Sweden Leads Ban on Toxins

More than 10,000 of its lakes, and many of its forests, have been poisoned by acid rain. Much of its prized Baltic Sea fish are too contaminated with industrial chemicals to eat. Its Arctic people and animals carry hundreds of toxic substances in their bodies.

Sweden -- long victimized by pollution from its industrialized neighbors -- has been a leader for almost half a century in research into the dangers of toxic compounds and efforts to protect its people and wildlife.

Swedes discovered in the 1960s that PCBs, now considered one of the most ubiquitous and dangerous toxic substances, were building up in nature, and that smokestack fumes were traveling long distances and making rainfall so acidic that it killed fish and forests. Most recently, they found that flame retardants used in plastic are accumulating rapidly in human breast milk. They were the first to ban the pesticide DDT, in 1970, two years before the United States.

Sweden introduced its first chemicals law in 1969. It is the only nation to set a goal, 2007, for eliminating all chemical compounds that persist in the environment or accumulate in living things.

That Sweden has enacted the world’s toughest policies governing chemicals is not surprising. It is an affluent nation that depends little on chemical plants or heavy industry for its economic well-being. Swedes eat a lot of seafood, where contaminants build up, and have a strong bond with nature.

Their laws are now the model for the European Union’s bans and restrictions on hundreds of chemicals found in everyday products, such as furniture, computers and hair sprays.

The precautionary principle, which guides the EU’s environmental policies, has been a part of Swedish law for 32 years. It has its roots in German philosophy, said Alastair Iles, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group. Ulrich Beck in 1986 wrote of a “risk society,” where unnecessary and involuntary risks are pervading the social fabric of Europe. Germany has long practiced vorsorgeprinzip, translated as taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty. A founding member of the EU, Germany was a powerhouse that shaped its early stance on environmental policies.

Yet Sweden, with only 9 million people and much less influential, has quietly set the tone in recent years. It joined the European Union in 1995, and since then, the EU’s chemical policies have grown more aggressive. The Netherlands, Austria and the other Scandinavian nations, as well as Germany, share Sweden’s concerns and have joined forces to drive EU policy.

A scientifically based suspicion of risk is enough under Swedish law to act against a chemical, according to Bo Walstrom, senior international advisor at the Swedish Chemicals Inspectorate. To avoid action, an industry must show beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspicion is unfounded and that their product is safe. This is called the reversed burden of proof, and it is combined with the “substitution principle,” codified into Swedish law in 1991. If a safer alternative exists, a company must use it or be subject to penalties.

In Sweden, which has Europe’s highest tax rate and some of its most aggressive social welfare programs, “there is higher acceptance for government, states and societies to act for the best of everyone,” said Aake Bergman, an environmental scientist at University of Stockholm whose research over the last 30 years has prompted some of the European bans.

In contrast, he said, “there’s a ‘Don’t regulate me, I’m taking care of my problems myself’ attitude in the U.S.”