Chemical Watch News of the Month
Every month, we bring together some of our top news stories from the last four weeks to highlight the biggest developments affecting product safety professionals. Take a look at this month’s top stories below.
In January we reported on the news that Echa would revoke 2,900 REACH registrations held by UK entities as a result of Brexit. In the US, President Biden ordered a review of EPA actions over the last four years. We also reported on some commercial news as McDonald's announced its commitment to globally phase out the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) from its customer packaging by 2025.
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Echa will immediately start revoking 2,900 registration dossiers held by UK companies – a fifth of all registrations from the country – after registrants failed to initiate a transfer to EU-based entities by the 31 December deadline, the agency has told Chemical Watch.
6 January 2021
Turkey is laying down rules for substance information exchange fora (Siefs), including the nomination of lead registrants, under its REACH-like KKDIK Regulation, the registration phase for which has now begun with more than 22,000 substances already pre-registered.
7 January 2021
Europe
North America
Asia
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A mixtures assessment factor (MAF) of ten or higher would affect all relevant REACH registration dossiers for petroleum substances, according to oil industry trade association Concawe.
21 May 2020
Synergistic and antagonistic mixture effects, which pose particular challenges for regulators, are relatively rare, according to preliminary results from a systematic review of the available scientific literature.
28 May 2020
China is introducing a voluntary standard that will restrict the use of 117 hazardous substances in consumer items in a similar way to restrictions under EU REACH Annex XVII.
21 January 2021
The US EPA is withdrawing three proposals issued in the final weeks of the Obama administration that sought to ban certain uses of trichloroethylene (TCE), n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) and methylene chloride.
14 January 2021
The US EPA has concluded that chrysotile asbestos poses an unreasonable risk to workers, occupational non-users, consumers and bystanders, setting up a two-year process for the agency to finalise a rule to safeguard against those risks.
5 January 2021
Global
The Australian Industrial Chemicals Introduction Scheme (AICIS) has today become the new national regulator for the import and manufacture of industrial chemicals in Australia.
1 July 2020
Ghana's EPA is drafting a bill that would require companies to register all industrial and consumer chemicals in the country, and would give the agency authority to ban chemicals that pose "unnecessary harm".
9 July 2020
Business
US-based electronics retailer Best Buy should "significantly expand" its list of restricted chemicals, according to Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families (SCHF).
21 May 2020
Consumer products conglomerate Church and Dwight has eliminated 97% of ‘chemicals of concern’ from its formulated products and is disclosing ingredients across its full global product portfolio, according to the company’s recently released sustainability report.
07 May 2020
Latin America and Caribbean
Mexico's chemicals industry body is developing an alternative chemicals management proposal to the one presented by the country’s health authority, in collaboration with international trade associations.
27 May 2020
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The senior adviser to Australian environmental NGO, National Toxics Network (NTN), has highlighted the group’s continuing concerns over the "self-assessment" approach of the country’s new chemicals framework which came into force this month.
16 July 2020
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US President Joe Biden has directed the EPA and other federal agencies to review and consider rescinding regulations and policies issued in the last four years, including several under the TSCA programme.
21 January 2021
Middle East
Israel's Ministry of Environmental Protection expects the country’s draft law, which will establish a national inventory of industrial chemicals and set out processes for risk assessment and management, to be approved by the end of 2021, a government official has told Chemical Watch.
28 January 2021
A European Commission official has signalled a possible u-turn in the EU chemicals strategy’s proposed approach to assess one substance only once.
14 January 2021
The UK’s Chemical Industries Association (CIA) has questioned whether the door is "fully shut" on officials reconsidering access for UK companies to data in the EU REACH system, especially when, it says, businesses on both sides are in favour of it.
21 January 2021
The UK Parliament has rejected an amendment put forward by opposition MPs that sought to ensure the government does not regress from protections secured under REACH if it diverges from EU laws – a fresh setback for an industry bent on continued alignment.
28 January 2021
The Biden administration’s directive to scrutinise the procedures underlying TSCA risk evaluations could have big implications for the future of substance assessment at the US EPA, but how those changes might play out remains an open question.
28 January 2021
Global
Major restaurant chain McDonald’s has committed to globally phasing out the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) from its customer packaging by 2025.
14 January 2021