EU restricts cadmium use

The European Union (EU) Council of Ministers has passed rules further restricting the use of cadmium in PVC because of health and environmental concerns.
The new rules have been written into the EU's Reach chemical control regulation. A council communiqué said the reforms had been approved "to take account of the conclusions of recent scientific studies showing the need to supplement the existing Reach provisions on cadmium with the aim to further increase the protection of human health and the environment".
As regards PVC, the new regulations ban the sale in the EU of such plastics where cadmium content is greater than 0.01 % by weight of the plastic material. That said, there is an exemption for plastic mixtures manufactured from waste containing PVC – with the new regulation quoting a higher 0.1% limit for certain construction products – although these would have to be a labelled with a pictogram warning that they were made with waste PVC (although not that they could contain cadmium).