Mar. 31 – Print industry at risk of REACH breach

Another article of the “some industries are not prepared for REACH variety”. This one has to do with the printing industry. From Printweek.com:

“The printing industry is a relatively heavy user of chemicals in terms of the number of substances, because inks and printing agents are preparations using many different substances. If a chemical does not comply, then there is potentially a legal problem,” Taylor added. “It’s certainly a commercially risky situation.”…

The EU estimates that there are 30,000 substances on the European market manufactured in quantities of one tonne or more every year. The process of registering all of these at once would have been a huge task. So registration will take place over three phases spread over a period of 11 years.

However, substance manufacturers that do not pre-register their chemicals by the end of November this year, must fully register their substance on the 1 December or face breaching European law.

“The key thing is for downstream users such as printers to make sure their suppliers know the use that they put a particular chemical to,” Taylor said. “The critical issue to downstream users is to have effective dialogue with their suppliers. It’s about them feeling comfortable that they will comply.”

For the full article, click on the above link.