This article is brought to you by European Commission’s Enterprise & Industry Magazine.
As an integral part of everyday life, chemicals are closely monitored to ensure they do not pose unacceptable risks to human health or the environment. Although regulatory measures are effective in ensuring safety, some of these measures overlap, creating burdens for companies and hurdles for industrial growth. The European Commission aims to take a coherent legislative approach to promote synergy in handling chemical risks.
Currently, REACH (Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) is the cornerstone of European chemical safety legislation. Adopted in 2006, REACH requires companies manufacturing chemical substances in the EU, as well as those importing into the EU, to register these substances with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA). As a result, the uses and properties of nearly 6 600 chemical substances have been registered with the ECHA – part of the reason that 61 % of Europeans think chemicals are safer now than a decade ago.
Overlaps, generally, are regarded as situations in which multiple pieces of legislation may impose restrictions on the same substance, potentially leading to legal uncertainty. This could happen, for example, by imposing the same or similar regulatory requirements twice, or imposing conflicting requirements on the same actors according to two different pieces of legislation.
For the full article please refer to the Enterprise & Industry Magazine link above. Nexreg Compliance priovides prodcut regulatory services and guidence for EU countries. These services include EU SDS authoring, EU CLP labelling and consulting.