Sustainable Manufacturing Portal

REACH

Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemical substances (REACH) is a new European Community Regulation on chemicals usage. It specifies the requirements on the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemical substances used in the EU member countries. This new law was enforced on 1 June 2007.

The objectives of REACH are:-

to protect human health and the environment through better and earlier recording and control of chemical substances;
to demand greater responsibility from manufacturers and importers in providing information and managing the risks of chemicals substances that they place on the market;
to allow free movement of chemical substances on the EU market;
to enhance innovation, increases the competitiveness of the EU chemicals industry,
to promote alternative methods for assessing the hazardous properties in chemical substances.

According to REACH, the manufacturers and importers of chemical substances (>1 tonne/year) need to register the information in a central database run by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki. ECHA will act as the centre for the REACH system to manage the databases, co-ordinate the evaluation of chemical substances and run a public database where consumers can excess the information of the registered chemicals. Besides management and control, ECHA also aims to support progressive substitution of dangerous chemicals when suitable alternatives have been identified.