European Chemical Industry Shares Best Practices in Joint ECHA-EC Event
September 15, 2009 // Published as a news service by IHS
The European Commission (EC) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) brought together speakers from 10 companies and associations to share their experience on taking the lead in developing joint registration dossiers for their chemical substances in compliance with the regulation for REACH - Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals - across the European Union.
Over 500 companies - Lead Registrants and Candidate Lead Registrants - joined together in Brussels and via webstream to share best practices information in the Sept. 15 event.
Under REACH, companies intending to register the same substance have to work together in a Substance Information Exchange Forum (SIEF) to share data on the hazards and safe use of the substance and prepare a single registration dossier.
ECHA maintains that data sharing is crucial if unnecessary testing (including animal testing) is to be avoided and costs to industry minimized. The Lead Registrant role is crucial in that process. Lead Registrants were urged by the speakers to "dare to share" and to "be early, be early - at least 2 months" before the official deadline in submitting their dossiers.
Companies were also informed about further support to enable them to fulfill their roles - most notably a series of targeted webinars, roughly one per month until early summer 2010. The webinars will be interactive and run by experts from within ECHA. They are addressed to Lead Registrants who have notified themselves to ECHA. Other exclusive services for Lead Registrants include direct access to ECHA's help desk and an electronic discussion platform - the Lead Registrant Forum.
In addition, ECHA responded to a number of requests from industry, which ranged from providing clarity about the kinds of issues that were causing registration dossiers to fail to practical steps that may be taken to cut red tape and speed up processes.
Geert Dancet, executive director of ECHA, promised to respond to the challenges and to "provide responses through our webinar programme and at our next Stakeholder's Day in Helsinki in late November." He thanked the participants, and particularly the speakers "for stepping up to the plate" and taking on this important - and hopefully rewarding - task on behalf of their fellow companies. "This is not an easy role and yet you are showing the way through your pragmatism and commitment to the ultimate aim of the protection of human health and the environment."
More Information
For more information, see the following:
Source: European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).