ECHA

How does ECHA make sure that the information provided by companies on substances is complete and of good quality? The main way is by evaluating registration dossiers. The formal requests for further information significantly contribute to the improvement of the data. This, in turn, improves confidence in the legal compliance of registrations and in the companies submitting them.

The REACH registration deadline of 31 May 2018 will see the highest number of registrations to date. It concerns substances manufactured or imported in low volumes, between 1–100 tonnes a year. Many of the companies affected are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The next step in preparing a successful registration dossier - step four - is about assessing the hazards and risks of your chemicals. For this, you need to collect all available information, compare that with the legal requirements, identify any potential data gaps and come up with ways of filling them. Your ultimate aim is to demonstrate the safe use of your substance, while making sure that testing it on animals is kept as a last resort.

Putting information together for your registration dossier on the hazards and risks of your substance is the most extensive and time consuming part of the registration process. The basis for generating new data through testing is a comprehensive analysis of where you are and what you need to achieve.

Tempus fugit is a Latin phrase, usually translated into English as ‘time flies'. The expression comes from Virgil's Georgics, where it appears as "fugit inreparabile tempus": "it escapes, irretrievable time." The phrase is used in both its Latin and English forms as a proverb that "time's a-wasting".

If you import substances into the EU above one tonne a year, you need to register them with ECHA. However, you can also appoint an EU-based 'only representative' to carry out the registration tasks on your behalf. We spoke to Dr Dieter Drohmann, President of the Only Representative Organisation (ORO), to gain an insight into the role of only representatives ahead of the REACH 2018 deadline.

If you place products on the EU market that are treated with a biocide, you need to make sure that you comply with the law by 1 September 2016. Put simply, the active substance in the biocide needs to be approved within the EU (or be in the process of being approved) for the kind of use you are making of it.

CheMI represents the interests of EU downstream users whose main activity is to incorporate substances and mixtures into articles. It operates as a platform to share information on REACH-related developments and to express the voice of its members on common interests.

REACH restriction is a regulatory tool that is used when the risks from a substance are not controlled by other regulatory means and need to be addressed Union-wide. It means that the manufacture, placing on the market or use of a substance is limited or banned. We share with you the latest developments with the most topical restriction proposals.

Did you ever wonder whether your kids learn about hazardous household chemicals at school? After new Nordic online teaching material was introduced, the chances have increased in some countries. The website educates the youngest school children about what hazardous chemicals they can find at home and the new hazard pictograms.

Over 200 regulators, scientists and industry hazard assessors came together at ECHA in April to discuss how new approach methods can be used to improve chemical safety. The benefits of these methods are clear – they contribute to better toxicology, lower the demand for animal testing and raise competitiveness as companies will be better able to predict the hazard potential of their products.

Credit card slips, bank receipts, logistics labels, cash register receipts or fax paper have something in common: bisphenol A or BPA. In 2014, France proposed to restrict the use of BPA in thermal paper. This year, the European Commission is expected to take the final decision on that. In the meanwhile, companies are getting prepared by finding safer alternatives.

The upcoming Helsinki Chemicals Forum gives us all a chance to look at chemicals policy in a broader context as we hear about successes towards sustainability. I am looking forward to hearing about safer and more effective new substances, new processes and new manufacturing technologies, but I sometimes wonder whether we need to challenge ourselves to think even further 'outside the box' if we are to make bigger leaps forward in safer chemicals beyond 2020.