REACH

REGULATION

The REACH Regulation entered into force on June 1st 2007. REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals and has replaced about 40 former items of legislation.

The stated aims of REACH are to:

• Improve the protection of human health and the environment  from the risks that can be posed by chemicals
• Enhance the competitiveness of the EU chemicals industry, a key sector for the economy of the EU

REACH requires the manufacturers and importers of substances in amounts greater than one ton per year to submit a registration to the European Chemicals Agency.

• In a first step each manufacturer/importer  had to submit a pre-registration to the Agency (until 30/11/2008) to be allowed to continue marketing of existing substances. All manufacturers/importers who registered the same substance  participate in the Substance Information Exchange Forum (SIEF) with the aim to jointly register this substance
• The second step is the submission of a registration dossier for each substance according to the following timetable based on the quantities of the substance manufactured or imported:
  – 30/11/2010 – More than 1.000 tons per year (plus CMR Cat 1 or 2 more than 1 ton/year or R50-53 more than 100 ton/year)
  – 31/05/2013 – More than 100 tons per year
  – 31/05/2018 – More than 1 ton per year

EVALUATION

REACH foresees that Member States continuously evaluate selected substances under the so-called CoRAP (community rolling Action plan). Please find more information of affected ALIPA substances in the linked document.

Link to Q&A REACH-Evaluation of HDI Trimer.

RESTRICTION – Obligatory trainings for diisocyanates users

To ensure that workers across the EU can continue to handle diisocyanates safely, new training requirements will become mandatory for professional and industrial users under the EU’s REACH Regulation from 24 August 2023.

The user of diisocyanates – either the employer of the user or the self-employed person – must complete and document the completion of the training. If users do not comply with these mandatory trainings, they will no longer be allowed to work with diisocyanates.

ALIPA and ISOPA with industry partners are working to launch a comprehensive package of training materials to ensure workers across Europe continue to handle diisocyanates safely. This video provides an update on the status of the roll-out of the trainings. To stay up to date on future developments, ALIPA /ISOPA encourages stakeholders to sign-up for news on the availability of trainings and other relevant developments.

Further information about the training requirements is available on safeusediisocyanates.eu

Successfully Navigating Reach (E-book)1st edition[[EN] [DE]  –  2nd edition [EN]     –      3rd and latest edition [EN]
Industry Position Paper
20 February 2020 – ISOPA & ALIPA welcome the REACH Committee’s decision to adopt a restriction on diisocyanates

ALIPA ACTIVITIES

ALIPA member companies have finalised the registration of higher volume substances (> 100 tons per year), including monomers.  Please click on the link to see the list of registered substances . ALIPA member companies continue preparing for registration of further substances.

REACH requires that specific information on the safe handling of hazardous chemicals is provided for the identified uses of registered chemicals. This information is communicated via Exposure Scenarios (ES) for each identified use which are annexed to the Safety Data Sheet known as the e-SDS (extended Safety Data Sheet) that you will receive from your supplier in due course following their own company-specific format.

We recognise there may be some questions arising from these documents and we would encourage you to address your questions to your supplier directly.

ALIPA member companies are also taking care to keep all registration information up-to-date and engage in other REACH processes (e.g. evaluation, authorization) as required.

DATA DISSEMINATION / ENDPOINT SUMMARY DOCUMENTS

ECHA disseminates major parts of the IUCLID data sets, filed with REACH registration dossiers, on its website. The disseminated information currently does not contain the endpoint summaries, which conclude the available information for the specific endpoints. Therefore ALIPA has prepared additional “Endpoint Summary Documents” for major registered substances, which in our view are required to comprehend the conclusions as derived in the registration dossiers. The information compiled in these documents is part of the registration dossiers and may serve as overview on hazardous properties of the respective substances.

Link to documents for HDI, HDI Trimer MEKO-blocked, IPDI, H12MDI, HDI trimer and IPDI trimer.

For more information on ALIPA REACH activities please contact Jörg Palmersheim (+32 2 786 35 53 or email info@alipa.org)

For information on REACH in general and to download the Regulation, visit the Agency website.

INDUSTRY POLICY