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Inventory of biocides used in Denmark

Summary

Background and objective

The European Parliament and the Council adopted in 1998 a directive on the placing of biocidal products on the market (the Biocide Directive). The background for the directive is a need for harmonisation of the legislation of the Member States regarding this type of industrial chemicals.

As a consequence of the adoption of the Biocide Directive and reflecting a general intention to strengthen the work on chemicals in the Danish environmental administration, the Danish Environmental Protection Agency has in the spring 2000 established a division for Biocides and Chemicals Assessment. This division will be in charge of the implementation of the Biocide Directive in the Danish legislation and administrative provisions.

The object of this study is to establish a comprehensive view of the use of biocidal products in Denmark and develop models for assessments of human and environmental exposure to biocides.

The study

The present study, carried out in 1999/2000, consists of two phases. Phase one, reported here, includes an inventory of biocides used in Denmark. Phase two, reported in a separate report, includes the development of preliminary models for assessments of human and environmental exposure to biocides.

In the Biocide Directive, biocidal products are organised into 23 product-types, which may be further organised into a number of sub-types or application areas. For each product-type the application and consumption of biocides have been surveyed. For some application areas, specific information on the consumption of each biocide has been available, whereas for other application areas it has only been possible to roughly estimate the total consumption of biocides within the area.

The inventory has been drawn up on the basis of information from the Danish Pesticide Statistics, the database of the Danish Productregister (PROBAS), trade organisations, private companies, Statistics Denmark, and research institutions. For a number of application areas, questionnaire surveys have been conducted, either via the branch organisations SPT (soap, perfume and toiletware) and FDLF (lacquer and paint) or by direct enquiries to private companies.

Some of the collected information is considered confidential, and for some application areas consumption figures for each biocide are in the published report treated in such a way that only aggregated consumption figures are presented.

The study was carried out by COWI Consulting Engineers and Planners in cooperation with DTC and DHI Water and Environment. The project was launched in the autumn 1999 and has thus run for about a year.

Results

For each application area, the report includes a description of

	application of the biocides
	actors on the market
	biocides (active substances) used in Denmark
	consumption of biocides with finished products.

A large number of biocides are used in Denmark, and more than 600 of the compounds listed at the 'List of biocidal substances' from the European Chemical Bureau are registered in PROBAS as used in Denmark. It is, however, not registered in PROBAS for all compounds whether the compounds are actually used as biocides in the products. About 300 compounds were registered as used as preservative, disinfectant or antifouling agent. Some of the registered agents may actually not be present in products marketed today, but have not been cancelled by the suppliers in the Register.

The total consumption of biocides with finished products by product-types is summarised in Table 1. Only application areas not covered by other EU instruments than the Biocide Directive are included. For some application areas, e.g. food and feed area disinfectants, the delimitation is not clear, and some of the application areas included in the table may be covered by other regulative instruments and should consequently not be included here (indicated by * in the table).

For each product-type or application area, the percentage of the total consumption of biocides represented by the application area is indicated.

As it appears from the table the main application areas of biocides in terms of quantities are as follows (arranged in order of magnitude):

	Disinfectants for public areas (professional cleaning and industrial use)
	Disinfectants for swimming pools
	Food and feed area disinfectants (mainly for the food processing industry)
	Disinfectants for private areas
	Wood preservatives for vacuum and pressure preservation
	Disinfectants for laundries
	Antifouling paints for large vessels
	In-can preservatives for cleaning materials
	Preservatives for insulating materials of organic fibres
	Slimicides and other biocides used by oil extraction and fuel storage

Table 1
Consumption of biocides (active substance) with finished products in Denmark 1998/99 ²⁾. The assessment only includes applications not covered by other EU regulation

1) The 3.9 tonnes used for control of other vertebrates are also included in product-type 14 Rodenticides, as it is not clear how much of the total is used for other vertebrates (moles). In the total sum, the amount is only included once.

2) Only biocides not covered by other EU regulation are included. Application areas where the delineation is not clear are indicated by a *. All figures represent the consumption of active substances and are represented by the range within which the authors estimate the ‘true’ value can be found at an 80% certainty level.

3) It has not been possible to confirm any use of biocides in rubber, paper (apart from paper insulation materials) and ‘other polymeric materials’ in Denmark, but it is expected that some minor uses take place.

4) Only skin disinfectants used in the health care sector and in antibacterial soap are included.

5) Preservatives for food and feedstock are in general covered by other regulation, but there are a few exemptions, for example preservatives in cheese rind. Within this project, there has not been made any attempt to assess the consumption of biocides for these exemptions.

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