EUROPÄISCHE UNION DES HANDWERKS UND DER KLEIN- UND MITTELBETRIEBE
EUROPEAN ASSOCIATON OF CRAFT, SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES
UNIONE EUROPEA DELL’ ARTIGIANATO E DELLE PICCOLE E MEDIE IMPRESE
UEAPME's comments on the draft revision
of Commission decision establishing
the ecological criteria for the award of the community
Eco-label to bed mattresses
UEAPME would like to make the following remarks about the draft revision of the Commission decision establishing the ecological criteria for the award of the community Eco-label to bed-mattresses:
The proposed criteria regarding latex foam, in particular the introduction of a limit value for Nitrosoamines seems appropriate. Furthermore, it might be useful to consider a limit for VOC in latex foam as it is currently considered for glue.
These new criteria do not create particular difficulties for companies that would like to obtain Eco-label for their products. As a matter of fact, it is possible to find latex foam in accordance with ecological standards requested by the Eco-label criteria quite commonly in the European market.
However, the lower limit requested for extractable formaldehyde could be a problem because neither the latex foam sold with ecological standardachieves such a low level.
The first proposal to change criteria from 10 to 15(referring to Dyes and Pigments) namely “ Textile used must comply with the eco-label decision establishing criteria for textile products (1999/178/EC)” seemed more interesting than the changes proposed by Denmark and Spain to the same set of criteria, namely "These criteria will follow the changes to be adopted in the revision of criteria for textile”.
In the first case a lot of textile treatment processes would be excluded. This is for example the case of the use of biocide, which is considered dangerous for human health and the environment. Nevertheless, we do not have to forget that, at the moment, this type of treatment is often used, so it is quite impossible to exclude it.On the contrary, in the second case only the textile dyeing treatment would be impacted upon.
The problem for bed mattresses producers could be finding these Eco-labelled textiles currently not available on the market. However, it is clear that there are already some companies (also in Italy around Prato) that are going to get the Eco-label for textiles soon.
Finally, it could also be appropriate to recommend to avoid the use of glue when possible.
Brussels, November 2001
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