REACH revision to reduce exposure to harmful substances: Cefic

On the revision, the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) believes that today more than ever Europe needs a robust domestic chemical industry to reduce strategic dependency on other regions. The role of REACH is therefore to keep the industry’s engine of growth and innovation running at full speed whilst raising the bar on safety.

The chemical industry will go through a ‘double twin’ transition (climate neutrality, Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, circularity and digitalisation). Prioritising regulatory actions that bring the most benefits to health and environment, keeping the regulatory framework as stable as possible, and maintaining coherence of REACH with all other pieces of EU legislation should be the guiding principles of the revision. Last but not least, advances in risk assessment methods, human and environmental monitoring, predictive toxicology and alternatives to animal testing need to be reflected in this revision, Cefic said in a press release.

In particular, Cefic has called on the European Commission to focus its attention on the key aspects when developing legislative proposals. This is a landmark opportunity to accelerate development, validation and regulatory acceptance of human-relevant animal-free approaches to assess safety of chemicals. On generic approach to risk management, Cefic has recommended prioritising consumer uses with a high likelihood of exposure to the most severe hazardous chemicals. A committee with a political mandate and accountability would need to be set up to make choices as to what should be considered essential or not. Polymers recognised globally as Polymers of Low Concern based on the experience of other non-EU agencies should be excluded from registration. Available evidence supports a targeted implementation of the Mixture Assessment Factor (MAF) for environmental risk assessments. Having analysed all available evidence, Cefic has developed a decision tree to help decide when the application of MAF is justified.