1 The Government’s policy for a non-toxic environment

The Government’s aim is for this white paper to provide a framework that will enable us to work together towards a non-toxic environment and a safer future. Norway will play a leading role in efforts to prevent chemicals from causing injury to health or environmental damage.

Much has been done to reduce the health and environmental risks associated with hazardous substances, but this is not sufficient to deal with the long-term problems. Ecological toxins are accumulating in the environment and in the food we eat. Ecological toxins that are being released today, even the small quantities each of us leaves behind without stopping to think, will create major problems for our children and grandchildren. Thus, they will be a serious threat to the health of later generations, the environment and future food supplies. The potential consequences are so serious that we must maintain a high level of ambition.

People are already suffering both acute and chronic injury to health as a result of exposure to hazardous substances, and the release of these substances can also cause environmental damage. Several hundred thousand employees in Norway are exposed to harmful chemicals at work; such substances may be causal factors in disease. Consumers are also exposed to hazardous substances via the products they buy, and can for example develop serious allergies. The Government will minimise the risks to both health and the environment from releases of and exposure to all types of dangerous chemicals. Generation of the various types of hazardous waste is also to be reduced. Norway’s chemicals policy and the action that is to be taken are intended to ensure a high level of protection for consumers and employees, against exposure via the environment, and for the environment. The precautionary principle will be applied when information on the risks to health and the environment is uncertain.

Norway will call for and play a leading role in ensuring stricter international regulation of hazardous substances. Norway will also play a leading role in proposing more substances for inclusion in international agreements that prohibit or strictly regulate the use of ecological toxins. More specifically, the Government will ensure that proposals are made for regulation of two new substances, endosulfan and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCDD). Norway will also work actively towards a new global instrument to eliminate releases of mercury and other heavy metals. Hazardous substances will be a priority area of development cooperation policy.

Norway will also advocate a high level of protection for health and the environment in the development of the new EU chemicals legislation REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of CHemicals). Norway will play an active role in evaluating the health and environmental risks associated with priority substances, and advocate the introduction of regulation at European level where necessary.

Although we are aware of the impacts some chemicals may have on health and the environment, our knowledge of most substances is very limited. In order to choose alternatives that have the least negative impact on health and the environment, we all need information on which substances and options are least harmful to our health and environmentally favourable. The Government intends to develop a knowledge-based management regime for chemicals, and will therefore support a substantial increase in research on and monitoring of ecological toxins and other hazardous substances. In the High North we have a unique opportunity to monitor global trends, and the Government will give special priority to surveys and monitoring of ecological toxins in this area.

A large proportion of wealth creation and production in Norway is dependent on a clean environment. Moreover, a clean environment is an essential basis for the production of clean food in Norway. In the Government’s view, all wealth creation in Norway should be instrumental in maintaining a clean environment, and its policy is that businesses should take responsibility for ensuring that production processes and products do not constitute a risk to health and the environment. In future, economic activity in Norway should as far possible take place without releases of ecological toxins, and as a general rule all such releases are to be eliminated by 2020.

In future, all the products we use should be safe both for our health and for the environment. It will therefore be necessary to find alternatives to hazardous substances. The Government will prohibit a number of the most dangerous substances, particularly in consumer products. These may include mercury, perfluorooctyl sulphonate (PFOS), brominated flame retardants and several other substances. The Government wishes more information to be provided on hazardous substances so that we can all protect ourselves, other people and the environment by choosing to buy products with a low content of hazardous substances.

As a general rule, ecological toxins are to be taken out of circulation, and materials containing ecological toxins should not be recycled or re-used. Steps will be taken to prevent pollution that has previously been released into soil or water from spreading further or being taken up by plants, animals or people. To this end, the Government will implement new action plans to deal with contaminated sediments and with contaminated soil in day care centres and playgrounds. Various types of waste and residual products that contain ecological toxins must be managed soundly, and ecological toxins are to be taken out of circulation and removed from product life cycles.

Photo: Marianne Otterdahl-Jensen

The Government intends to ensure that health and environmental concerns are integrated into the management regime for chemicals in the best possible way. Inspection and enforcement measures must be extensive enough to be a good tool for ensuring compliance with the legislation. Compliance with all new legislation within the sphere of responsibility of the environmental authorities will be controlled within two years of its entry into force. There must be a real risk of incurring sanctions in cases of non-compliance. The Government will strengthen inspection and enforcement of the legislation, among other things to reduce releases of pollutants and reduce the number of products on the market that do not comply with the legislation. This will give greater assurance of health, environmental and consumer safety, and in addition raise awareness of the legislation and provide greater equality before the law.

The Government is inviting everyone, whether as managers, as employees or as private individuals, to join in the efforts to deal with the major challenges we are facing as regards chemicals. Together we can achieve a great deal, but we will not make progress unless every one of us makes a contribution. Environmental protection takes time – but it works.