EU Parliament votes for safe chemicals

Environment Committee backs the substitution of hazardous chemicals in REACH

11.10.2006 |Daniela Rosche

The Environment Committee today voted for a host of rules which will in the future make chemicals and their us much saferthan they currently are. As part of the Parliament's second reading process of the draft REACH regulation, the Environment Committee strengthened key passages of the draft law such as:

- the substitution of hazardous chemicals as soon as those are available

- a general duty of care for the chemicals industry to ensure their products are safe

- full data sets (Chemical Safety Report) for chemicals between 1-10 which concerns 20.000 chemicals covered by the REACH legislation

- consumers are entitled to receive information about chemicals in consumer articles

- hazardous chemicals which need an authorization for their use will always have to be labelled

"For women and future generations, this is excellent news. We are very happy Parliamentarians in the Environment Committee are in full support of health and environmental protection, says Daniela Rosche, WECF policy coordinator. WECF believes that Members States now have to show they respect the Parliament's position, and come to a strong agreement especially on the substitution of hazardous chemicals by safer alternatives.

WECF is a member of the NGO coalition working on REACH who has sent out the following press release.