ECHA

It has now been a little over a year since the European Commission granted its first authorisation to continue using a substance of very high concern. Since then, 10 more authorisations have been granted, the most recent ones in early September.

All registrants who intend to register the same substance should join forces in a substance information exchange forum (SIEF). The SIEF shares data on the substance and registers it jointly with ECHA. Douglas Leech, Technical Director at the Chemical Business Association in the UK, shares his advice for first-time registrants.

Sharing data for a joint REACH registration is not always straightforward. It requires negotiating for access to data in an existing registration dossier or with companies preparing a new one. To help potential registrants in their data-sharing negotiations with existing registrants, ECHA published practical advice on its website in May. ECHA Newsletter spoke with Mr Daniel Sompolski, from ECHA's Substance Identification and Data Sharing Unit, to find out more about how small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) can succeed in their negotiations.

Good quality analytical data is essential to accurately identify your substance. This applies whether you are registering in a joint submission under REACH or inquiring about your substance to find your potential co-registrants. Good quality means that your data fulfils the legal requirements and is specific enough for ECHA to be confident about the identity of your substance.

In 2016, ECHA will release new versions of the IT tools used for creating (IUCLID) and submitting (REACH-IT) registrations. The main changes will be an updated completeness check process and an improved system to make sure that all registrations for the same substance are made with a single joint registration. What are these about?

Authorisation is the "A" in REACH. It's all about making sure that the risks from hazardous substances are properly controlled and that these substances are progressively replaced by safer alternatives. Authorisation is not about banning substances, but more about guiding safe use and giving industry time to find replacement substances or technologies.

Mixtures being placed on the EU market had to be reviewed by 1 June 2015 to comply with the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) Regulation. This meant, in many cases, that mixture producers had to re-classify their products and include more information on the product label than before. The increased amount of information has proven to be challenging, especially for products sold in small packages.

One of ECHA's goals is to help downstream users understand their obligations under REACH. As they often belong to different industrial sectors with complex supply chains, reaching them can sometimes be a challenge. ECHA launched a project with six Member States in 2014 to target environmental, health and safety (EHS) professionals in downstream user companies throughout Europe. ECHA Newsletter spoke to Ms Maria Letizia Polci and Ms Luigia Scimonelli from the Italian REACH and CLP competent authority, to find out more about the project.

Do you use a substance that is on the REACH Authorisation List? If the European Commission has granted an authorisation for the substance covering your specific use, you can still use the substance but you need to notify ECHA.

New data on 11 commercially viable nanomaterials was made available in June as part of a seven-year testing programme by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The information gives those companies who have registered or will register these nanomaterials in the EU, an opportunity to consider the data in their registration dossiers.

Is your company changing its name or its legal personality? This might mean splitting into separate entities, being merged or taken over. What happens with your REACH (pre-)registrations or CLP notifications? Here are some of the most common questions and related advice from the ECHA Helpdesk.

Replacing substances of very high concern (SVHCs) with safer alternatives plays an important role in protecting human health and the environment in the European Union. But do non-EU countries share the same aims and how do they go about it? Looking at a different approach to substitution, ECHA Newsletter spoke with Dr Joel A. Tickner, Director and Associate Professor of Community Health and Sustainability from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, who has experience in helping US companies find safer and suitable alternatives to chemicals of concern.

What if the next time you need chemicals in your company, you do not buy them but rather you pay for a specific service to do the job for you? This is the essential idea behind chemical leasing – an innovative chemicals management business model that has begun to shift the conventional practice of buying chemicals to purchasing services that chemicals provide.

This spring, a new and fresh face was introduced in Finland: Belle Busybody. Belle vlogs on YouTube, tweets, maintains her own Facebook profile, and posts pictures on her own Instagram account. A multichannel sensation, Belle Busybody also appears at young people's events, drops into confirmation camps, barbeques with technical students, and chills out at festivals and beaches. Belle finds out about tattoos, eyelash and nail extensions – and watches moped lads perform an oil change. She voices her concern about chemicals in textiles and the risks involved in hair colouring.