European Environment Agency report announces “strong decreased concentrations of PBDEs” in Europe´s seas
Tuesday, 28 May 2019 – BSEF welcomes the report “Contaminants in Europe’s seas moving towards a clean, non-toxic marine environment”[1] by the European Environment Agency. The report aims to “map contamination ‘problem areas’ and ‘non-problem areas’ at the scale of Europe’s seas, while also exploring whether Europe has broken some of the trends for long‑established hazardous substances.”.
Dr Kevin Bradley, BSEF’s Secretary General, commented
“We appreciate the work done by the EEA and are happy to see that the reported levels of PBDEs in Europe’s seas are declining. Industry has been actively working on reducing emissions over many years thanks to the VECAP programme[2]. This is now bearing fruit.”
“Unfortunately, the data presented are almost 10 years old, so reflect only the first 5 years of VECAP”, noted Dr Bradley. We are confident that the PBDE levels will keep declining and are much lower today, as has already been demonstrated in other situations[3]”, he said.
About BSEF:
BSEF – the International Bromine Council, is the global representative body for bromine producers and producers of bromine technologies. Originally founded in 1997, BSEF works to foster knowledge on the societal benefits of bromine and its applications. The members of BSEF are Albemarle Corporation, ICL Industrial Products, Lanxess and Tosoh.
Further information: Visit www.bsef.org to learn more and follow BSEF on Twitter @BromineInfo for the latest news and information.
[1] Contaminants in Europe’s seas – Moving towards a clean, non-toxic marine environment; European Environment Agency 2019, ISBN 978-92-9480-058-9, doi:10.2800/511375
[2] Voluntary Emission Control Action Program, https://www.bsef.com/sustainability/vecap/
[3] E.g., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2018.11.044 , https://doi.org/10.1080/09603123.2018.1560396 and https://doi.org/10.1038/s41370-018-0031-3