The European Chemicals Authority (ECHA) has published a report on the operation of REACH and Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) regulations. This is the second five-year report issued since the introduction of the regulations in 2005. The report contains some interesting reflections from ECHA on progress to date and areas needing further work.
Key areas of ECHA comment
- A reminder on the REACH 2018 registration deadline for substances of 1 tonne or more that…”mobilisation of industry for this deadline has begun, but more needs to be done as many have not started their preparations”.
- A significant proportion of registration dossiers are still not of a sufficient quality.
- Progress is being made on improving the communication about using chemicals safely throughout the supply chain.
- A further strengthening and aligning of enforcement is necessary.
- Only a small proportion of safety data sheets have adequate exposure scenarios for all the uses made of a substance.
- 31 substances have been placed on the Authorisation List and 20 restrictions have been made under REACH.
- Coverage of nanoforms of substances in registration dossiers must improve.
- Contradictory self-classifications in the classification and labelling Inventory need to be resolved.
- EU citizens need to have more reliable information on SVHCs in the products they buy.
- The interface between REACH and CLP and other pieces of legislation should be optimised.
This list gives some important pointers to issues and areas that ECHA sees as priorities.
For more information, please contact Michael Barlow or your usual Burges Salmon contact.
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