Shares of the total and consumer-available numbers of chemical products that are hazardous to health

Source: Products Register, KemI. 

The EU has a common system for classification of the danger of substances or mixed chemical preparations. They are grouped into danger classes. It is the symbol of the danger class that should appear on the label of a hazardous chemical product. The classification is made by the company that places the product on the market.

About 45 per cent, about 30,000, of all chemical products on the Swedish market are hazardous to health in some way. Out of the around 11,000 consumer-available chemical products, some 4,000 are hazardous to health.

The dangerous part of consumer-available products has decreased with 13 per cent since 1990. As the number of chemical products has increased during this period it means that almost the same number of chemical products are dangerous today but also that as a whole a larger number of products are not hazardous to health.

Shares of number of products in different danger classes

Source: Products Register, KemI. 

The number of products that have been assigned the danger class Irritant has increased the last decade. This is due to re-classification of products that previously had the specific Swedish danger class Moderately Harmful. The latter danger class has decreased from 13 per cent of all products to near one per cent after Sweden became a member of the EU. The use of Moderately Harmful as a warning of health hazard is now voluntary.

Another danger class that has decreased is Harmful. This might be an effect of substitution. Many products that previously contained hazardous solvents have now been substituted with water-based products that are not classified as hazardous to health at all. This holds for large product groups like paints and cleaning agents.

The Toxic danger class share of the number of chemical products is about three per cent. This corresponds to some 2,000 products. About 90 consumer-available chemical products are Toxic. Many of these are petrol products.