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European Chemicals Agency opens in Helsinki
(03.06.2008)
The new European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is expected to open in Helsinki today, June 3. Ahead of the event, environmentalists stressed that the ECHA should assure the implementation of REACH, the EU chemicals regulation that entered into force one year ago after almost a decade a fierce debate.
The opening of the ECHA marks the beginning of the obligation for
companies to provide health and safety information on industrial
chemicals. However, the environmental groups Friends of the Earth
Europe stressed that REACH registration only applies to around 30,000
of the more than 100,000 known chemicals.
By this autumn, ECHA is expected to prepare a “candidate list” for
substances of very high concern that will be subject to legal actions
such as bans. Industry will be obliged to apply for permission for
their use and consumers will have the right to obtain more information
on the eventual presence of these substances in the products they buy. Pre-registration of chemicals began last
week and will run until November 30. According to the European Chemical Agency (ECHA; Helsinki) more than 1000 chemicals were registered already during the first day. Failure to pre-register means that any means that manufacturers or importers can not rely on the transitional arrangements whereby pre-registered substances will not have to be fully registered until the deadline applicable to their tonnage or properties arrives, which is any time from two to ten years after pre-registration. The launch of the "REACH-IT" web section is the first step in providing companies the necessary practical information on how to submit data to ECHA after 1 June 2008. This section will be updated by end of the week to cover all relevant REACH processes and data submission steps.  Related Information EVISA InfoPage: REACH: Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals Pre-registration Guide from "REACH answers" ECHA: Pre-registration ECHA: REACH-IT
last time modified: June 5, 2008
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