ISSUES & TRENDS FORECAST: Euro chemical proposal hits home
REACH stands for Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals. It’s shorthand for a new system of regulation of chemicals now winding its way through the complicated legislative process of the European Union (EU). If adopted in anything like its present form by the EU, as many observers expect, REACH will bring about a sweeping change in the way chemicals are regulated. Few have heard of it in the U.S. so far, yet the implications are far reaching. Health and safety professionals had best sit up and listen.
The REACH proposal says that without basic hazard data and an assessment, no chemical will be made, used or sold in the European market. The system would be implemented in over little more than a decade.