petrochemicals.
Ethylene
and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene
(PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report,
Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,496,500 tonnes in the first eight
months of 2020, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of all ethylene polymers
increased, except for linear low desnity polyethylene (LLDPE). At the same time,
PP shipments to the Russian market reached 767,2900 tonnes in the eight months
of 2020 (calculated using the formula - production minus exports plus imports -
and not counting producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased
exclusively of PP random copolymer. |
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