Miljøprojekt, 1048 – Substitution af kritiske råvarer og udvikling af miljøvenlige produkter

Substitution af kritiske råvarer og udvikling af miljøvenlige produkter

Summary and conclusions

On the basis of the actual use by the participating companies of biocides, quaternary ammonium compounds and other tensides, assessments were made of the environmental and health properties of the applied substances. Alternatives were proposed to substitute substances assessed to be problematic.

In general, the participating companies proved a thorough knowledge of especially the Nordic ecolabel, the Swan. The main obstacle of the companies to ecolabelling is to provide data on substances that do not figure on the chemicals lists of the ecolabels. The Danish Occupational Health Service (OHS) system and the Danish association of public purchasers make demands on the companies, which are close to the requirements to products ecolabelled with the Nordic Swan. Therefore, the participating companies marketing detergents for industrial and institutional use on the Danish market were especially interested in achieving the Swan ecolabel. On going over a number of product mix specifications for four product groups from the participating companies, it was found that especially the content of anaerobically non-degradable tensides is limiting their possibilities of ecolabelling. On this basis, a list of tensides that are both aerobically and anaerobically biodegradable was prepared. Furthermore, in order to strengthen the data material, tests of the anaerobic biodegradability of five tensides were performed. Of these, two tensides met the requirements of the ecolabelling criteria for anaerobic biodegradability.