Factual summary of the online public consultation in support of the revision of the Detergents Regulation
This summary of the contributions received to the Public Consultation (PC) cannot in any circumstance be regarded as the official position of the Commission and its services. Contributions to the PC cannot be interpreted as representative of European or national populations or population subgroups or stakeholder types.
1Introduction
The European Commission launched a Public Consultation (PC) on the proposed revision of the Detergents Regulation on 2 March 2022, in accordance with the Better Regulation Guidelines. The PC closed on 25 May 2022.
The consultation sought views of stakeholders on proposals for the revision of the Detergents Regulation based on the issues identified in the evaluation of the Regulation that was published in 2019. This report provides a factual summary of responses.
2Overview of respondents
The questionnaire for this PC included a total of 29 questions, and comprised an introductory and eight thematic sections. Overall, 126 replies were submitted, coming from 21 Member States and 5 non-EU countries. All of the 126 responses to the PC were valid. The majority – 81 – of replies came from respondents answering on behalf of their business, authority, or organisation, while 45 participants replied in their role as EU Citizens. The exact breakdown of respondents was as follows:
·45 EU Citizens;
·22 Companies / Business Organisations;
·22 Business Associations;
·19 Public Authorities;
·5 NGOs;
·3 Consumer Organisations;
·2 Environmental Organisations; and
·8 Other.
To ease analysis, the stakeholders have been grouped in 5 categories, where appropriate and relevant for the analysis, namely: EU-Citizen (EU-C); Public Authority (PA); Business Stakeholder (BS); Civil Society Representative (CS); and Other (O).
Among business stakeholders that responded to the PC, the majority represented micro or small organisations with less than 50 employees. These two sizes accounted for 29 of the total business responses, with the remaining replies being split between medium (6 respondents) and large (9 respondents) enterprises.
3Summary of replies to the questionnaire
Dosage instructions
The participants in the consultation were asked to provide their views on the clarity of dosage instructions. More than half of the responding stakeholders said that dosage instructions should be simplified and/or become clearer for consumers, which made this statement the most popular among the proposed ones. Yet, over one-third of respondents also responded that the dosage instructions are clear and simple enough. Interestingly, this statement was the most selected one among EU-citizens. The third statement, namely that they do not read dosage instructions, was chosen by less than 10% of respondents.
Refill sale of detergents
In the case of refill sales of detergents, participants were asked to state their views on whether the Detergents Regulation should be amended to accommodate this practice and on the potential impacts that this would have. The majority of respondents (84 out of 108 total responses) were in favour of introducing specific rules for refill sales in the Regulation. This positive view was particularly shared among EU-citizens (37 out of 39 responses), public authorities (16 out of 18 responses) and all participating civil society representatives (15 responses). Business stakeholders were the only stakeholder group that disagreed by a majority to such a change of the Regulation (20 out of 36 responses). Considering the size of participating businesses only, it could be seen that large companies disagreed at a higher rate, while medium, small, and micro in fact agreed with an amendment on this matter. The main impact expected by stakeholders from setting rules for the refill sale of detergents is a positive one on the environment (58% of the total responses). The second most noted impact was improved consumer safety (40% of total respondents) while other less popular responses included: ‘other’ (28% of total responses); competitive advantage to EU market for detergents (19% of total responses); and it would yield positive results for detergents manufacturers (17% of total responses).
Ambiguous definitions
The question whether it is always clear if a product is a detergent or not within the meaning of the Detergents Regulations splits respondents in half almost equally. While business stakeholders believe by over two-thirds (31 out of 41 responses) that it is always clear, public authorities see exactly the opposite and more than two-thirds of them (15 out of 19 responses) believe that it is not always clear if a product is a detergent or not within the meaning of the Regulation. Respondents from the civil society believe even more strongly that this is not always clear (5 out of 6 responses). The question was not open to EU citizens. As regards the impacts of clarifying the definitions of the Detergents Regulation, two impacts were mentioned more often by respondents, namely that a clarification of existing definitions would provide legal certainty and facilitate the work of detergents manufacturers and Member States’ authorities. These two impacts were mentioned by almost half of the participating stakeholders across all groups (40% and 50% respectively).
Microbial cleaning products
When asked about necessary risk management measures, the majority of respondents across all stakeholder groups (over 70%) considered labelling requirements as the most appropriate measure to ensure the safe use of microbes in detergents. The introduction of generic criteria for the use of microbes in detergents as a risk management measure was the least supported by stakeholders. However, the more stringent option of introducing a scheme for individual, product-specific risk assessment measures was supported by 16 out of 53 total respondents.
The impacts of introducing risk management measures for microbial cleaning products were viewed differently across stakeholder groups. Across all respondents, the most expected impact was the better protection of human health (around 46 % of responses) followed by an enhanced environmental protection (35 % of responses) and an unnecessary regulatory burden (approximately 30% of responses).
Information to poison centres and ingredient data sheets
Over two-thirds of all stakeholders (56 out of 70 responses) agreed that the ingredient data sheet for non-hazardous detergents should be maintained under the Detergents Regulation. This positive view was shared among public authorities (15 out of 17 responses), civil society representatives (8 out of 8 responses) and others (5 out of 7 responses), with only business stakeholders (28 out of 38 responses) having a slightly lower agreement rate than the other participants. This question was not answered by EU-citizens. The replies on the impacts of maintaining the data sheet for non-hazardous detergents were consistent with the responses received on the need to maintain it. Over one-fourth of all participants said that maintaining the ingredient data sheet would provide a high level of protection of human health and overall, less than 10 % selected the three more critical impacts. Concerning the impacts of aligning the format of these data sheets with that for providing similar information to poison centres under the Classification Labelling and Packaging Regulation (CLP), most stakeholders reported (almost 40 % of total responses) that the main impact would be an unnecessary regulatory burden to the industry.
Phosphorus limitations and biodegradability of non-surfactant organic ingredients
Over two-thirds (71 out of 106) of respondents agreed that biodegradability requirements for non-surfactant organic ingredients should in fact be added in the Detergents Regulation. A majority across all participant groups except for business stakeholders (23 out of 37 responses) thought that the phosphorus limitations should be expanded to professional detergents. EU citizens (35 out of 39 responses) and civil society respondents (9 out of 9 responses) agreed very strongly with phosphorus limitations being expanded to professional detergents. A very similar picture emerged regarding the expansion of phosphorus limitations to consumer dishwashing detergents. More than two-thirds of respondents from public authorities (11 out of 11 responses), representatives from the civil society (10 out of 10 responses) and other participants (1 out of 1 response) were in favour while the majority of industry stakeholders were against it (23 out of 38 responses). The main impact considered most likely by stakeholders an enhanced environmental protection followed by fostering innovation and imposing an unnecessary regulatory burden to the detergents industry.
Overlaps in the labelling of ingredients
Regarding the identified overlaps between the Detergents and the CLP Regulations as regards the labelling requirements for detergents, a vast majority of respondents agreed that the overlapping labelling requirements should be streamlined to allow the relevant substance to be labelled only once in accordance with the stricter applicable rules (97 out of 114 total responses). The agreement to this approach is widely shared across the different stakeholder groups participating to the PC. Concerning the impact of streamlining the labelling requirements for detergents, the two main impacts that were mentioned by more than half of participants, were that: 1) it would provide clarity for consumers (around 88 % of respondents) and 2) it would increase the effectiveness of detergent labels (almost 60 % of respondents). Close to 50% of respondents also believed that streamlining the labelling requirements would significantly simplify the regulatory framework applicable to detergents.
Legislative Instrument
Finally, stakeholders were asked whether the Detergents Regulation should be repealed and its material content be incorporated in other horizontal pieces of EU chemicals legislation. Around two-thirds of respondents replied that the Detergents Regulation should not be repealed. Only a majority of EU-citizens, stated that the Regulation should be repealed while public authorities, business stakeholders, civil society representatives, and other respondents were strongly against it.
