Monday, April 18, 2011

ECHA REACH News - Companies Must Notify Substances of Very High Concern by June 1, 2011

For those who thought their REACH obligations were over after diligently registering their substances last fall and notifying their classifications by January...wrong.  ECHA has issued a press release reminding companies that they must notify the Agency "if any Substance of Very High Concern (SVHC) included on the candidate lists is present in their articles above the threshold of 0.1% weight by weight and if the quantity of such substance in those articles is over 1 tonne per producer/importer per year."


The Candidate List is a list of substances that have been officially identified as being of very high concern due to their hazardous properties in relation to the environment and/or human health. Companies will have to notify ECHA of the presence of such a substance in their articles not later than 6 months after the inclusion of such a substance in the Candidate List. For those substances included in the Candidate List by 1 December 2010, the relevant notifications have to be submitted not later than 1 June 2011. 
ECHA recently updated their online submission tool REACH-IT to allow the submission of notifications for substances in articles. They have also prepared a new Data Submission Manual for substances in articles, which can be downloaded as a PDF file here.


More information about the deadline and requirements can be found on the ECHA web site.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As you correctly stated, it is certainly wrong to assume that reach obligations are over after the first registration and classification deadlines(dec 2010).

Anyhow, I believe it is important to underline that the burden of notifying ECHA about the presence of SVHC in manufactured or imported articles is minimal compared to the obligations associated to the communication along the supply chain (down to the final consumer!) according to article 33.

...and that's only part of the future challenges affecting not only chemicals manufactures/importers but also downstream users and articles importers.

PS: thanks for your interesting articles.

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