Mr. John Chave:

I will comment on Senator Boyhan's questions about the industry. He is quite right to express the view that consumers are becoming more environmentally aware. Of course, the industry needs to responds to this. I will take the opportunity to talk a little about the recommendation and the action to which Ms Siobhan Dean, director of Irish Cosmetics, Detergents and Allied Products Association, referred to in her statement.

In 2012 and some cases a little earlier than that, some companies started to phase out plastic microbeads for exfoliating and cleansing, which is for what they were mainly used in cosmetics and personal care products. In 2015 we in Cosmetics Europe encouraged our membership to phase out plastic microbeads for exfoliating and cleansing and made the voluntary recommendation that Ms Dean read in her statement, recognising, of course, that this was an issue on which people expected us to act as a responsible industry. It is not enough for us in Brussels to simply put some words on a page and ask our membership to go out and think about it. We undertook to follow up to find out whether it was the case that the industry was indeed phasing out plastic microbeads. We conducted a survey in 2016, at which point we found that around 80% of plastic microbeads had been phased out. When Cosmetics Europemade its recommendation, it set a timeframe up to 2020, but there was a kickback. People said it was very nice that the industry had done this, but why would it take it so long to implement it. The reason Cosmetics Europe adopted that fairly long timeframe was that it was worried that it would be more difficult for smaller companies that were putting microbeads into their products to reformulate in time.

As part of the European Chemicals Agency, ECHA, process, Cosmetics Europe is required, like other industry sectors, to make submissions on the social and economic impacts which, of course, are important and something the committee needs to consider. Cosmetics Europe conducted an additional survey and that is where the rather precise figure of 97.6% came up. Let me reiterate that, according to the Cosmetics Europe survey, 97.6% of plastic microbeads for exfoliating and cleansing have disappeared from the European market. Why can Cosmetics Europe be so precise about this figure? We represent more than 90% of the companies involved in the European sector and nearly all of the multinationals and, through associations such as the Irish Cosmetics, Detergents and Allied Products Association and the European associations, smaller companies too. Cosmetics Europe conducted a massive survey and surveyed half of the entire market, which is pretty statistically sound. The margin for error is less than 1%, compared to that in opinion polls where it is plus or minus 3%. Cosmetics Europe can be confident, therefore, that most of the plastic microbeads used for exfoliating and cleansing have been removed and that if they have not already been removed, certainly by 2020 they will have more or less disappeared from the European market.

Members may have questions about the companies that are not members of Cosmetics Europe and not covered by its recommendation, or concerns about imports from manufacturers outside the European market. These concerns are fully understandable, but the committee needs to be aware that plastic microbeads for exfoliating and cleansing are, to a significant extent, not the real problem. The problem environmentally is much more with secondary microplastics, tyre abrasions and other such issues raised by GMIT. In a nutshell, the Senator is absolutely correct - the industry had to respond and consumers are now more environmentally aware.

We did respond. We have made very significant progress in phasing out plastic microbeads.