RAL gGmbH 2024 — EU Ecolabel consumer factsheet for household detergents

A two-page consumer-facing factsheet dated September 2024, issued by RAL gGmbH (the German national competent body for the EU Ecolabel) jointly branded with the European Commission, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUV), and the German Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt). The factsheet summarises which household detergents are eligible for the EU Ecolabel award (eight named product categories: all-purpose cleaners, kitchen cleaners, window cleaners, sanitary cleaners, laundry detergents, hand dishwashing detergents, dishwasher detergents, and pre-treatment stain removers), the five high-level guarantee headings the EU Ecolabel offers for these products, the criteria families behind each guarantee, and the application-fee structure for applicants licensing the mark through RAL gGmbH in Germany. It is a programme-communication document, not a criteria-decision document.

Heavy-metal relevance is indirect and unquantified. The factsheet names no specific heavy metal anywhere in its two pages. It states a “strict ban on EDTA (and its salts), microplastics, and triclosan” (p. 2) — EDTA is named as a banned ingredient on its own environmental-mobility and biodegradability grounds rather than as a heavy-metals criterion, but EDTA is a strong chelating agent for divalent and trivalent transition metals, and an EDTA ban incidentally reduces the formulated mobilisation of heavy-metal cations in EU-Ecolabelled household detergents. The factsheet’s “low use of hazardous substances” guarantee (p. 2) names five hazard endpoints — acute toxicity, specific target organ toxicity, respiratory or skin sensitisation, carcinogenicity/mutagenicity/reproductive toxicity, and hazard to the aquatic environment — without enumerating individual substances or specific elements; heavy metals are not named as a class on this factsheet, in contrast to the EU Ecolabel textile, footwear, furniture, mattress, gardening, and coverings product groups, where the eeb2022-eu-ecolabel-30-year-briefing briefing documents that “heavy metals” or “chromium” are explicitly listed as restricted classes. For household detergents the closest factsheet language is the catch-all hazard-classification ban; any numerical thresholds for transition-metal impurities or chelating-agent substitutes would live in the underlying Commission Decisions for the relevant product groups (the factsheet itself does not name any Decision number or numerical threshold; it states only that “the current Basic Award Criteria are valid until 31/12/2026”).

The factsheet is retained here as a C-tier regulatory-context source: it documents that the EU Ecolabel scheme, as of September 2024, covers eight household-detergent categories with criteria valid until 31 December 2026, that those criteria operate at the formulation level on hazard-classification grounds (CMR, STOT, sensitisation, aquatic toxicity) and ingredient bans (EDTA and its salts, microplastics, triclosan), that surfactants must be biodegradable and meet critical-dilution-volume thresholds, that certified-sustainable palm-oil-derived ingredients are required where palm or palm-kernel derivatives are used, and that packaging is subject to a defined weight/utility ratio with recyclability requirements. None of these criteria are quantified in the factsheet itself.

Key numbers

The factsheet contains no contamination measurements and no numerical heavy-metal limits. Quantitative content is limited to programme-administration values for German EU Ecolabel licence applicants.

EU Ecolabel household-detergent scope (p. 1, September 2024)

EU Ecolabel licence fees in Germany (p. 2, application section, RAL gGmbH)

Criteria families per guarantee heading (p. 2, table)

Heavy-metal-specific points

None. The factsheet does not name any specific heavy metal (no Pb, Cd, Cr, Hg, Ni, Al, Sn, As, Sb, or U mentioned in either page) and does not list “heavy metals” as a restricted-substance class for household detergents. The closest indirect relevance is the EDTA-and-its-salts ban, which restricts a strong chelating agent for divalent and trivalent metal cations; the factsheet’s stated rationale for the EDTA ban is not given. There are no numerical thresholds for any metal in this factsheet.

Methods (brief)

Not applicable. This is a programme-communication factsheet, not an experimental study or a criteria-decision document; there is no sampling, no analytical instrumentation, and no contamination measurements. The factsheet’s content is a high-level narrative description of the EU Ecolabel household-detergent product group; the factsheet does not name any Commission Decision number and does not reproduce any numerical threshold or formal criteria text. It states only that “the current Basic Award Criteria are valid until 31/12/2026” (p. 2). The actual programme-of-record criteria live in the underlying Commission Decisions for each product group (external EU Ecolabel programme records, not stated on this factsheet).

Speciation. Not applicable; no specific element named, no speciation referenced.

Basis. Not applicable; no concentrations or limits are stated numerically in the factsheet.

Implications

• The factsheet is a high-level regulatory-context source: it documents that the EU Ecolabel scheme, as of September 2024, covers eight household-detergent categories with criteria valid until 31 December 2026, and operates on hazard-classification, ingredient-ban, biodegradability, critical-dilution-volume, packaging, and dosing grounds. The underlying numerical thresholds for any chemical class (including transition-metal impurities or chelating-agent substitutes) are not in this document and must be sourced from the relevant Commission Decisions.
• The factsheet is the closest available programme-communication document for the household-detergent product group; it complements the high-level twenty-six-page eeb2022-eu-ecolabel-30-year-briefing (NGO programme overview across all 24 EU Ecolabel product groups). The two documents agree on the relevant product group’s existence and on the cleaning-products criteria revision happening in 2017; neither states numerical heavy-metal thresholds.
• The EU Ecolabel is a voluntary EU-wide ISO 14024 Type-I ecolabel; failing the criteria does not prohibit a product from EU commerce, it excludes the product from carrying the EU Ecolabel mark. This factsheet does not change that legal posture.
• No HMTc-relevant threshold values are proposed by this source page. The factsheet contains no numerical heavy-metal limits.

Limitations

• No original measurements and no numerical heavy-metal limits. The factsheet is a two-page consumer-facing programme summary; it names no specific heavy metal, states no numerical concentration thresholds, and does not name any Commission Decision number. Any HMI session reasoning about the actual EU Ecolabel transition-metal-impurity, chelating-agent-substitute, or formulation-purity thresholds for household detergents must consult the underlying Commission Decisions (programme-of-record texts, not on this factsheet), not this factsheet.
• Programme is voluntary, not regulatory. The EU Ecolabel is administered by the European Commission and member-state competent bodies (RAL gGmbH in Germany) as a voluntary ISO 14024 Type-I ecolabel. The factsheet itself is not the programme rule text and has no legal force.
• Consumer-communication register. The document is written for consumer outreach and licence-applicant orientation, not for regulatory or scientific audiences. Hazard-endpoint language is paraphrased (e.g., “specific target organ toxicant” rather than the formal CLP hazard-class identifiers H370/H371/H372/H373); the underlying Commission Decisions use formal CLP hazard-class language.
• German-applicant fee scope. The fee structure on p. 2 (one-off €1,200 / €1,800 application fee, 0.15 % annual fee, €300 minimum, €25,000 maximum) is the German competent-body fee schedule administered by RAL gGmbH. Fee schedules differ by member-state competent body across the EU; the factsheet does not state this caveat.
• C-tier qualitative source. Evidence tier C because: (i) consumer-communication factsheet, not a peer-reviewed study, not a regulation text, and not a programme-decision document; (ii) no original measurements; (iii) no specific heavy metal named, no thresholds quantified; (iv) sources for the underlying criteria are not formally cited on the factsheet. Tier is consistent with eeb2022-eu-ecolabel-30-year-briefing (NGO programme overview) and lower than the underlying Commission Decisions (which would carry A-tier programme-record authority).
• September 2024 publication; criteria validity is finite. The current Basic Award Criteria are valid until 31 December 2026 per the factsheet (p. 2). The factsheet itself does not state when those criteria were adopted, does not state which Commission Decisions carry them, and does not state a revision schedule. A criteria revision is expected before end-of-2026 (external EU Ecolabel programme context, not stated on the factsheet); downstream synthesis citing this factsheet for any specific EU Ecolabel household-detergent criterion should re-check the live Commission Decision once revised.

Provenance

• Source PDF: raw/manual-fetch/Kimi_Agent_Download Corruption Issue/household_papers/06_Regulatory_EPA_GreenSeal/EU_Ecolabel_Factsheet_Household_Detergents.pdf
• SHA-256: 763d866d621d3681acfbad8313f5c7b9fddaced091cb95c25c2a728a710d73c6
• File size: 1.3 MB; document body pp. 1-2 (cover/which-detergents-are-eligible/guarantees, criteria-overview-table/application-fees-and-contacts).
• Publisher: jointly branded between the European Commission (EU Ecolabel logo, top-left), the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV, footer logo), the German Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt, footer logo), and RAL gGmbH (footer logo, application-handling body for Germany).
• Document title (cover): “The EU Ecolabel for household detergents — The EU Ecolabel is the official European Union label for environmental excellence.”
• Publication date (cover, top-right corner of p. 1): September 2024.
• Tagline: euecolabel.
• Contact: umweltzeichen@ral.de, +49 228 68895 190 (RAL gGmbH, Germany).
• DOI: none assigned (programme-communication factsheet).
• License: programme-communication document; redistributable with attribution as standard EU Ecolabel outreach material.
• Access date: 2026-06-03.
• Acquisition path: included in Kimi Agent Download Corruption Issue (KADC) folder household_papers/06_Regulatory_EPA_GreenSeal/, alongside eeb2022-eu-ecolabel-30-year-briefing, the U.S. EPA Safer Choice Standard, EPA Safer Choice Master Criteria for Safer Ingredients, David Suzuki Foundation’s household-cleaners article, Green Seal GS-37/GS-52/GS-8, NIOSH HHE, California SB258 right-to-know, and New York State Cleaning Product Disclosure Programme documents.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• all-purpose-cleaners — explicitly named on the factsheet p. 1 bullet list as “all-purpose cleaners”. Routed as regulatory_context: no contamination values, no numerical heavy-metal thresholds, only the high-level guarantee headings and EDTA/microplastics/triclosan ingredient bans. (The factsheet does not name the underlying Commission Decision; downstream sessions seeking the binding criteria text must consult the relevant programme-of-record Decision separately.)
• kitchen-countertop-cleaners — explicitly named on the factsheet p. 1 bullet list as “kitchen cleaners”. Regulatory_context.
• window-glass-mirror-cleaners — explicitly named on the factsheet p. 1 bullet list as “window cleaners”. Regulatory_context.
• bathroom-tub-tile-cleaners — within “sanitary cleaners” on the factsheet p. 1 bullet list (EU vocabulary). Regulatory_context.
• toilet-bowl-cleaners — also within “sanitary cleaners”. Regulatory_context.
• laundry-detergents — explicitly named on the factsheet p. 1 bullet list as “laundry detergents”. Regulatory_context.
• dish-soaps-manual — within “hand dishwashing detergents” on the factsheet p. 1 bullet list. Regulatory_context.
• automatic-dishwasher-detergents — within “dishwasher detergents” on the factsheet p. 1 bullet list. Regulatory_context.
• pre-treaters-stain-removers — explicitly named on the factsheet p. 1 bullet list as “pre-treatment stain removers”. Regulatory_context.

Verification notes

• Identity-check results on 2026-06-03 against wiki/sources/: DOI null (programme-communication factsheet, no DOI assigned); raw_handle grep for KADC_eu-ecolabel-factsheet-household-detergents returned no matches; cite-key grep for variants ral2024, ecolabel-factsheet, and EU_Ecolabel_Factsheet returned no matches. Sibling page eeb2022-eu-ecolabel-30-year-briefing is a distinct document (NGO programme overview across all 24 product groups, October 2022) and is recorded in near_duplicates. Ingested as NEW.
• SHA-256 of the source PDF was computed from disk on 2026-06-03 (763d866d621d3681acfbad8313f5c7b9fddaced091cb95c25c2a728a710d73c6).
• The document has no DOI (programme-communication factsheet, not a journal article). doi is null.
• Evidence tier set to C on the basis of: (i) consumer-communication factsheet, not peer-reviewed and not the programme-of-record criteria text; (ii) no original measurements, no analytical methods, no contamination values; (iii) no specific heavy metal named, no thresholds quantified; (iv) underlying Commission Decisions referenced indirectly (via the 31/12/2026 validity-period note) but not by formal citation. Tier matches eeb2022-eu-ecolabel-30-year-briefing (NGO programme overview).
• Source type set to regulatory-factsheet. The document is a programme-communication outreach factsheet from the German EU Ecolabel competent body; it is not a peer-reviewed paper, not a regulation text, and not an NGO briefing. regulatory-factsheet is the most accurate label for a programme-administered consumer-and-applicant outreach document.
• License set to ”© 2024 RAL gGmbH / European Commission (EU Ecolabel programme communication)“. EU Ecolabel programme-communication materials are routinely redistributable with attribution as standard outreach.
• metals: [] is intentional. The factsheet names no specific heavy metal anywhere in its two pages. It does not list “heavy metals” as a restricted-substance class for household detergents (in contrast to the textile/footwear, furniture/mattresses, gardening, and coverings sections of eeb2022-eu-ecolabel-30-year-briefing where chromium or generic “heavy metals” are named). The EDTA-and-salts ban is named on its own ingredient grounds, not on heavy-metals grounds; EDTA chelates metal cations but the factsheet does not state heavy-metal mobilisation as the rationale for the ban. Per CLAUDE.md Part 14, the page records only metals named in the source; no metals are named.
• ingredients: [] is intentional. The factsheet names EDTA (and salts), microplastics, triclosan, palm oil and palm-kernel-oil derivatives, fragrances, preservatives, colouring agents, enzymes, and surfactants generically, but none of these are existing ingredient slugs in wiki/ingredients/ and the factsheet does not provide contamination-relevant data on any of them. No new ingredient pages are created (per skill hard constraints; freq-1 mentions only).
• products lists nine existing product slugs covering the eight detergent categories named in the factsheet p. 1 bullet list (sanitary cleaners is mapped to both bathroom-tub-tile-cleaners and toilet-bowl-cleaners because the EU “sanitary cleaners” vocabulary covers both). All nine slugs already exist in wiki/products/; no new product pages created (per skill hard constraints — provisional scaffolds would only be needed for missing slugs, and none are missing here).
• matrices: [] because the factsheet is multi-category programme-level text without a single matrix focus. No new matrix slug is proposed.
• jurisdictions: [EU] because the EU Ecolabel is an EU-wide scheme; the factsheet is published by the German competent body (RAL gGmbH) but the programme itself, the criteria, the eligible product groups, and the mark are EU-wide. The fee schedule (one-off €1,200/€1,800, 0.15 % annual) is specifically RAL/Germany; that is noted in the body’s Limitations section.
• near_duplicates: ["[[sources/eeb2022-eu-ecolabel-30-year-briefing]]"] records the most closely related existing source: an NGO programme overview of the same EU Ecolabel scheme. The two documents have non-overlapping content (the EEB briefing covers all 24 product groups including chromium-named restrictions in textiles/footwear/furniture/mattresses; this factsheet is specific to the eight household-detergent categories and names no metals). They are kept as separate source pages, not merged.
• Wiki/HMTc firewall (Part 2): the factsheet does not propose threshold values, and this page’s Implications section does not propose any. The EU Ecolabel is referenced as upstream policy context; no HMTc threshold-setting work draws on this factsheet as primary evidence. No Part 2 drift risk.
• Brand firewall (Part 12): the factsheet does not name any commercial brand of detergent. It names the EU Ecolabel mark itself (a programme mark, not a commercial brand), the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO, an industry-standards body), and the awarding-body organisations (European Commission, BMUV, Umweltbundesamt, RAL gGmbH). No brand-firewall action required.
• Quantitative content reproduced on this page (eight-category list, five-guarantee list, criteria-families table, fee table, validity-period note) is reproduced from the source PDF (pp. 1-2) with page locators. No numerical heavy-metal limits are stated in the factsheet and none are claimed here.
• No new ingredient, product, regulation, or matrix pages were created during this ingest, per CLAUDE.md Part 10 and the skill’s hard constraints. All product slugs in the frontmatter are existing taxonomy.
• Missing-slug observations surfaced for Karen (none of these will be created by this ingest; they are noted for future Step 0 Lock decisions; the Decision numbers below are external EU Ecolabel programme context, not stated on the factsheet, included only to help locate the binding texts):
  • regulations/eu-ecolabel-decision-dishwasher-detergents — Commission Decision for dishwasher detergents (external programme records identify this as Decision (EU) 2017/1216; not named on the factsheet).
  • regulations/eu-ecolabel-decision-hard-surface-cleaning-products — Commission Decision covering all-purpose, kitchen, window, and sanitary cleaners on the factsheet’s bullet list (external programme records identify this as Decision (EU) 2017/1217; not named on the factsheet).
  • regulations/eu-ecolabel-decision-laundry-detergents — Commission Decision for laundry detergents (external programme records identify this as Decision (EU) 2017/1218; not named on the factsheet).
  • regulations/eu-ecolabel-decision-hand-dishwashing-detergents — Commission Decision for hand dishwashing detergents (external programme records identify this as Decision (EU) 2017/1219; not named on the factsheet).
  • regulations/eu-ecolabel-regulation-66-2010 — parent EU Ecolabel Regulation (Regulation (EC) No 66/2010), already noted as missing-slug in eeb2022-eu-ecolabel-30-year-briefing verification notes; not named on the factsheet. None of those underlying regulatory documents are present in the current KADC PDF set; this factsheet alone is insufficient to support a regulation page.
• Audit subagent (2026-06-03) returned REVISE with one ⚠️ concern: Commission Decision numbers (2017/1216, 2017/1217, 2017/1218, 2017/1219) were correctly fenced in ## Methods (brief) but read as factual context in the second body paragraph, two Limitations bullets, and the “Wiki pages this source may touch” bullets. Verified independently against PDF p. 1-2: the factsheet does not name any Decision number; it states only “the current Basic Award Criteria are valid until 31/12/2026” (p. 2). Audit finding was correct; corrections applied 2026-06-03: (i) body paragraph 2 rewritten to drop Decision-number inline citations and state only what the factsheet says about validity period; (ii) Methods (brief) rewritten to make the external-context fencing explicit and standalone; (iii) Limitations bullet 1 rewritten to drop the inline Decision numbers; (iv) Limitations bullet 6 rewritten to drop the implied 2017 adoption date (factsheet does not state when criteria were adopted); (v) “Wiki pages this source may touch” bullets re-anchored on what the factsheet explicitly names (the bullet list on p. 1) rather than on Decision-number assertions, with a parenthetical noting the factsheet does not name the Decision; (vi) Missing-slug observations rephrased to label the Decision numbers as “external EU Ecolabel programme context, not stated on the factsheet”. Other audit checks (numerical fidelity, slug vocabulary, speciation/methods, brand firewall) were ✅ clean and required no changes.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.