REACH, CLP, GPS, HPV and risk assessments

In addition to Euro Chlor's regular activities, over the past years several legislative and voluntary initiatives have required industry cooperation within Europe. To this end, Euro Chlor has acted to support its members where possible, and on this page you can find links to other several pages where information can be found on REACH registration, Biocidal Products Directive (BPD) active substance registration, Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) notification and Global Product Strategy (GPS) summary sheets.

REACH

The Regulation on Restriction, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) EC/1907/2006 came into force in mid-2007. Since then the chemical industry has been working to collate availalble toxicity and ecotoxicity information on substances for submission to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to register the substances and show that they are safe for the defined uses.

The chlor-alkali substances (chlorine, sodium hydroxide, hydrogen chloride, sodium hypochlorite, potassium hydroxide, potassium carbonate, 1,2-dichloroethane and the chlorinated solvents) have all been registered before the 2010 deadline under the auspices of ReachCentrum with the assistance of Euro Chlor.

More information on the REACH Regulation page.

Classification, Labelling and Packaging

The Classification, Labelling and Packaging Regulation (CLP) entered into force in 2009. This regulation brought the UN GHS principles (Globally Harmonized System for classifying chemicals) into the EU classification scheme. All substances manufactured, no matter the tonnage band, had to have their classification notified to ECHA before the end of December 2010.

Euro Chlor assisted our member companies and the REACH consortia to meet this goal, and we encouraged companies that did not register under REACH because of lower tonnage thresholds but did need to notify to use the harmonized classification for each substance.

The harmonized classifications is on the CLP Recommendations page.

Global Product Strategy

As a part of the Responsible Care initiative under the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA), industry is preparing GPS information sheets for the general public. Euro Chlor is assisting in this activity by providing draft sheets that companies can use in meeting this requirement.

The draft GPS information is on the GPS documents page.

EU Risk Assessments

Within Europe, concern regarding the potential risks of chemicals has been an EU policy priority since the late 1980s. In 1993 the Council Regulation (EEC) 793/93 - better known as the Existing Substances Regulation (ESR) - was adopted to provide a legislative framework for the evaluation and control of "existing" chemical substances.

More information can be found on our EU Risk Assessment page.

OECD/ICCA High Production Volume programs

Under the ICCA High Production Volume program, many substances have been assessed for their risk. Euro Chlor supported this effort, and more information can be found on our HPV Risk Assessments page.

Marine Risk Assessments

Euro Chlor has also voluntarily prepared risk assessments for 25 chlorinated substances, focussed on the marine environment. Many of these have been published in peer-reviewed journals, and the full reports are all available Marine risk Assessments page.

 Last update : 09/2011