Meili, Christoph; Widmer, Markus --- "Voluntary Measures in Nanotechnology Risk Governance: The Difficulty of Holding the Wolf by the Ears" [2010] ELECD 728; in Hodge, A. Graeme; Bowman, M. Diana; Maynard, D. Andrew (eds), "International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: International Handbook on Regulating Nanotechnologies

Editor(s): Hodge, A. Graeme; Bowman, M. Diana; Maynard, D. Andrew

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446731

Section: Chapter 20

Section Title: Voluntary Measures in Nanotechnology Risk Governance: The Difficulty of Holding the Wolf by the Ears

Author(s): Meili, Christoph; Widmer, Markus

Number of pages: 16

Extract:

20 Voluntary measures in nanotechnology
risk governance: the difficulty of holding
the wolf by the ears
Christoph Meili and Markus Widmer1


20.1 MANDATORY GOES VOLUNTARY ­ AND
VICE VERSA

The regulation of manufactured nanomaterials has been a matter of dis-
cussion among government representatives, scientists, environmental and
consumer advocates and politicians since the beginning of the commercial
rise of consumer products containing or claiming to contain manufactured
nanomaterials. However, manufactured nanomaterials, until very recently,
were not required to be explicitly labelled or registered, and due to the
current lack of reliable data about their release into the environment, gov-
ernments and authorities worldwide have manifested difficulties in estimat-
ing prevalent types, amounts and uses of nanomaterials on the market. This
means that it has also been difficult to derive estimations of potential expo-
sure to manufactured nanomaterials to both humans and the environment.
Further, a conclusive database does not exist which lists all products
containing manufactured nanomaterials in a given country or of a given
sector of application. In the absence of official statistical data on the use of
nanomaterials in the industry and in consumer products, the best approach
to gain such overview to date is probably to visit the Project on Emerging
Nanotechnologies' (PEN) (2009) web-based database on consumer prod-
ucts, which is based on continuous worldwide internet research. As of
August 2009, more than 1000 products were included in the inventory.
Much the same as with the current knowledge on information regard-
ing nanomaterials in trade, ...