A conference on European Chemicals Policy last week in Brussels was the occasion for Geert Dancet, executive director of the European Chemicals Agency, to call attention to the new challenges arising from the preparation for the 2013 registration deadline.

Working groups in the ECHA are currently working on better criteria to estimate more precisely the number of substances and dossiers to be registered. The objective of this exercise is for the ECHA to come up with a list of substances intended for registration: a good way for companies (mainly downstream users) to identify whether substances critical to their activities are running the risk of being phased-out. With the 2010 deadline, the implementation of REACH is just beginning. There will be more substances to register in 2013 and yet the available data will most probably be scarcer.

For more information on the registration procedure, whether you benefit from any exemptions and timeframe for registration click here. You may therefore need to monitor substances which are crucial to your products and identify now the steps that are needed to obtain authorisation for your specific use. Click here for more information on this.