Date Dec 9, 2011 Report Worst Ingredients in Liquid Soap Italian products EuroConsumers EnviroPlanning AB Lilla Bommen 5 C, SE-411 04 Göteborg, Sweden Visitor address Lilla Bommen 5 C Telephone +46 31 771 87 40 Telefax +46 31 771 87 41 Web site www.enviroplanning.se e-mail [email protected] Worst Ingredients in Liquid Soap Date Dec 9, 2011 Italian products Version Final Doc.no 4084-01\10\01\Report.doc About the report Title Worst Ingredients in Liquid Soap Italian products Version 001 Date December 9, 2011 Client Euroconsumers Servizi Editoriali S.R.L. Via Valassina, 22 20159 MILANO Italy Project number 4084-01 Document number 4084-01\10\01\Report.doc Cover photo Helena Norin Report written by Helena Norin and Niklas Hanson Report reviewed by Jenny Robinson Report verified by Helena Norin U:\4084-01\10-udo\01-utr\Report 4084-01.doc I (III) Worst Ingredients in Liquid Soap Date Dec 9, 2011 Italian products Version Final Doc.no 4084-01\10\01\Report.doc Summary Euroconsumers is preparing a review of liquid soaps on the Italian market. One part of this review looks at the environmental properties of the ingredients in the chosen products. EnviroPlanning has been hired to assess the environmental properties of the ingredients in order to identify and list ten or more of the most un-wanted ingredients. Severe health aspects of the ingredients are also taken into account when establishing the list. The following ingredients are considered as the most unwanted in the examined 27 soaps: BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) Methylchloroisothiazolinone Zinc Oxide Methylisothiazolinone Limonene Lauric Acid 2-Bromo-2-Nitropropane-1,3-Diol Benzyl Benzoate Butylphenyl Methylpropional Disodium EDTA Formaldehyde The review shows that the liquid soaps on the Italian market have a wide range of ingredients. It is possible to find liquid soaps containing both very few and very many hazardous ingredients. The following soaps are the best choices for consumers wanting to avoid hazardous ingredients. NEUTROMED (ET-27216-0011-EA) CIEN (ET-27216-0012-PT) HENO DE PRAVIA (ET-27216-0018-DO) DIA (ET-27216-0022-PT) U:\4084-01\10-udo\01-utr\Report 4084-01.doc II (III) Worst Ingredients in Liquid Soap Date Dec 9, 2011 Italian products Version Final Doc.no 4084-01\10\01\Report.doc Table of contents 1 Introduction ......................................................................... 1 1.1 General information .............................................................. 1 2 Legislation for soaps ............................................................ 1 3 Environmental hazard and risk evaluation of liquid soaps .................................................................................... 1 3.1 Screening for environmentally hazardous properties ........... 2 3.2 Determining the most hazardous ingredients ....................... 5 3.3 Environmental risk of liquid soaps ........................................ 7 4 Ingredients in liquid soaps ................................................... 9 5 Description of Top-10 most hazardous ingredients ............. 10 6 Data gaps ........................................................................... 14 7 Discussion .......................................................................... 14 8 Conclusions ........................................................................ 15 U:\4084-01\10-udo\01-utr\Report 4084-01.doc III (III) Worst Ingredients in Liquid Soap Date Dec 9, 2011 Italian products Version Final Doc.no 4084-01\10\01\Report.doc 1 Introduction 1.1 General information Euroconsumers is preparing a review of liquid soaps on the Italian market. One part of this review looks at the environmental properties of the ingredients in the chosen products. EnviroPlanning has been hired to assess the environmental properties of the ingredients in order to identify and list ten or more of the most un-wanted ingredients. Severe health aspects of the ingredients are also taken into account when establishing the list. 2 Legislation for soaps Soaps are considered as cosmetics in the European legislation. Currently, there is a European directive (76/768/EEC) which all cosmetics products should live up to. This directive will in 2013 be replaced by a European regulation (EC No 1223/2009). Both current and future legislation cover health aspects and require that safety assessment is carried out for all cosmetic products to ensure safe products. The regulation however does not cover the environmental properties of the ingredients used. Regarding preservatives, UV filters and colouring agents the directive contains lists of those substances allowed to be used in cosmetic products. The directive as well as the regulation also contains lists of prohibited ingredients, which is present on the cosmetics packaging. 3 Environmental hazard and risk evaluation of liquid soaps A total of 24 different types and brands of liquid soaps and three soap bars were evaluated in regards to environmental hazardous properties. In total all the soaps contained 141 chemical substances (ingredients). Each of the soaps contained between 12 and 27 ingredients. The ingredients were compiled in a database in Microsoft Excel™. The CAS-number (Chemical Abstract Services) for each substance was retrieved from the CosIng database (the European Commission database with information on cosmetic substances and ingredients). The list of all the reviewed liquid soaps and ingredients is shown in Appendix A. U:\4084-01\10-udo\01-utr\Report 4084-01.doc 1 (15) Worst Ingredients in Liquid Soap Date Dec 9, 2011 Italian products Version Final Doc.no 4084-01\10\01\Report.doc Out of the 27 soaps that were evaluated, nine included one or several colorants. Colorants are a group of substances that are not biodegradable and may therefore pose an environmental hazard. Colorants do not contribute to the function of the soaps, and it can be argued that they are undesirable from an environmental perspective. However, many of the colorants are accepted as food additives and the available information on their environmental properties is very scarce. Therefor further investigation will not be made on these substances in this report. 3.1 Screening for environmentally hazardous properties An initial screening of the ingredients was performed to separate suspected environmentally hazardous substances from those that can be assumed to have no, or negligible, environmental effect. The CAS-number for each chemical was used to search in the REACH registration dossier on the website of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA, 2011) and the database Chemical Substances (Prevent, 2011). The information retrieved from these databases regarding environmental fate and biological effect of the chemicals was used in the screening process. Soap is a product for which the different ingredients are likely to end up in the aquatic environment after use. Therefore, all chemicals that were classified as harmful or toxic to aquatic organisms were included in the list of suspected environmentally hazardous chemicals. Furthermore, chemicals with high acute or chronic toxicity to aquatic organisms were also included in the list, even if they were not officially classified as harmful or toxic to aquatic organisms. For substances where toxicity data from different species were available, the most sensitive species has been used for the evaluation. Besides biological effect (toxicity), the environmental fate of the chemical is important for the environmental hazard. Chemicals that are not biodegradable (persistent) can accumulate in the environment so that also substances with relatively low toxicity may reach concentrations with toxic effects. Many substances may also accumulate in biological tissue (bioaccumulation), so that high concentrations are reached within the organism. The most classical example of such a chemical is the pesticide DDT, which is relatively non-toxic to vertebrates, but due to low biodegradability and bioaccumulating properties eventually reached concentrations where it had effects on several predatory bird species. Chemicals with such properties should, therefore, be avoided even if they have low toxicity. U:\4084-01\10-udo\01-utr\Report 4084-01.doc 2 (15) Worst Ingredients in Liquid Soap Date Dec 9, 2011 Italian products Version Final Doc.no 4084-01\10\01\Report.doc Persistent AND bioaccumulating substances were, therefore, included on the list. However, when there were only persistence OR bioaccumulation, the chemical was not included on the list. Table 1 shows the checklist used to determine if a substance should be placed on the list with potentially environmentally hazardous chemicals. Table 1. The properties examined, and criteria used, to include a substance on the list of chemicals with potential environmental hazard. Property Criteria Environmental classification Classified as toxic or harmful to aquatic organisms Acute toxicity L(E)C50a < 10 mg/l (algae, invertebrate and fish) Chronic toxicity NOECb < 1 mg/l (invertebrate and fish) Biodegradability 28 days degradationc < 70% d e Bioaccumulation logPOW > 3 or BCF > 100 a Lethal (fish) or Effective (algae and invertebrates) Concentration where 50% of the test organisms are dead or affected. b No Observed Effect Concentration. The highest tested concentration without a chronic effect. c Degradation according to OECD 301, or similar tests. d Octanol–water partition coefficient. e BioConcentration Factor The result of the screening was a list of soaps that contained substances with environmentally