EU’s Cosmetic Microplastic Restriction Expected To Be ‘Very Wide-Ranging’ At Best

Cosmetics Europe’s Director-General John Chave discusses next steps in the European Union’s proposed drive to ban manufactured microplastic in all cosmetic products. Industry continues to fight for something more proportionate, but it’s up against powerful forces in today’s European theater.

The cosmetics industry’s prospects have improved little since the European Chemicals Agency proposed banning use of intentionally added microplastic in consumer products – including cosmetics, rinse-off and leave-on – a year ago.

Scant headway has been achieved despite industry’s arguments about cosmetic microplastic’s relatively minor contribution to marine litter and the massively disproportionate compliance costs it would face, compared with other affected sectors, if the proposal comes to fruition.

Trade group Cosmetics Europe was optimistic that the ECHA’s Risk Assessment Committee (RAC) would see fit to challenge the proposal’s scope or even its regulatory underpinning, given that the EU’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) program, which the ECHA administers, is designed to manage chemical toxicity risks.

Microplastic in the environment may be undesirable, but industry maintains that the polymers being targeted have not been shown to represent compelling toxic risks. (Also see "Microplastic, Macro-Headache: European Cosmetics Industry Dismayed By Early Signs In Restriction Process" - HBW Insight, 17 Jul, 2019.)

The hope was that the ECHA committee would push back against the proposal accordingly.

“That simply didn’t happen,” said Cosmetics Europe Director-General John Chave in a 17 January interview. “Apart from some relatively minor details, the RAC has been fairly content to follow the line originally proposed by ECHA.”

He added, “Many people would argue that this is an example of using the [REACH] legislation to address a broader and different kind of problem. And there’s some reflection about the kind of precedent that sets.”

“These things, like much else in microplastics, are quite unprecedented. And I don’t think anybody currently has a clear handle on how it’s going to work."

Draft opinions from the RAC and the ECHA’s Committee for Socio-economic Analysis (SEAC) are expected to release in March, triggering 60-day public consultations. Final opinions likely will be relayed to the European Commission in June.

The Commission then must decide how to formally implement the recommendations.

“Broadly speaking,” Chave said, “this thing is going to come into play in 2021, and by the end of this year, we’ll have a very, very good idea of what the final form will be.”

Chave suggested that modest inroads have been made with the SEAC, insofar as there is debate at least about the proportionality of ECHA’s proposal as it relates to categories of microplastic-containing cosmetics that industry has shown to have minimal environmental impacts.

“Take makeup as one example,” he said. “Cosmetics Europe submitted evidence to ECHA that the majority of people wipe off the makeup and then dispose of the wipe in the normal trash, which in most European countries gets incinerated and therefore doesn’t go into the water system or the environment at all. There is some suggestion that these kinds of arguments are getting some traction.”

Even so, Cosmetics Europe and its members are bracing for regulatory impact on a monumental scale.

“Even in our best current scenario, it will be a wide-ranging restriction. It’s just that it’s either very, very wide-ranging, or merely very wide-ranging. For example, it seems very likely that microplastics will come out of all rinse-off products,” Chave said.

To date, the European cosmetics industry’s voluntary efforts have focused on phasing out use of plastic microbeads in rinse-off cosmetics intended for cleansing and/or exfoliation purposes, in line with prohibitions established in the US in late 2015 under the Microbead-Free Waters Act. (Also see "ECHA’s Microplastic Ban Proposal Is ‘Brutally Misinformed’ – Cosmetics Europe" - HBW Insight, 19 Feb, 2019.)

Under the ECHA’s proposed restriction, all manufactured microplastic would have to be eliminated from rinse-off cosmetics on the EU market within four years of enactment.

Manufacturers would have six years to remove microplastic ingredients from leave-on products, a far more problematic category that Cosmetics Europe remains intent on defending.

Labeling Could Be Lesser Of Evils

A derogation for leave-on cosmetics is not completely outside the realm of possibility, Chave said.

However, such an exemption likely would come with a labeling obligation that has yet to be defined.

According to Chave, there has been talk of requiring a “Contains Microplastic” disclosure on cosmetic product labeling, which from his perspective would benefit no one.

Alternatively, labels could be required to include some piece of consumer instruction – for example to wipe off, rather than wash off, microplastic-containing cosmetics – to help ensure against any risk of environmental contamination.

The specifics at this point are a matter of conjecture, including how a microplastic labeling mandate under the aegis of REACH would interrelate with labeling requirements in the European Cosmetics Regulation.

Chave noted, “These things, like much else in microplastics, are quite unprecedented. And I don’t think anybody currently has a clear handle on how it’s going to work.”

Industry stakeholders have heavy misgivings about the logistics and market implications of a microplastic labeling requirement; they’re just dwarfed by apprehension about the prospect of an outright microplastic ban, Chave said.

In any event, he characterized the possibility of a derogation as “a big if.”

The ECHA has estimated that compliance with its proposed restriction would cost the cosmetics industry $1.1bn and $7.4bn, respectively, for rinse-off and leave-on product reformulation and other related expenses over a 20-year period post-implementation.

That’s close to 80% of total estimated compliance costs across all affected sectors, and according to Cosmetics Europe, the agency has underestimated financial burdens on its members by as much as 50%.

The trade association aims to keep an active dialogue alive with the ECHA and European Commission, which solicited the ECHA’s microplastic proposal in conjunction with its overarching Plastics Strategy unveiled in January 2018. (Also see "ECHA Targets Cosmetics, Leave-On And Rinse-Off Alike, With Proposed Microplastics Ban" - HBW Insight, 8 Feb, 2019.)

Chave is mindful of challenges Cosmetics Europe faces in the current EU policy environment, where “technocratic” bodies with chemicals oversight responsibilities are perceived by industry as having been politicized in recent years to the detriment of reliable, science-based decision making.