O2 at the Brussels Panel on Creating a Tox-Free Living Environment / 20.11.2025

On the invitation of the Slovenian Consumer Socity, Dr. Milena Horvat, participated as an invited panelist at the high-level event From Evidence to Policy: Towards a Tox-Free Living Environment, held in Brussels and organised under the NonHazCity3, LIFE ChemBee and ToxFree Life projects. 

The gathering brought together representatives from the European Commission, national authorities, NGOs, consumer organisations and the scientific community to discuss how scientific evidence can more effectively shape EU chemicals legislation.

Dr. Horvat contributed to the panel “The Consumer Mandate: Evidence for Comprehensive Chemical Bans in EU Policy”, where she presented insights from the PARC Partnership and underlined the importance of human biomonitoring, robust chemical measurements and the translation of scientific data into timely, protective regulation. She also emphasised the need to address mixture effects, cumulative and dietary exposure, and the transgenerational impacts of persistent chemicals.

Alongside these discussions, several powerful take-home messages emerged from the event — recurring themes raised by speakers across sectors:

• Everyone is a consumer: policymakers, industry, workers, scientists and the public. Chemical safety concerns all of us.
• “Indoor air is a silent saboteur.” Exposure through indoor air, dust and hand-to-mouth transfer remains seriously underestimated.
• “We are what we eat.” Food remains a major route of exposure to many persistent substances.
• Responsibility cannot fall on consumers alone. Regulators and industry carry the primary responsibility for safe products — not individual shoppers or families in the supermarket.
• Delaying regulation does not save money — it shifts the cost to society. Every euro spent on prevention saves many times more in healthcare costs, environmental clean-up and social impacts.
• “We do not need much more data — we need action.” Europe has strong scientific evidence; the next step is decisive and timely policy implementation.
• Persistence is key. The long-term effects of man-made chemicals are driven above all by their persistence in people and the environment.

These messages resonated strongly with participants and underscored the importance of aligning EU chemicals policy with the best available science.

Dr. Horvat’s participation further strengthened the visibility of the Department of Environmental Sciences (O-2) in the European debate on chemical safety and confirmed the department’s commitment to supporting evidence-based policies that protect human health and contribute to a tox-free environment.