Manufacturers face EU crackdown on risky chemicals

A complete overhaul of laws on the safety of chemicals was unveiled yesterday in a move that will put 30,000 substances, contained in items from carpets to computers, under fresh scrutiny.

The proposed European Union legislation would cover thousands of household products, many of which have been on sale for years, and force companies to prove their safety. The initiative, announced by the European Commission, is in response to concerns over rising incidence of cancers, birth defects and allergies, and over the effect of so-called gender-bending chemicals.

Experts describe the proposal as the most important piece of environmental legislation for a decade because of its enormous scope. David Bowe, the Labour environment spokesman in the European Parliament, said: "People imagine that chemicals are in tankers but, in fact, they are in virtually everything you touch: telephones, computers, detergents, soaps, textiles or paper. We have increased levels of birth defects, tumours, and testicular cancer across the country and we don't know why."

The plan has provoked criticism from business, which says it will cost jobs and hit competitiveness, and from anti-vivisection groups, which fear it will lead to more animal tests. Wendy Higgins, of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, said it would lead to "the largest mass animal poisoning programme Europe has ever seen".

The Commission's proposal, which must be endorsed by EU governments and MEPs, requires firms to declare chemical properties and apply for authorisation to use substances that cause cancer and mutations or affect reproductive systems or which build up in organisms and persist in the environment. It would replace 40 current pieces of legislation and end an anomaly under which only substances put on the market after 1981 have to be tested for safety.

Margot Wallström, the European environment commissioner, said: "The existing legislative system is inefficient, slow and does not guarantee enough protection."

The most potentially dangerous substances will have to be registered and verified first. The phase-in will last up to 11 years after the legislation is put on the statute book in about three years' time. The Commission estimates the measure will cost firms up to €4bn in the period to 2020.