New chemical legislation most important for 20 years

Calling all companies involved in the manufacture and distribution of chemically based products. Will the long arm of EU law REACH your business?

New legislation known as REACH - Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals - has been described as the most important EU legislation for 20 years.

The regulation is likely to be adopted by the end of the year and come into force in the first half of 2007. It puts the onus on business to show that the chemicals it uses are safe. It is also meant to encourage the replacement of hazardous chemicals with safer ones and to spur the chemicals sector into researching and developing more new products.

Simon Robinson, managing director at Safeware – a company that have just launched a free guide to REACH - said: “REACH will have an unavoidable impact on people, products and markets and it is essential that companies start planning for the implementation of this new legislation now. The guide has therefore been developed to help readers understand the new laws, prepare their plans to accommodate REACH and offers some practical REACH scenarios for typical situations.”

The Chemical Industries Association (CIA) has also stepped in to help as it launches a new service network, REACHReady, which will be offering industry a comprehensive range of services to meet the needs of the REACH regulations.

The European Commission has estimated that Reach will cost industry between 2.8bn and 5.2bn euros (between £1.5bn and £3.5bn) over 11 years. Other estimates put the figure as high as 12.8bn euros (£8.6bn).