International Coatings Scene
EUROPE
BY SEAN MILMO
EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT
MILMOCW@RODPUB.COM
REACH continues to cause
uncertainty in coatings industry
Supplies of
raw materials
could be in
jeopardy by
year’s end
due to
REACH.
This could be the year when REACH, the European Union’s (EU) contro- versial legislation on the control of
chemicals, starts to have a major impact on
Europe’s coatings sector.
European coatings producers, as well as
other big downstream users of chemicals,
are becoming increasingly concerned that by
the end of the year REACH, which has been
introduced to gather safety data on chemicals on the market, will be disrupting supplies of raw materials.
“We are anticipating that by the turn of the
year we will be having significant problems
with supplies of some chemicals,” said a busi-
ness development manager at one coatings
company. “We are hoping that we will be able
to find alternative suppliers. But we may not
have much time because at the moment many
suppliers are not keeping us informed about
their activities with REACH.”
The paint industry is particularly exposed
to the effects of REACH due to the large
quantity and range of chemicals they use to
formulate their products.
“Coatings companies should carefully analyze their raw materials portfolio, identify
the ones which could be vulnerable to an
interruption in supplies and identify those
which are critical to their business and make
appropriate provision to ensure continuation
of supplies,” said Tony Newbould, a consultant at ajn solutions, Brentwood, England,
who was formerly deputy chief executive of
the British Coatings Federation.
The legislation, which was introduced in
mid-2007, is being implemented over an 11-
year period ending in 2018. By then the
Helsinki-based European Chemicals Agency
(ECHA), which is responsible for adminis-
tering REACH, should have achieved the
legislation’s objective of registering all
chemicals produced or imported into the EU
with an annual output of one ton or more.
The registration dossiers of each chemical will contain data on its safety profile
including details of its safe use and application through the supply chain to its eventual disposal.
A prime aim of REACH is the dissemination of safety data on individual chemicals
down the chain to all end-users. It is also
governed by the principle, “no data, no market.” If a producer or importer has not submitted a registration dossier for a chemical
by a certain deadline it has to be withdrawn
from the market.
Although chemical companies have to register their individual products themselves,
much of the registration dossier for each
chemical is being put together by its producers and importers grouped within what is
called a substance information exchange
forum (SIEF). The idea behind the creation
of SIEFs is that they will help reduce costs
because the expense of data collection will
be shared by its members.
Under REACH all producers and importers
have had to pre-register each of their chemicals with basic data in order to signal their
intention, particularly to their customers, to
complete a full registration at a later date.
Approximately 2.7 million pre-registra-tions have been filed—roughly 13 times
higher than originally estimated by ECHA.
The deadline for the first batch of pre-reg-istrations to be turned into full registrations
is November 2010, when producers and
importers of all chemicals with an output of
1,000 tons or more will have to submit
