 Home Health and Safety Health and Safety News
REACH for safer chemicals
02 June 2007
The new European Directive on the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of CHemicals (REACH) came into force on 1 June. The new law will take up to 11 years to implement.
Basically REACH will require the manufacturers and suppliers of chemical products to provide information on their enviornamental and health hazards. For very dangerous chemicals and ones that persist and accumulate in the environment, specific authorisation for use will be required and there should be increased pressure for substitution with safer alternatives.
REACH will not replace the duties on employers under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulations to protect workers from hazardous chemicals. But it could result in better information on which to base COSHH risk assessments if it works.
Responsibility for REACH lies primarily with the Health and Safety Executive, who will be looking at a number of areas. The first is what new regulations will be required to implement REACH. While the TUC wants to ensure that REACH and the other main chemical regulations, such as COSHH and CHIP, should work as simply as possible, and that each should complement the other, it wants to ensure that any changes to the regulations strengthen their effect and do not reduce any aspect of worker protection. The HSE is also responsible, along with other bodies, for enforcement. It is proposed that the HSE enforce registration issues and supply chain issues, with actual 'point of use' issues being enforced by the HSE, Local Authorities and the Environment Agency. This makes sense as it means that the enforcement of REACH will be able to be incorporated along with other enforcement activities. However, it is important that resources are made available to the HSE and LAs to do this work.
Although REACH has come into effect, for trade unions, there will be little practical difference until the HSE starts to consult on new regulations. The actual process of registration, evaluation and authorisation will not start for some time. There is guidance on the TUC website at http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-12870-f0.cfm.
Contact Details
Health and Safety section
Ph: 0161 249 2441
Fax: 0161 249 2475
Email: healthandsafety@usdaw.org.uk
 Printer Friendly Page  Email to a Friend
|
