Environmental accounts/Chemical indicators 2015:
The use of chemical products classified as dangerous to health and the environment increase
Statistical news from Statistics Sweden 2017-10-20 9.30
The use of chemical products in Sweden classified as dangerous to health and the environment is increasing by 32 percent between 2008 and 2015. During the same period, GDP is increasing by 12 percent. This means that today we are using more chemicals dangerous for health and the environment to produce an average good or service.
The statistical news has been corrected 2017-11-16.
In Sweden, in 2015, almost 12 million tonnes of chemicals classified as dangerous for health and the environment were used. That is an increase of almost 3 million tonnes since 2008.
The highest use of chemicals dangerous for health and the environment occurs within the manufacturing industry (10.1 million tonnes), and it is also the manufacturing industry that shows the highest increase since 2008 (2.7 million tonnes).
Source: Statistics Sweden and the Swedish Chemical Agency.
It is however the agriculture, forestry and fishing industry that shows the highest increase in percent during the period. The increase there is 82 percent, at the same time as the value added within this industry has decreased. This means that the quantity of chemicals used per product from the agriculture, forestyr and fishing industry has increased. The picture looks similar in other industries, with the exception of the Other industries and services group, where the value added has increased, however not as much as the chemical use. Looking at the whole Swedish economy, the chemical use has increased more than the GDP (32 percent and 12 percent respectively).
Important to note is that these changes doesn’t necessarily reflect real volume changes. It could also be a change in which chemicals are classified as dangerous for health and the environment.
Source: Statistics Sweden and the Swedish Chemical Agency.
Definitions and explanations
The Swedish Chemicals Agency is the custodian of the so called Product Register where chemical products are registered and from which time series are available from 1992. The primary purpose of the register is to allow the supervision of importing and manufacturing companies, for monitoring of national policy and for local authorities. The register contains information on chemicals used and their quantities.
The indicators that are published at Statistics Sweden measure the quantities of products classified as dangerous to the health and are environmentally dangerous according to international criteria. The standard classification of industries are also used (NACE).
The classifications are based on Directive 67/548/EEC - classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances which have been amended and adjusted several times. The most recent, and with most changes introduced is EC Regulation No 1272/2008 which introduced a new classification Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS). By 2015 the reporting will be following the GHS only.
Chemical products dangerous to health in these statistics are Very toxic (T+), Toxic (T), Corrosive (C), Irritant (Xi) and Harmful (Xn) according to KIFS 2005:7 and from 2009 onwards including EC 1272/2008, products classified as Corrosive (GHS05), Toxic (GHS06), Harmful (GHS07), dangerous to the health (GHS08) and dangerous to the environment (GHS09).
Next publishing will be
The next statistical news in this series is scheduled for publishing in 2018.
Feel free to use the facts from this statistical news but remember to state Source: Statistics Sweden.