Commission Decision (EU) 2017/1219 of 23 June 2017 establishing the EU Ecolabel criteria for industrial and institutional laundry detergents (notified under document C(2017) 4245) (Text with EEA relevance. )

The product group ‘industrial and institutional laundry detergents’ shall comprise any laundry detergent 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 by specialised personnel in industrial and institutional facilities. This product group includes multi-component systems comprised of more than one component used to build up a complete detergent or a laundering programme for an automatic dosing system. Multi-component systems may incorporate a number of products such as fabric softeners, stain removers and rinsing agents, and they shall be tested as a whole. This product group shall not comprise products which induce textile attributes such as water repellency, waterproofness or fire retardancy. Furthermore, the product group shall not comprise products that are dosed by carriers such as sheets, cloths or other materials, or washing auxiliaries used without subsequent washing such as stain removers for carpets and furniture upholstery. Laundry detergents to be used in household washing machines are excluded from the scope of this product group.

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) ‘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; (3) ‘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 e.g. polyaddition or polycondensation or a similar process using monomers or other starting substances; (b) chemical modification of natural or synthetic macromolecules; (c) microbial fermentation; (4) ‘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 laundry detergent shall fall within the product group ‘industrial and institutional laundry detergents’, 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 ‘industrial and institutional laundry detergents’ 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 ‘industrial and institutional laundry detergents’ shall be ‘039’.

Decision 2012/721/EU is repealed.

1 By derogation from Article 6, applications for the EU Ecolabel for products falling within the product group ‘industrial and institutional laundry detergents’ submitted before the date of notification of this Decision shall be evaluated in accordance with the conditions laid down in Decision 2012/721/EU.

2 Applications for the EU Ecolabel for products falling within the product group ‘industrial and institutional laundry detergents’ submitted within 2 months from the date of notification of this Decision may be based either on the criteria set out in Decision 2012/721/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 licenses awarded in accordance with the criteria set out in Decision 2012/721/EU may be used for 12 months from the date of notification of this Decision.

This Decision is addressed to the Member States.