The European Chemical Industry Council has released a recommendation for a regulatory definition for nanomaterials to help provide legal certainty and consistency for industry as well as for policy and law makers. The European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) welcomes this efforts, but is concerned that the definition is too broad in scope and therefore difficult to integrate into existing legislation in a meaningful way and adding to unnecessary burdens for companies.
The current form would define as nanomaterials some decades-old substances such as mineral pigments used in paints and other everyday products. Also, standardized measurement techniques are missing, which are important for legal certainty.

The global chemical industry, organized under the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), agreed on internationally harmonized scientific elements of a nanomaterial definition, outlining requirements for a workable definition. They, e.g., strongly advocate using weight concentration rather than particle number distribution to determine the cut-off criterion for nanomaterials.

• Cefic (European Chemical Industry Council), Brussels, Belgium