Commission Decision (EU) 2017/1217 of 23 June 2017 establishing the EU Ecolabel criteria for hard surface cleaning products (notified under document C(2017) 4241) (Text with EEA relevance. )

The product group ‘hard surface cleaning products’ shall comprise any all-purpose cleaner, kitchen cleaner, window cleaner or sanitary cleaner falling under the scope of Regulation (EC) No 648/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council which is marketed and designed to be used as one of the following: all-purpose cleaners, which shall include detergent products intended for the routine indoor cleaning of hard surfaces such as walls, floors and other fixed surfaces, kitchen cleaners, which shall include detergent products intended for the routine cleaning and degreasing of kitchen surfaces such as countertops, stovetops, kitchen sinks and kitchen appliance surfaces, window cleaners, which shall include detergent products intended for the routine cleaning of windows, glass and other highly polished surfaces, sanitary cleaners, which shall include detergent products intended for the routine removal, including by scouring, of dirt or deposits in sanitary facilities, such as laundry rooms, toilets, bathrooms and showers. The product group shall cover products for both private and professional use and sold either in ready-to-use or undiluted form. Products shall be mixtures of chemical substances. Products for private use shall not contain micro-organisms that have been deliberately added by the manufacturer.

For the purpose of this Decision, the following definitions shall apply: (1) ‘ingoing substances’ means substances intentionally added, by-products and impurities from raw materials in the final product formulation (including water-soluble foil, if used); (2) ‘undiluted product’ means a product that should be diluted in water prior to use; (3) ‘ready-to-use (RTU) product’ means a product not to be diluted in water before use; (4) ‘primary packaging’ means: (a) for single doses in a wrapper that is intended to be removed before use, the individual dose wrapping and the packaging conceived so as to constitute the smallest sales unit of distribution to the final user or consumer at the point of purchase, including label where applicable; (b) for all other types of products, packaging conceived so as to constitute the smallest sales unit of distribution to the final user or consumer at the point of purchase, including label where applicable; (5) ‘microplastic’ means particles with a size of below 5 mm of insoluble macromolecular plastic, obtained through one of the following processes: (a) a polymerisation process such as polyaddition or polycondensation or a similar process using monomers or other starting substances; (b) chemical modification of natural or synthetic macromolecules; (c) microbial fermentation; (6) ‘nanomaterial’ means a natural, incidental or manufactured material containing particles, in an unbound state or as an aggregate or as an agglomerate and where, for 50 % or more of the particles in the number size distribution, one or more external dimensions is in the size range 1-100 nm .

In order to be awarded the EU Ecolabel under Regulation (EC) No 66/2010, a cleaning product shall fall within the product group ‘hard surface cleaning products’, as defined in Article 1 of this Decision and shall comply with the criteria as well as the related assessment and verification requirements set out in the Annex.

The criteria for the product group ‘hard surface cleaning products’ and the related assessment and verification requirements shall be valid for 6 years from the date of notification of this Decision.

For administrative purposes the code number assigned to the product group ‘hard surface cleaning products’ shall be ‘020’.

Decision 2011/383/EU is repealed.

1 By derogation from Article 6, applications for the EU Ecolabel for products falling within the product group ‘hard surface cleaning products’ submitted before the date of notification of this Decision shall be evaluated in accordance with the conditions laid down in Decision 2011/383/EU.

2 Applications for the EU Ecolabel for products falling within the product group ‘hard surface cleaning products’ submitted within 2 months from the date of notification of this Decision may be based either on the criteria set out in Decision 2011/383/EU or on the criteria set out in this Decision. Those applications shall be evaluated in accordance with the criteria on which they are based.

3 EU Ecolabel licences awarded in accordance with the criteria set out in Decision 2011/383/EU may be used for 18 months from the date of notification of this Decision.

This Decision is addressed to the Member States.