EU approves stricter chemical control
Chemicals will be more strictly monitored by the EU
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Wednesday, 13, Dec 2006 04:53
All chemical substances within the European Union will have to be registered with a central body under new legislation agreed today at the European parliament.
Known as Reach, the new law will come into progressive force from 2007 and requires that all substances be registered by 2018 to improve the level of protection the public is afforded from toxic substances.
Politicians also voted to create a new Helsinki-based chemicals agency which will be responsible for the process.
Registration must take place on all substances produced or imported above one tonne per year, of which 30,000 are thought to be affected.
Producers of more hazardous substances will have to submit a substitution plan to replace them with safer alternatives. If no alternative exists, then producers will have to present a research plan aimed at finding one.
Commenting on the legislation, European parliament president Josep Borrell said: "This vote, on one of the most complex texts in the history of the EU, sets up an essential piece of legislation to protect public health and the environment from the risks of chemical substances, without threatening European competitiveness.
"It offers EU citizens true protection against the multitude of toxic substances in everyday life in Europe."
But environmental groups have been less enthusiastic about how far Reach will be able to protect the public.
The WWF claims that although it has achieved "great success" in the control of toxic chemicals that build up in wildlife, it will still allow so-called 'gender-bending' and possible cancer-causing chemicals to get into the environment.
Elizabeth Salter Green, head of the WWF-UK toxics programme, said: "The EU has. made a dreadful mistake by deciding that chemicals that may cause cancer or birth defects, affect DNA or disturb the hormone system or cause other serious illnesses - so-called CMRs and hormone disrupting chemicals - will continue to be put on the market even if safer alternatives are available."
The organisation will now continue to lobby the parliament before the review of Reach in six years time.
Echoing the concerns of the WWF, speaking on BBC Radio Five Live, Katherine Mill from Greenpeace said: "We're very concerned that the regulation excludes a number of very hazardous chemicals which can cause cancer, problems with infertility and impact on the reproductive and immune system."
And on the same programme Tim Jessel from ReachReady, a group set up to help companies prepare for the new legislation, estimated that it will cost individual companies ?7,000 (£4,710) to ?750,000 (£505,000) per chemical to register and the overall cost could be between ?2 billion (£1.3 billion) and over ?11 billion (£7.4 billion).