The Complexities of Communicating Safety
Rules for
downstream
communication of
safety information
are a big concern
among coatings
companies in
Europe.
by Sean Milmo
European Correspondent
milmocw@rodpub.com
The European coatings sector is being confronted with one of its most difficult challenges in the communication of
safety information to its customers and other
paint users.
This communications problem stems from
the European Union’s REACH legislation on the
registration, authorization and evaluation of an
estimated 50,000 chemicals marketed in Europe. Safety information of the most hazardous
of these chemicals has to be made known to
large proportions of Europe’s working population as well as many of its consumers.
The major aim behind REACH is to ensure
that workers and consumers who risk being in
contact with dangerous chemicals through inhalation, touch, skin contact and other means know
how to protect themselves through the proper use
of the chemicals or products containing them.
With paints, each one of which contains up
to around 50 different chemicals, this information has to be distributed to the employers of
hundreds of thousands of workers making, distributing or applying coatings and to the makers
and distributors of coatings for DIY consumers.
It is not just a matter of disseminating information but also ensuring that it is in a form
that an ordinary person can read easily and
fully understand.
“It is undoubtedly one of the biggest exer-
cises that the coatings industry in Europe has
had to face in downstream communication,”
said Wayne Smith, head of regulatory affairs at
the British Coatings Federation (BCF). “It is
going to be a huge administrative burden for
coating companies.”
Under REACH chemical producers and im-
porters, which includes coatings companies
themselves purchasing raw materials from out-
side Europe, have to register with safety details
all chemicals they make or distribute in annual
amounts of one ton or more.
stages. Dossiers with safety profiles of substances of 1,000 tons or more had to be submitted in late 2010 to the Helsinki-based
European Chemical Agency (ECHA), which is
administering REACH. Chemicals of 100 tons
or more have to be registered by mid-2013 and
the remainder by 2018.
Once a chemical has been registered with its
safety profile, its producer or importer is required under the regulation to send safety details from the registration to its customers,
which is being done by extending the safety data
sheet (SDS) on a chemical. An SDS is a legal document traditionally used to convey basic safety
information to downstream users.
Following the first registrations made over a
year ago, coatings companies have been receiving from their chemical suppliers large extended
SDSs, some of which are reported to exceed 100
pages. On average it has been estimated that a
typical SDS, normally four to five pages long,
will be enlarged to 30-40 pages to accommodate
information from REACH dossiers.
“REACH is a highly complex piece of legislation which is now beginning to bite,” said
Peter Rieck, a consultant at the UK-based management advisory company Marcmoor Ltd. “It
has created a bureaucratic machine which has
