How much nano do we buy ? - ANEC and BEUC's leaflet

Nanotechnologies are a range of technologies that use materials on an incredibly small scale for their specific properties. One nano‐meter is one millionth of a millimeter, which means about 10,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. These materials are being used today by the industrial sector to continuously create new products and applications. 

Although we acknowledge nanotechnologies could potentially offer great benefits to consumers and the environment, these technologies and materials may also present new risks which have never been properly evaluated. 

The 2010 ANEC/BEUC inventory lists examples of 475 products claiming to contain nanomaterials. The categorisation of products in the inventory is arbitrary and represents the categories of products most commonly used by consumers in their everyday lives, such as cosmetics, baby bottles and vacuum cleaners.