The European Parliament votes to enact comprehensive legislation, but Reach fails to please industry lobbyists and green organisations alike
By Wojciech Kosc
Among the European Union's vast corpus of environmental regulations, Reach, a comprehensive tool developed to curb chemical usage across the bloc, has certainly been one of the most controversial. Fiercely opposed by industry lobbyists and championed by green organisations, a compromise deal became reality last December. Green complaints of a somewhat watered-down Reach (the result of compromise) would seem to suggest that industry welcomes the deal. Instead, industry reaction has been less than enthusiastic.
The green lobby has argued that Reach in its present form differs substantially from the document originally envisioned by the European Commission (EC). The current regulation pertains to some 30,000 chemical substances produced in or imported to the EU in amounts of at least one tonne, and companies must register these chemicals according to three different deadlines.
According to current Reach regulations, firms manufacturing any chemical in volumes above 1,000 tonnes, or other compounds containing carcinogenic, mutagenic or repro-toxic substances in volumes above one tonne, have three years to register. Other key registration deadlines include: six years for production of substances in volumes between 100 to 1,000 tonnes; and 11 years for chemicals produced in volumes between one and 100 tonnes.
There is also an obligation to submit a Chemical Safety Report (CSR) to document the safety of some 1,500 additional hazardous substances. Most hazardous toxic and bio-accumulative substances could be phased out gradually with the introduction of safer alternatives. Green organizations like Greenpeace or WWF allege, however, that these solutions stand little chance of warding off the harmful influences of chemicals on human health and the environment.
