Taiwan to Further Tighten Controls on PFAS

By Xunyao Fu, PhD, Regulatory Affairs Lead, Supply Chain team, UL Solutions

On October 21, 2024, the Ministry of Environment (MOE) of Taiwan announced a new draft amendment to the Categories and Management of Handling for Toxic Chemical Substances to add five more Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) salts and related compounds, and 352 Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) salts and related compounds to the List of Toxic Chemical Substances.

In order to comply with the management trend of the Stockholm Convention on Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS), Taiwan’s Categories and Management of Handling for Toxic Chemical Substances was last amended on April 24, 2024 with the inclusion of Perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), its salts and related compounds (147 substances in total) to the List of Toxic Chemical Substances.

Currently, other than the PFHxS family of chemicals, only PFOA, PFOS, Perfluorooctanesulfonyl fluoride and Lithium perfluorooctane sulfonate are regulated as Toxic Chemical Substances. The 357 newly added PFOA and PFOS families of chemicals will have the control concentration standard of 0% in a mixture and will only be allowed for use in research, testing and education, and in some special fields including hard metal electroplating in closed systems, manufacture of photographic film coating, and so on.

The MOE also plans to limit the use of Nonylphenol and Nonylphenol polyethylene glycol ether. These substances are known as endocrine disruptors and have been banned in household detergents in Taiwan since 2008. In accordance with the control of these substances under EU REACH and US TSCA, the control concentration level will be reduced from 5% to 0.1%, and more isomers will be added to facilitate substance identification. The prohibition of their uses will be expanded to the manufacture of detergents for industrial use and public institutions, processing of textile or leather products, metal processing and the manufacture of pulp or paper.

The draft amendment is open for public comment for 30 days from the date of publication. Any comments or concerns can be sent to the Chemical Administration under MOE via their email address: yiting.chao@moenv.gov.tw.

References

Amendment to the Categories and Management of Handling for Toxic Chemical Substances (in traditional Chinese only)

Categories and Management of Handling for Toxic Chemical Substances (in traditional Chinese only)