{"id":5218,"date":"2026-04-14T07:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T07:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/cosmetic-products\/how-we-make-your-products-2\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T07:57:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T07:57:59","slug":"unpacking-flawed-data-behind-uwwtd","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/cosmetic-products\/unpacking-flawed-data-behind-uwwtd\/","title":{"rendered":"Unpacking Flawed Data behind UWWTD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:66.66%\">\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Unpacking Flawed Data behind UWWTD<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>The revised Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD), which entered into force on 1&nbsp;January 2025, aims to protect human health and the environment from the effects of untreated urban wastewater. It requires Member States to ensure that towns and cities properly collect and treat wastewater cost-effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>UWWTD assigns the entire financial burden of upgrading urban wastewater treatment plants to only two sectors, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. This is based on the European Commission\u2019s Impact Assessment, which evaluates the contribution of the cosmetics industry to urban wastewater micro-pollution at 26%.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, this figure simply does not stand up to scrutiny once the underlying data is reviewed. The Commission\u2019s Impact Assessment wrongly allocates to the cosmetics industry:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>substances <strong>banned in cosmetics,<\/strong> such as nonylphenol diethoxylate;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>substances <strong>not used in cosmetics<\/strong>, such as the insecticide permethrin;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>ubiquitous substances<\/strong> allocated exclusively to cosmetics, for example palmitic acid, a common dietary fat found in dairy, meat, and many vegetable oils.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>On top of that, the Impact Assessment uses an overly simplistic method, assigning each substance\u2019s entire toxic load to just one sector, even when it is used in several.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once these data flaws are corrected, the estimated contribution drops by <strong>orders of magnitude<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Independent analyses by <a href=\"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DHI-report-EPR-of-Cosmetic-substance-in-wastewater.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"DHI\"><strong>DHI<\/strong><\/a><a><strong>, <\/strong><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/ECT-Evaluation-EPR-UWWTD.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"ECT Oekotoxikologie\"><strong>ECT Oekotoxikologie<\/strong><\/a><a><strong>, <\/strong><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Ricardo_Review-of-the-European-Commission-approach-to-allocating-Toxic-Load-to-Cosmetic-sector.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Ricardo\"><strong>Ricardo<\/strong><\/a><a><strong>, <\/strong>and<strong> <\/strong><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/UWWTD-CE-Analysis-List-of-substances-used-in-the-EPR-feasibility-report-April-2025.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Cosmetics Europe\u2019s own verification\"><strong>Cosmetics Europe\u2019s own verification<\/strong><\/a><a> <\/a>consistently show that cosmetics are a minor source of toxic load in urban wastewater. Under realistic \u201cmain\u2011use\u201d assumptions, the contribution of cosmetics is typically around 1-2% \u2013 roughly 15 times lower than 26%. ECT\u2019s review points to about 0.2%, i.e., close to a hundred times lower than the original figure. Even a very conservative upper\u2011bound scenario by Ricardo, which still gives cosmetics half of the impact of every reviewed multi\u2011use substance, comes out at about 4.29% \u2013 still several times lower than 26%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>None of these analyses comes even close to the original Commission\u2019s estimation which is a <strong>substantial overestimate of the industry\u2019s contribution to the urban wastewater pollution, <\/strong>off by at least an order of magnitude under realistic assumptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All evidence indicates that cosmetics account for a very small share of the toxic load from micropollutants in urban wastewater \u2013 likely around, or below, 1-2%. If the Polluter Pays Principle is to be applied correctly under the UWWTD, EPR should therefore be substance\u2011based and sector\u2011agnostic, not built on a flawed allocation that blatantly overstates the contribution from cosmetics. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column ps-md-5 is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:33.33%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-medium\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" src=\"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/UWWTD-policy-page-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3480\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/UWWTD-policy-page-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/UWWTD-policy-page-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/UWWTD-policy-page-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/UWWTD-policy-page-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/UWWTD-policy-page-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/UWWTD-policy-page.jpg 1998w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/policy-corner\/urban-wastewater-treatment-directive\/\">Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD)<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unpacking Flawed Data behind UWWTD The revised Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive (UWWTD), which entered into force on 1&nbsp;January 2025, aims to protect human health and the environment from the effects of untreated urban wastewater. It requires Member States to ensure that towns and cities properly collect and treat wastewater cost-effectively. UWWTD assigns the entire financial [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5146,"parent":14,"menu_order":53,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5218","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5218"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5218\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5267,"href":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5218\/revisions\/5267"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/14"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cosmeticseurope.eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}