On May 18th, the 3rd Symposium on Materials and Products in Contact with Drinking Water will give an update on developments, initiatives and achievements of the last year's activities related to Article 10 of the Drinking Water Directive within the remit of DG Environment and DG Growth.
Registration is open by May 10th 2017
Water industry and producers of materials and products that come in contact with drinking water are still waiting for a consistent and coherent European framework which properly addresses article 10 of the Drinking Water Directive (98/83 EC). All stakeholders are looking for an approach that creates certainty that materials and products offered the European market are not only “ft for purpose” in technical terms but also provide the hygienic safety needed to protect consumers’ health, during the whole lifetime of the products and materials in the process of water supply.
Relevant steps forward have been made during the last two years within the evaluation process of the Drinking Water Directive according to the REFIT programme of the European Commission. Article 10 has been identifed as a weak point of the legislation and a specifc study on this subject has been launched. Valuable work and input from all stakeholders, the European and national regulators, as well as stakeholders from the materials and products industry part have signifcantly contributed to the study. Results of this initiative as well as the outcome of the impact assessment of a related policy option will be taken into account under the announced revision of the DWD from 2017 on. The European Commission DG Growth´s initiative to issue new Standards for products in contact with drinking water also contributes to a possible rulebook and will be addressed within this conference.
The intended way forward is, of course, to be based on both, human health safety as well as economically relevant criteria such as free trading and reduced certifcation costs. For best consumers’ protection, all materials and products need to be positively approved for their use in contact with drinking water by showing high chemical stability and close to zero leaching rates. To stabilize and protect a functioning inner European market, the new mandates to CEN mentioned above are in the pipeline to cover product specifc technical requirements as basic prerequisite for certifcation, free trading and safe use.
This year’s symposium aims to present and discuss the main developments, initiatives and achievements of the last year´s activities related to Article 10 Drinking Water Directive within the remit of DG Environment and DG Growth.