Changes have been made to the way hazardous chemical substances are managed in New Zealand.
Coming into force on 1 December 2017, there will be changes to the EPA’s responsibilities on regulating substances. The biggest change will be that most of the hazardous substance rules that are set out under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms will now be set out in EPA Notices.
Other changes include:
-The Labelling Notice and Hazardous Property Controls Notice now published.
Labelling Notice and the Hazardous Property Controls (HPC) will now be published under the heading EPA Notices.
– The Group Standards will be getting a facelift.
The Group Standards will refer to the EPA Notices, and will no longer refer to the Workplace Substance Rules.
There have been 29 published draft group standards that represent the different groups to show the changes.
The notices are most relevant to manufacturers, importers or those that sell hazardous substances. The EPA will no longer set rules to protect people from hazardous substances within the workplace, that will no be set under the new Health and Safety at Work Regulations implemented by WorkSafe New Zealand.
For more information, please visit EPA NZ.
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