Chemicals: European Commission and ECHA to scrutinise all REACH registrations by 2027

The new action plan launched yesterday envisages a significant increase in the number of compliance checks carried out on registration dossiers. The Commission is proposing an amendment to REACH to increase the minimum required number of compliance checks from present 5% to 20% of registration dossiers in each tonnage band. The proposal is planned to be adopted before the end of this year.

ECHA will screen all registration dossiers submitted before the 2018 deadline and launch compliance check for at least 30% of substances. These include substances with hazardous properties, or where more information is needed to clarify a concern. The agency aims to reach this target for substances registered in very high volumes (over 100 tonnes per year) by 2023, and for substances in the lower tonnage bands (1-100 tonnes per year) by 2027.

With more than 22,000 substances manufactured and used in the EU registered as part of the REACH registration procedure, REACH has been a success. However, in order to truly protect human health and the environment from harmful chemicals, registration dossiers must contain the necessary information to establish appropriate measures to manage the risk of chemicals.

Background

REACH is the most comprehensive and ambitious chemical legislation in the world. Over the past 12 years, the EU has significantly reduced citizens’ exposure to harmful chemicals by requiring industry to provide data and risk management measures to demonstrate the safe use of chemicals in a registration dossier.

According to the second REACH review and other recent reports, a third of REACH registration dossiers do not fully comply with EU standard information requirements. To address this gap, the Commission requested ECHA to identify the main reasons of non-compliance and develop solutions.

Sources

• ECHA press release