The ban on the use of fluoride to “wax” skis, announced almost three years ago for this harmful product for health and the environment, has once again been postponed, this time until the 2023 season. -2024, the International Ski Federation (FIS) announced on Thursday.
After having decreed in October 2019 its surprise ban for the 2020-2021 season, then having postponed it to the summer of 2021, and then 2022, here is this point of regulation once again delayed by a year, “to leave more time for the improvement of the fluorine detection tool”, writes the FIS in a press release.
Fluorinated products, applied to the sole of skis (during waxing), have been widely used since the 1980s to gain speed, mainly in Nordic skiing. Several studies have reported their harmfulness to health (people who apply it being in some cases poorly protected) and the environment.
The FIS had announced the fluoride ban in 2019 before being sure whether it was able to enforce it. It has been developing for almost three years with a specialized company and the German research institute Frauhofer a tool (a kind of temperature gun) to carry out rapid, reliable and inexpensive fluorine tests during competitions.
The International Biathlon Federation (IBU), also interested, is involved in the development process. Beyond skiing, some fluorinated products have already been banned by a recent European Union regulation, those containing perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, also called C8).
