ECHA

At the end of May, we together achieved another key milestone on the REACH journey towards safer use of chemicals in Europe.

By the second REACH registration of 31 May, 3 215 companies submitted 9 084 registration dossiers for 2 923 substances to ECHA.

ECHA Newsletter asked some of the Agency's accredited stakeholders their views on the outcome of the second REACH registration deadline.

The Biocidal Products Regulation introduces new requirements to manufacturers and importers to ensure that costs related to the approval of active substances are shared in a fair way. This means that all parties placing a certain active substance on the EU market must contribute to the costs of its approval.

ECHA is preparing a set of new biocides guidance documents to support applicants preparing for the Biocidal Products Regulation.

The main objective of the European chemicals legislation is to ensure protection of human health and the environment both for present and future generations while ensuring a smooth functioning of the internal market as well as competitiveness of the European chemical industry. Substitution of harmful chemicals with safer alternatives plays an important role in achieving this objective. What is ECHA's role in promoting substitution? ECHA Newsletter reports.

One of the main conclusions in the REACH review published in June 2013 by the Commission was the need to have a strong and harmonised approach towards enforcement in the Member States. The Forum of national enforcement authorities is developing a harmonised methodology for enforcement projects and focusing efforts to improve information exchange between ECHA and national authorities. The Commission, in liaison with the Forum, will also develop indicators to monitor the effectiveness of REACH and CLP enforcement.

In 2010, France submitted to ECHA a proposal for restricting lead and its compounds in jewellery articles. In this case, exposure to children was the main concern.

The fourth meeting of the Exchange Network on Exposure Scenarios (ENES) in May was built around the Chemical Safety Report/Exposure Scenario (CSR/ES) Roadmap, which was presented for the first time to a wider stakeholder group. The aim of the roadmap is to set out clear actions for improving the quality of information in the chemical safety reports and the extended safety data sheets, both of which are built around the exposure scenario.

Exposure scenarios are an innovative communication instrument under REACH, designed to convey use-specific information on the safe use of chemicals. In autumn 2012, the Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency (Tukes) conducted a survey on exposure scenarios. They reviewed nearly 90 extended safety data sheets provided by Finnish companies who registered substances. ECHA Newsletter interviewed the project coordinator Jouni Räisänen from Tukes.

How to use science for regulatory purposes was one of the key questions tackled at ECHA's first topical scientific workshop, which covered sediment risk assessment. The workshop brought together over 100 experts from around the world to set the scientific principles for assessing risks to the sediment compartment in all regulatory contexts.