H304 derogation in the ecolabel for absorbent hygiene products

sThe EU Ecolabel in general, promotes the production and consumption of products with a reduced environmental impact along the life cycle and is awarded only to the best environmentally performing products in the market.  Currently there are 11 product groups – absorbent hygiene products (AHPs) are part of “Personal and animal care products”.

The EU Ecolabel criteria are regularly revised within the frameworks of the EU Ecolabel Regulation 66/2010 taking additionally into consideration legislation, market development, technical standards and environmental aspects mainly from a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) perspective.

This review project for absorbent hygiene products was relaunched in February 2021 and the vote for the revised criteria took place during EU Ecolabel Board meeting in March 2023.

HSPA provided comments on the respective versions or draft technical reports with respect to the aspiration hazard (H304) and succeeded to get its derogation request accepted on the following grounds:

According to the CLP Regulation, the H304 hazard (“May be fatal if swallowed and enters airways”), induced following accidental ingestion, is linked to the viscosity parameter (< 20.5 cSt at 40 °C). This risk may arise in case of ingestion, or accidental swallowing and only if the substance enters into the lungs in its liquid form instead of arriving in the stomach, but also in case of vomiting after ingestion. As a consequence, to get a risk for human health, the absorbent hygiene product must both have the substance classified H304 in its liquid form and be swallowed. This is considered an unlikely situation, leading to no risk for human health.

Whereas in the first updated draft, the derogation should only apply to adult products but not to baby diapers, we could convincingly claim that H304 being a physical hazard, the risk occurs only if the substance is present in the final product as a liquid. Since this is never the case, there is no risk for human health. Therefore, the derogation for H304 is applicable to all AHPs in the scope of the EU Ecolabel.