The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has announced the start of the first REACH enforcement project. REACH = Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of CHemicals. One goal of the enforcement project is to check if any chemicals are still coming onto the market in the European Union which were not registered by the 1 December 2008 deadline. Registered substances, also known as phase-in substances, may continue to be sold while manufacturers gather and submit the required test data to prove that use and sale of their chemicals is safe. But companies that somehow missed the deadline will be in for a surprise: the law promises that any chemicals which are not registered may not be sold. Only after all data is gathered and submitted can these chemicals once again be sold in Europe. No data, no market.The EU's REACH legislation has put pressure on other jurisdictions to increase surveillance of harmful chemicals. In the US, EPA has announced that they will pick up the pace of the ChAMP program, which relies mainly on data submitted voluntarily by industry. If you have always thought the government keeps you and your loved ones safe from dangerous products, you may have thought wrong. But thinking right starts now.
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