REACH is just the beginning
14/06/2018
This deadline concluded the 10-year transition phase for the legislation, which set out to capture detailed information on chemical products to help guard against the ongoing use of any that might have a detrimental effect on human health or the environment.
To mark the deadline, Dr Martin Kleban, director of health, safety, environment and quality at the Lanxess leather business unit, addressed the subject of REACH and, more broadly, that of restricted substances in the leather supply chain, at the recent Freiberg Leather Days event.
He began by saying that the chemical industry expected companies to register 25,000 products as compliant with REACH over the ten-year period building up to May 31 but that, in the end, only 21,000 registrations had been filed. “We don’t know if the forecast was wrong or if chemical manufacturers decided to remove some substances from their portfolios,” Dr Kleban commented.
He made it clear that REACH will have no impact on the availability of Lanxess leather chemicals and said he assumed the same will apply to leather chemicals made by the company’s competitors. “But this is not the end,” he warned. “REACH is just the beginning. New restrictions are coming in and they will affect the use of isocyanates in leather manufacture. The leather industry is a tiny player in the use of isocyanates, but the restrictions are coming because if you breathe these chemicals in in can cause problems in respiratory health.”
He said the change will only affect products with a concentration of isocyanates greater than 0.1% and said he expected the change to be passed by the European Commission in the third or fourth quarter of 2018. He warned that similar restrictions will apply to N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP).
Finally, Dr Kleban pointed out that, beyond the European Union, South Korea, Taiwan and Turkey are working on similar registration programmes to show chemical substances are safe to use.
Share this story:
