An increasing number of antifouling products without biocides are placed on the market as environmentally better alternatives to biocidal antifouling products for protecting pleasure boats against fouling. The objective of this study is to clarify whether there are functional, non-biocidal alternatives to biocidal antifouling coatings and to gain knowledge about their environmental and health risks.
65 coatings marketed as biocide-free were identified, and 13 of these were evaluated as relevant for the Danish market. Chemical analyses on selected coatings were per-formed to obtain additional data about the presence of substances of concern, supple-menting the data available for the products’ safety data sheets.
The human health risk assessment on consumer uses of the antifouling coatings con-cluded that five of the 13 assessed non-biocidal antifouling coatings contain hazardous substances for which the health risks cannot be regarded as controlled, while no health risk was identified for the other eight coatings.
The environmental risk assessed for the water and sediment compartment can be an-ticipated to be controlled based on the simple quantitative risk assessment method and supplemented by a qualitative evaluation of the environmental exposure.
Overall, the study documents that non-biocidal antifouling products are available, and most of them can be regarded as safe for both human health and environment. Health risks related to the use of some non-biocidal anti-fouling products cannot be excluded. Partly, the risks are related to a substance that may also be present in biocidal coatings, making the risk not specific for non-biocidal antifouling coatings.