As of January 4, manufacturers and importers must notify the ECHA when they want to market products containing substances of very high concern (SVHC) in a concentration greater than or equal to 0.1% by weight. Such notifications are required by Article 9, Section 1, Letter i of the EU Waste...
With the expiration of the deadline on December 31, 2020, the time allotted to British companies to transfer some 2,900 REACH registrations to European firms has passed. That number represents one fifth of the REACH registrations that were owned by British companies. According to the ECHA, this number could...
In December 2020, the ECHA Enforcement Forum published the closing report of the REACH En-Force 7 (REF-7) project. As part of the project, national authorities and customs agencies inspected a total of 813 companies in 28 countries. The inspectors found that 180 of the 1,420 chemicals examined are not registered...
Sweden and the Netherlands are driving the implementation of a Mixture Assessment Factors (MAF) road map. The MAF contributes to safer evaluation of the risks created by mixtures. The thought behind the MAP is that human beings are exposed to many chemicals, and that the risks arising from exposures at…
At the end of November, South Korea’s Ministry of Employment and Labor (MoEL) published a list of 253 chemicals (only in Korean) that were manufactured or imported for the first time in 2020. The list includes the names of the compounds, their hazard and risk classifications, the quantity manufactured or...
In the future, the EU will require a chemical safety assessment (CSA) followed by the creation of a chemical safety report (CSR) for carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic substances (CMRs) in tonnage bands of 1–10 tons per year. Accordingly, the EU plans to modify Article 14 of REACH along with the...
Denmark is about to enact a law that mandates stronger obligations than ever before on operators of online stores to comply with the legal requirements for products sold online. The law should take effect in July 2021. With this draft law (Danish only), Denmark is not only implementing the Regulation...
The EU plans to modify Annexes VII–XI that define the standard information requirements for substances manufactured or imported in quantities of 1 ton or more (Annex VII), 10 tons or more (Annex VIII), 100 tons or more (Annex IX), 1,000 tons or more (Annex X). Annex XI contains general rules...
In mid-October, the EU Commission approved its Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability Towards a Toxic-Free Environment and issued a related press release. The contents of the strategy are an important building block of the European Green Deal. The most important measures planned include the following: Banning the most-harmful chemicals in consumer products, including endocrine disruptors and chemicals that impair the immune system and...
At the end of October, the ECHA will go live for companies with its SCIP database. Enterprises can then enter reporting data on substances of very high concern (SVHC) into the database. Manufacturers and importers are mandated to provide such reports for products that they wish to market after January 5, 2021...
