Reach for a consumer's right to know

CNI news



This is what we need: a mechanism to prove to consumers just how commonplace chemicals are and, by implication how safe they are in everyday life. It is especially refreshing to hear a call for the chemical industry to provide information for consumers in a format that they can understand and digest.

Hats off to Charles Laroche, president of the International Association of Soaps, Detergents and Maintenance Products for proposing a department of risk communication at the new European Chemicals Agency to be based in Finland. He wants mechanisms that will bring consumers into the loop with reach.

This may sound radical for the chemicals industry, but if you'd explained more clearly the benefit of chemicals in ways that the population can understand, then we might not be here now.

Look out for October, when the European Parliament gets its first full reading of the proposal.