Europe
by Sean Milmo
European Correspondent
milmocw@rodmanmedia.com
REACH, the European Union’s chemi- cal safety regulation, is now becoming increasingly complex and expensive
for coatings suppliers, both for those based in
Europe and those exporting into the region.
The strategy behind REACH—an acronym
for the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation
of Chemicals—is that producers and importers
register with safety dossiers all chemicals with a
sale of above one ton a year and then the information in the dossiers will be passed downstream to
formulators and end-users.
The legislation, first introduced in 2007 to
be enacted over an 11-year period to 2018, is
now at a stage where what is called exposure
scenarios are being drawn up from the dos-
siers by both chemical suppliers and formula-
tors to be distributed along the supply chain.
They detail what users need to do to control
hazardous chemicals.
“Exposure scenarios are one of the main
innovations of the REACH regulation,” said
the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA),
Helsinki, Finland, in a guidance document
for downstream users issued in December.
The agency is responsible for administering
the legislation.
Although the legislation has now been in
operation for nearly seven years, there are
still uncertainties about how to introduce
and implement exposure scenarios. They
have turned out to be far more intricate
than expected.
The legislation,
first introduced
in 2007 to be
enacted over an
11-year period to
2018, is now at a
stage where what
is called exposure
scenarios are
being drawn up
from dossiers by
both chemical
suppliers and
formulators to be
distributed along
the supply chain.
REACH Exposure Scenarios Present
New Challenges for Coating Suppliers
