Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
development and use of alternatives to hazardous substances.
74
The
Swedish Environmental Code requires that chemical products or bio-
technical organisms
'
that may involve risks to human health or the
environment
if products or organisms that
are assumed to be less dangerous can be used instead
'
should not be used or sold
'
.
75
This approach is
similar to that which would be used under the principle I propose. It is
intended to stimulate the invention of new and less-harmful chemicals
in the expectation that a market will be available for them as a replace-
ment.
76
However, the existing and proposed principles differ in two
important respects. Firstly, the costs involved with substitution under
Swedish law are a relevant consideration in determining whether
an alternative is
'
.
77
The principle
s ability to drive ecological
change is therefore limited by economic factors. Conversely, options for
ecologically oriented policy are to be chosen and ranked by reference
only to the harms they may present for ecosystem health and the
technical feasibility of their use. To do otherwise would be to constrain
the framework
'
suitable
'
'
s ability to promote improved ecological protection by
rooting consideration of what is achievable in the present. A better
approach is (as argued at
Section 3.3.4
) to form a vision of how needs
might be met using preferred alternatives, and then to explore what
measures might be taken to address the economic and social impacts
that the implementation of
'
'
'
strategies may have.
The second is that, in Swedish law, substitution is concerned only with
substances that are recognised to present risks of harm to human health
or the environment.
78
As discussed in connection with the precautionary
ideal
74
B. Wahlström,
'
The Precautionary Approach to Chemicals Management: A Swedish
Perspective
in C. Raffensperger and J. Tickner (eds) Protecting Public Health and the
Environment: Implementing the Precautionary Principle (Washington, DC: Island Press,
1999), p. 51; O. Mont,
'
'
The Swedish Product Choice Principle
'
(2001) 10 European
Environmental Law Review,351;Zander,
'
Precautionary Principle in Practice
'
, pp. 334
-
8;
A. Nilsson,
in N. de
Sadeleer (ed.) Implementing the Precautionary Principle: Approaches from the Nordic
Countries, the EU and USA (London: Earthscan, 2007), pp. 307
'
The Precautionary Principle in Swedish Chemicals Law and Policy
'
-
10; M. Karlsson,
'
The
Precautionary Principle, Swedish Chemicals Policy and Sustainable Development
'
(2006)
8.
75
Chapter 2,
Section 2.6
, The Environmental Code [DS 2000: 61] (Sweden, 1999),
http://
76
Karlsson,
9 Journal of Risk Research,342
-
3, 347
-
'
Precautionary Principle and Swedish Chemicals Policy
'
, 351.
77
Chapter 2, Section 2.7, The Environmental Code; Mont,
'
The Swedish Product Choice
Principle
'
,353;Karlsson,
'
Precautionary Principle and Swedish Chemicals Policy
'
,348.
78
Chapter 2,
Section 2.6
, The Environmental Code; Mont,
'
The Swedish Product Choice
Principle
'
,352.
