Designed to fail? Few registrations in the Danish nanoregister

Picture1.png

The first deadline to register nanoproducts to Denmark’s nanoregister fell in 2015. Producers and importers of products containing nanomaterials shall register them when they are intended for sale to the public, and where the nanomaterials are released, but only eight companies submitted information under the first reporting deadline. For more see https://chemicalwatch.com/44575/danish-nanoregister-attracts-few-reporting-firms

This is providing a false picture of the situation in Denmark as there are many more products in Denmark that contain nanomaterials. In The Nanodatabase, which was created in 2013 in collaboration between DTU, the Danish Consumer Council and The Ecological Council, one can find more than 2,200 products that Danes can buy either online or in physical stores. See http://nanodb.dk/en/search-database/

A recent scientific analysis by Hansen et al. from DTU Environment of (among other) the Danish nanoregisters finds that the register had such a limited scope from the outset and so many limitations that one has a wonder if the register as “designed to fail” from the outset. For more on the analysis by Hansen et al. see http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2016/en/c5en00182j