REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals. Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restrictions are four activities to be carried out in phased manner over a period of 10 years starting from 1st June 2008. According to an estimate around 30,000 chemicals would be covered by EU REACH.
EU REACH is a new European Legislation dealing with the chemicals in general and aims at creating depositary of information pertaining to Safety, Risk, Hazards, Exposure and their effective management. The Legislation adopted “No Data No Market” approach for achieving this and shifted the onus on EU manufacturer/ Importer and down stream users to show that their products are safe to use by creating elaborated documents i.e. technical dossiers.
Non-compliance would result in loss of EU market to any actor in supply chain catering to EU market.
Scope of EU REACH
An EU REACH talk about the constituent chemicals of a product sold in EU and uses a word “chemical substance”. Any chemical substance manufactured/ used/ imported into EU in more than 1 ton/ year quantity is covered by EU REACH. Such chemical substances are required to be registered with European Chemical Agency ECHA. Registration would require creation of “technical dossier” and “Chemical Safety Report” (CSR).
- <!–[if !supportLists]–>Technical Dossier comprises information about the identification of substances, identification of manufacturer/ importer/ user, its uses, Safety information (classification and labelling and Material Safety datasheets) and Exposure scenarios.
- <!–[if !supportLists]–> <!–[endif]–>Chemical Safety Report is more elaborated document on Hazards to human and to environment, the exposure assessment, risk characteristics of the chemical substances and measures to adequately control such situations.
EU REACH & Compliance Timelines
EU REACH is implemented in phased manner starting from 1st June 2008 to 31st may 2018
<!–[if !supportLists]–>1. <!–[endif]–>Pre registration 1st June 2008- 1st December 2008
<!–[if !supportLists]–>2. <!–[endif]–>Registration of “Pre-registered products”
<!–[if !supportLists]–>v <!–[endif]–>30th November 2010
<!–[if !supportLists]–>§ <!–[endif]–>For chemical substances exported in quantity > 1000 T/Y
<!–[if !supportLists]–>§ <!–[endif]–>For Chemical Substance with Aqua Toxic Nature > 100T/Y
<!–[if !supportLists]–>§ <!–[endif]–>For Chemical Substance With Carcinogenic, Mutagenic and Repro-Toxic >1T/Y
<!–[if !supportLists]–>v <!–[endif]–>30th November 2013
<!–[if !supportLists]–>§ <!–[endif]–>For Chemical substances exported in quantity 100 T/Y- 1000T/Y
<!–[if !supportLists]–>v <!–[endif]–>31st May 2018
<!–[if !supportLists]–>§ <!–[endif]–>For Chemical substances exported in quantity 1-100T/Y
<!–[if !supportLists]–>3. <!–[endif]–>Evaluation would commence immediately after the completion of Registration process
<!–[if !supportLists]–>4. <!–[endif]–>Based on the Evaluation ECHA would authorise or restrict the sale of a chemical substance in EU
