A major report has been released demanding that the UK government keeps closer tabs on makers of nanomaterials, and products containing nanomaterials.
No, you don’t have a weird sense of deja vu. This is yet another report saying that we don’t know enough about nanomaterials, and this needs to be addressed now, before anything bad happens.
But this latest report is one of the UK’s strongest yet. It is from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Like the report produced in 2004 by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, the latest report lays out the problems we face from the teeny tiny particles that are making it into sunscreen, cosmetics, tennis racquets, even antibacterial dressings.
The report says that we’re really incredibly ignorant about nano-sized particles. Toxicology tests are few and far between, and John Lawton, chair of the Commission, says that for some nanomaterials – like the fullerenes – no one even knows how to begin designing proper toxicological tests.
It also highlights the problem of classifying nanomaterials – all are very different from one another. Functionality is the word used in the report – specific nanomaterials have specific properties.
None of this is news, although you wouldn’t have thought so from today’s occasionally terrifying headlines. (Guardian, Daily Mail – which chooses to use the asbestos link that was discussed earlier this year, FT). There is so far no evidence that nanomaterials do actually cause harm if they make it into the environment. But it would be a disaster if they were left unregulated until some link was found. Hopefully that link doesn’t exist, but the risk of it doing so and being ignored is too great to ignore.
Scaremongering in the papers doesn’t help the cause, but this constant bombardment from the media could be a good thing if it gets the attention of the decision makers. It is high time the government acted, not only in terms of getting the research in place to test these materials, but also to make companies responsible for what they produce. A major recommendation from this latest report is that more research time, and money, be spent in getting nanoproducts tested properly, and we are told that the research councils in the UK are planning to invest in this area ‘soon’. Small steps are being made globally. The US’s EPA is trying pretty hard, and in Europe the REACH legislation may be used to regulate carbon-based nanoparticles.
For a really good overview of the situation, I recommend reading Andrew Maynard’s blog. In the US Maynard has been pushing for all the things the Royal Commission want for years. Maybe if people keep pushing someone will act.
Image: carbon nanotube / Alamy