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What are "Biocides" ?
 

Biocides - a Definition

Positive list of active substances
In February 1998 , The European Commission and Parliament adopted Directive 98/8/EC concerning the placing on the market of biocidal products, which came into force on 14th May 1998. The aim of the directive is to remove barriers of trade between Member States, to ensure a harmonised high degree of protection for man and the environment and to establish positive lists of active substances. The European Chemicals Bureau (ECB) offers comprehensive information about Biocides at their homepage http://ecb.jrc.it/biocides/

Thus all manufactures wishing to launch a biocidal product at the European market has to apply for the inclusion "a" of the active substance into Annex I of the said directive. The data requirements for Annex I inclusion are more or less accordingly to those of the OECD data requirements for plant protection products and can be downloaded from the homepage of the ECB.

Currently the evaluation of existing active substances is going on. Since the deadline for the application of existing “old” substances is passed, from now on notifiers has to apply for their active substances as “new” substance.


Product Groups
The Biocide products are divided in 23 product types:
01: Human hygiene biocidal products
02: Private area and public health area disinfectant and other biocidal products
03: Veterinary hygiene biocidal products
04: Food and feed area disinfectants
05: Drinking water disinfectants
06: In-can preservatives
07: Film preservatives
08: Wood preservatives
09: Fibre, leather, rubber and polymerised materials preservatives
10: Masonry preservatives
11: Preservatives for liquid-cooling and processing systems
12: Slimicides
13: Metal working fluids
14: Rodenticides
15: Avicides
16: Molluscicides
17: Piscicides
18: Insecticides, Acaricides and products against other Arthropods
19: Repellents and attractants
20: Preservatives for food or feedstock
21: Antifouling products
22: Embalming and taxidermist fluids
23: Control of other vertebrates

The definition of the products types has caused many irritations concerning the borderline to other certain products covered by other Community legislation (like plant protection products, medicinal products). Thus the European Union has edited several documents defining borderline cases. These borderline documents can be found at the homepage of the ECB.