ANTONIO CONTO
Chemsafe, Colleretto Giacosa (TO), Italy

Following the procedure laid down by Annex XV of the REACH Regulation, on January 13, 2023, five Member States (Germany, The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway) has submitted a restriction proposal on PFAS (per-polyfluoroalkyl substances) to ECHA (European Chemical Agency). On February 7, 2023, ECHA published this long-awaited restriction proposal for PFAS. The procedure started and the discussion as well! This restriction proposal is aimed to ban from manufacture and use a huge amount of chemicals (up to 10.000) considered harmful to the environment and to human health but, on the other way, will impact dozen of industries including the textile sector, medical devices and consumer cookware. Substitution will be the main issue!
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are a group of synthetic organic chemicals that have been in use since the 1950s, i.e. as ingredients or intermediates for industrial and consumer applications. They have attracted much public attention since the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the hazards and ubiquitous occurrence in the environment of two PFASs, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), started to be ...