The Committee of Ministers has postponed the introduction of restrictions on the use of phosphates in detergents.
From January 1, 2024, a government phased ban on the use of phosphates in both household and industrial chemicals would come into effect. The Cabinet of Ministers supported the relevant document two years ago - before the start of a full-scale war. The then Minister of Environment Roman Abramovsky emphasized: this is a historic decision. In fact, from that moment our technical regulations began to comply with EU requirements.
The European Parliament banned the use of phosphates in laundry detergents more than 10 years ago. And some progressive countries began to do this at the end of the last century.
But on December 22 of this year, the government postponed the implementation of this norm. This happened after the European Council approved EU accession negotiations. Now the environmentally important initiative will work... after victory. And even then not immediately, but 90 days after the end of martial law. But those who already produce detergents with phosphates will not be affected by these restrictions even after victory.
How do phosphates harm your health?
Phosphates harm our water bodies and cause water blooms - the proliferation of blue-green algae. If there are too many of them, a ban on swimming may be introduced on the beaches, because they negatively affect people’s health: skin irritation, itching, swelling of the mucous membranes of the eyes and nose, fever, pain in muscles and joints. They may even cause nausea or vomiting. Children and the elderly are especially vulnerable to this.
All water bodies suffer from this. When the government made the decision, the Minister of Environment noted that more than 6 thousand tons of phosphates got into water bodies over the course of the year. The Dnieper, from which 70% of the population consumes water, is also suffering.
The head of the Association of Environmental Professionals PAEW, Lyudmila Tsyganok, after the postponement of the phased ban of phosphates, noted that they can affect the water supply of entire cities:
“This is catastrophic even in peacetime... But what about the present? Several years ago, in the city of twenty thousand people, Korsun-Shevchenkovsky, the water supply from the Ros River was stopped. And imported water was used as drinking water! This entailed huge costs, because the Steblevo reservoir was completely polluted. That is, the city is located on a river, and water from it cannot be used.”
Which ministries supported the use of harmful household and industrial chemicals?
The document that was obtained from the government indicates that the Ministry of Natural Resources agreed on a draft government resolution that delayed restrictions on phosphates in detergents.
“This was not an initiative of the Ministry of Natural Resources. What I know is that the Ministry of Economy sees some prerequisites for this. I would really like the Ministry of Natural Resources to play not the last violin in this orchestra,” says People’s Deputy Oleg Bondarenko (“Servant of the People”), who heads the environmental committee of the Verkhovna Rada.
The Ministry of Economy explains that the delay was necessary precisely because of the conditions that arose during the war.
“There are technical regulations that define the standards. Large enterprises would have to switch to new standards - change technologies. The war began and associations, the American Chamber of Commerce, approached us. Businesses cannot make investments and have asked to postpone this issue until the end of martial law. The question here is purely economic,” says Deputy Minister of Economy Vitaly Kindrativ.
The chemical industry reported a year ago that the volume of working capital had decreased by $5-6 billion due to the war. The share of the chemical industry in Ukraine's GDP is about 3%. In the structure of industrial production, this industry, depending on the year, occupied from 9% to 10. At the same time, the volume of the domestic commodity market for chemical products in Ukraine at the end of 2020 amounted to $10.6 billion, of which imports - 74%, domestic production - 26%.
So far, the answers to the question of how, after the victory, enterprises will manage to modernize their capacities in 90 days? And what to do if the war drags on for several more years?
But here it is important to understand that now the text of the government resolution says this: “To establish that the provision of detergents on the market (Provision of products on the market is any paid or free supply of products for their distribution, consumption on the Ukrainian market when carrying out economic activities - author's note), which were put into circulation before the date of application of the restrictions on the content of phosphates and other phosphorus compounds in detergents established in Appendix 1 to the Technical Regulations approved by this resolution, cannot be prohibited or limited for reasons of non-compliance of such detergents funds to the established restrictions.”
Thus, those who have already entered the market will not owe anything to anyone and should not change anything.
Mindovkill says that when working on changes to the technical regulations, they gave their reservations and plan to make further changes to this resolution, which relate specifically to the above paragraph:
“Here we really need to clarify that we are talking about goods that will be in circulation in our country at the end of the war. In addition, it will be necessary to develop, together with the Ministry of Economy, a solution to resolve this issue in order to preserve our water resources in accordance with the draft River Basin Management Plans, which contain measures for environmental rehabilitation and post-war restoration of water bodies. This includes the modernization of outdated treatment facilities and sewer networks, which will significantly improve wastewater treatment and, accordingly, protect water bodies from the ingress of such amounts of phosphates. The requirements of the Technical Regulations of Ukraine for environmental labeling, which will come into force after the end of martial law, are more stringent than the norms established by EU directives. For example, the EU sets standards for phosphates in detergents at the level of 0.5 grams, but ours is at the level of 0.2 grams,” notes First Deputy Minister of the Environment Alexander Krasnolutsky.
As for EU regulations, the legislative situation there is such that each country can establish more stringent standards. When we made the decision to limit phosphates in household and industrial chemicals in 2021, we understood that our treatment facilities are not capable of treating water with phosphates and therefore, environmentalists and water utilities asked to establish more stringent standards. Which was done, but has now been cancelled.
Mikhail Khorev, who now teaches at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy and was previously Deputy Minister of Ecology, notes that the EU has long used phosphate-free detergents based on zeolites and copolymers:
“But scientists have found that they also negatively affect the environment and human health. EU governments have set a goal to develop a new generation of safer detergents. There is a special REASN program that monitors the harmfulness of such exposure and determines strict limit standards. Of course, the chemical industry is not happy. But they came to the conclusion that the chemical industry is obliged to continue research into creating safer household chemicals. The EU Commission is warning the chemical industry of introducing tougher hygiene and environmental restrictions in the future. In the meantime, we are prolonging the use of phosphates.”
Let us remind you that this is not the only government initiative that environmentalists criticize. The Cabinet of Ministers, by its resolution, established “Forests of Ukraine”, which should subsequently become a joint stock company. Environmentalists see this as a serious threat to the preservation of the state's forest fund. A significant part of the forests could also be protected if Ukraine fulfilled one of its European integration obligations and created an emerald network of especially valuable areas to protect rare species of plants and animals. But the Verkhovna Rada has not been able to consider the corresponding bill (4461) for several years.
