[Pharmwaste] REACH is Wrapped Up

[Tenace, Laurie]

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/84/i50/8450reach.html
(sorry for the double posting for some of you)

REACH Is Wrapped Up
Last-minute compromise ensures passage of regulatory regime by European Union
Patricia L. Short
Delegations from the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers have
hammered out a compromise agreement that ensures passage by the end of this
year of REACH, the European Union's program for regulation, evaluation, and
authorization of chemicals.

Final votes will be held by both the Parliament and the council in
mid-December, but the compromise measures are virtually guaranteed to be
accepted by both bodies.

The main points of the compromise are as follows:

Parliament will appoint two members to the board of the new European
Chemicals Agency (EChA), which is expected to begin by April 2007. The
executive director must be confirmed by Parliament in a process similar to
the one required for approval of European Commission commissioners.

EChA will require chemical producers to submit a plan to substitute safer
alternatives for substances it determines to be dangerous or, if no
alternative exists, an R&D plan for safer replacements.

After six years, there will be a review, based on the latest scientific data,
on the authorization of substances with endocrine-disrupting properties.
Protection of company safety data has been extended from three years to six
years.

The compromise accepts the principle of Duty of Care, which holds that
chemical manufacturers, importers, and marketers should not adversely affect
human health or the environment with their products.

Changes were agreed to with the dual aims of avoiding duplication of animal
testing and promoting alternative test methods.

Proposed some four years ago, REACH has been one of the most controversial
and contentious legislative programs ever tackled by the European Commission,
and the compromise leaves no one completely happy. Consumer environment
organizations, for example, think there are too many loopholes in the law,
particularly regarding product substitution.

In fact, substitution was the last major point of difference between
parliament and the council and threatened to wreck the entire regulatory
program until the last-minute compromise. Parliament had wanted a stricter
substitution requirement than the one agreed upon.


Laurie J. Tenace
Environmental Specialist
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
2600 Blair Stone Road, MS 4555
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2400
PH: (850) 245-8759
FAX: (850) 245-8811
Laurie.Tenace at dep.state.fl.us  
 
view our mercury web pages at: 
http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/mercury/default.htm 

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