Design Article
REACH update: ChemSec releases Substitute It Now list
Kris Pollet, Director EU Law & Policy, Pollet Environmental Consulting
9/18/2008 3:08 PM EDT
On September 17, ChemSec, the Sweden-based International Chemical Secretariat, launched the Substitute It Now, or SIN list of high-concern chemicals at a conference in Brussels, Belgium, aimed at the European Union's Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) regulation. Compiled by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), via ChemSec, it contains 267 hazardous substances, which it believes should urgently be included on the candidate list for substances that should be subject to the most stringent aspect of the EU's REACH framework, namely its authorisation procedure. The list is the NGOs' answer to what it believes is the too timid start of this process: only 16 substances proposed by the European Chemical Agency (ECHA).
If a substance is placed on that candidate list, manufacturers of finished or semi-finished products ("articles" in REACH jargon) will have to disclose to customers, if asked, if their product contains any of those substances also known as Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC).
This will require that the manufacturer knows whether any of these substances are present or not. And that will necessitate a significant communication and information provision effort in the supply chain. Some manufacturers, such as Sony Ericsson, say that they already require a full materials declaration from their parts suppliers. However, this still appears to be more of an exception rather than the rule in the electronics sector.
The SIN list was compiled through collaboration with an advisory committee in which other NGOs such as Greenpeace and WWF are represented. Other groups such as an EU consumer rights group, BEUC, and individual companies including Sony Ericsson, clothes retailer H&M and consumer goods company Sara Lee also contributed to the effort.
According to ChemSec, this broad collaboration makes the list much more credible. It is hoped that it will strengthen its impact, and that many companies will use the list on a voluntary basis in the product specifications that they impose on suppliers. The list is therefore targeted not only at the regulator, in an effort to quickly broaden the candidate list, but also at manufacturers.
Will the SIN list be widely used? This depends to a large extent on its credibility. The executive director of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), Geert Dancet, was present at the launch and wondered what the reasons were for including each of these 267 substances. Just compiling a list without it being based on significant data or information is not good enough, he said. Although the ChemSec representatives did not properly respond to his query, they did point out that the web-based version of the list contains more details on that. Quite a few of the individual substances have references to specific studies or data.
In any case, the legal requirement to start informing customers about the presence of SVHCs will start the moment the first candidate list is approved. According to Dancet, this could happen on October 22, 2008. Of the 16 substances that were put forward, only 12 may make it onto the first candidate list. From those, only three appear to be used in electronics: the phthalates DBP, DEHP, and BBP. The brominated flame retardant HBCDD is the subject of discussion and will probably not make the first list.
See related REACH articles:
