Preservatives are key ingredients for the detergents industry: they are added to water-based products in very small quantities to ensure that there will be no proliferation of bacteria or mould. Thanks to these, products can thus remain adequately ‘preserved’ during the manufacturing and transportation, but also while products are stored in shops and at home and stay ‘fit for use’ for a sufficient period of time. The availability of preservatives is currently threatened under the Biocidal Products Regulation (BPR), as a downstream consequence of the Regulation on Classification, Labelling and Packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP).

This section summarises why the availability of preservatives is so crucial for the detergents industry, and why innovation is challenging. 

• Key ingredients for liquid laundry detergents
• >50% of A.I.S.E.’s turnover dependent
• Almost 90% of preservatives cannot be used by the detergents industry
• The few preservatives relevant for the detergents industry now threatened 

In May 2019, A.I.S.E. and CEPE (the Paint, Printing Ink and Artists' Colours Industry association) organised a workshop on biocide preservation in the paints and detergent sectors to discuss with all interested parties the current innovations in the fields as well as well as challenges faced by industry and possible solutions under the Biocidal Product Regulation.
Participants acknowledged that the use of preservatives in paints, printing inks and detergents is indispensable in the short/medium term, and that future availability of suitable preservatives is uncertain; it was therefore concluded that the issue has to be addressed in a pragmatic way under the BPR.

To view the workshop programme, presentations and proceedings, please click here.

• A.I.S.E. fact sheet (Oct. 2018): Preservatives: Key biocidal ingredients to preserve liquid detergents- A call to secure their future availability
• EFTEC report (Aug. 2018):  Economic impact of losing effective in-can preservatives
  
• Proceedings of A.I.S.E./CEPE workshop with EU Authorities on Preservatives availability, May 2019
  

A.I.S.E. and its members are keen to engage in an open and constructive dialogue between suppliers, downstream-users, researchers, authorities and ultimately consumers in order to reach sound and reliable solutions for the short, mid and long term.