New European chemical laws will standardise safety information but environmentalists think they do not go far enough, writes Claire O'Connell.
This summer, after years of negotiation, controversial new European laws on chemical safety will come into force to regulate what goes into everyday products, from shampoos to concrete, from PCs to paints.
As well as updating safety information for thousands of chemicals that were previously exempt from testing requirements, the EU's new directive on the Registration Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (Reach) will demand that industry accounts for the safety of the substances it uses.
And chemical agents that cause cancer, disrupt hormones or persist in the body or the environment will be restricted or banned if safer alternatives can be used instead.
The new laws aim to standardise information about chemicals, protect human health and the environment, better inform consumers and encourage industries to innovate rather than relying on existing chemical processes. But environmentalists argue that intense lobbying from the chemicals industry has watered down the regulations and that the legislation is not sufficient to protect citizens.
"Realistically we are looking at major changes in how chemicals are treated and considered across Europe," says toxicologist Dr Sharon McGuinness, assistant chief executive for the chemicals policy and services division in the Health and Safety Authority (HSA), the organisation that will enforce the regulations in Ireland.
"Essentially everything you use is made of chemicals," she says. "We have had some specific legislation dealing with chemicals, for example, toys directives or product safety directives with some kind of allusion to it. But for the first time ever, Reach makes an attempt to cover chemicals in use in products."
Reach, which stretches to 1,000 pages of text, comes into force on June 1st, 2007, and follows many years of negotiation. "It was very heavily consulted," says McGuinness, who describes how stakeholders were invited to respond to the draft proposal over the internet. "It got about 6,500 responses, so people were really interested right from the word go, and the commission went back to the drawing board and re-did it quite considerably."
The resulting directive demands that industry provides safety information about chemicals. Until now it has been up to national authorities to prove that a substance used in industry was a danger or had certain risk attached to it.
"Essentially that was felt to move too slowly and the risks weren't being dealt with sufficiently soon," says McGuinness
But under the new regulations, manufacturers or importers that deal with chemicals over defined tonnages will shoulder the burden of proof about safety. "Reach now firmly puts the responsibility into the court of those who should know about their own substances, or should have the relevant information," says McGuinness.
The directive will also standardise testing regulations for old and new chemicals. Chemicals that have been on the market since before 1981 are exempt from current testing requirements, meaning that industry has tended to rely on them rather than introduce new ones: only around 3,000 substances have been notified in Europe in the past two decades. But over the next 11 years, Reach aims to update safety information for around 30,000 of the older, existing substances.
"Reach should put a level playing field between something that's newly developed and something that's on the shelf for 30 years," says McGuinness.
Of the older, existing substances, around 1,500 could pose serious concerns for health or the environment, says McGuinness. "It's a low percentage. But it's great if those 1,500 come out of the supply and no longer are used. These are positives for health and environment that we would definitely recognise as an authority, and our primary aim is to protect human health and the environment, along with other agencies."
Under the new regulations, consumers will also be able to demand timely information about chemicals from product suppliers, which McGuinness believes will encourage us to think more about what we use.
The National Consumer Association (NCA) in Ireland welcomes the new directive. "It will considerably improve the regulator's knowledge about the chemicals which are used by manufacturers, enabling them to regulate or ban these chemical and so protect consumers," says Ann Fitzgerald, NCA chairwoman and director of consumer affairs.
But European environmentalists believe the new laws will not go far enough, according to John Gormley, Green Party chairman and spokesman for health. He believes intensive lobbying by the chemicals industry has watered down the directive. "The person who matters most is the citizen and the people who had the most clout in this whole negotiation were the chemical industries.
"I think they have won out because we feel that the directive doesn't have the strength or the teeth that it ought to have," says Gormely.
The Greens want to see more rigour in the directive: more chemicals being tested under the legislation, greater transparency and availability of information, easier registration of chemicals and more standardised tests that relate to human safety, according to Gormley.
"It needs to be tightened up. You can never have enough environmental protection," he says. "Reach is giving chemicals the benefit of the doubt and I don't think that's the way to go. We are very much in favour of the precautionary principal: if in doubt, leave it out."
For more information see www.reachright.ie