The Commission’s long-awaited draft regulation extends the phase-out period for microplastic in selected leave-on cosmetics from six to 12 years. That’s a win for industry, but tens of thousands of formulations still must be reformulated in a market where suitable alternative ingredients have been characterized as scarce to nonexistent.
The cosmetics industry will have 12 years to eliminate intentionally added, non-biodegradable microplastic from makeup, lip and nail cosmetics, twice as long as initially proposed by the European Chemicals Agency in January 2019, under a draft regulation released by the Commission on 30 August.
That’s good news for industry