REACH

With REACH, the European Community has created a harmonised System for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of chemicals. The goal is to ensure a high level of protection for the environment, health and safety. 

On June 1, 2007 REACH was released and immediately became effective. It contains the following regulations:

• From June 1, 2008, manufacturers and importers of substances as such or of substances in preparations (mixtures) may have to register these substances with the European Chemicals Agency.
• Suppliers of substances and preparations must provide the recipient with either a safety data sheet (Article 31) or safety information (Article 32). In certain cases, the safety data sheet will be supplemented by an annex ("extended safety data sheet") showing the relevant exposure scenarios and safe working limits.
• Manufacturers and importers of articles/finished products which contain more than 0.1 mass percent per article of a substance on the "candidate list" needs to communicate with their users. This includes providing the customer of the article with sufficient information to allow safe use of the article, including, as a minimum, the name of that substance.
• “Substances of Very High Concern” (SVHC) may subsequently become subject to authorisation. After a certain time, these substances may not be used without prior admission.
• As the highest level of protection, in Annex XVII of REACH, restrictions on manufacturing, marketing and use of substances are defined.

On April, 1st 2008 the European Court (Grand Chamber) published the judgment reg. the Actions for annulment of the Commission Decision 2005/717/EC of 13 October 2005 amending the Annex to Directive 2002/95/EC reg. exemption 9a. - "DecaBDE in polymeric applications". This means that Deca-BDE in polymeric applications cannot be used since July, 1st 2008.