New EU substances regulation expected by Christmas

The regulation will bring all of the proposals on the classification, labelling and packaging of substances, agreed at the 2002 UN World Summit held in Johannesburg, into European law.

The regulation was recently adopted by European Parliament and Council and is expected to come into force by the end of December.

The proposal to include regulations on child resistant closures and tactile warning devices has been resisted as it was accepted that these were not covered in the Globally Harmonised System (GHS) agreed at the World Summit.

The regulation will replace the Dangerous Substances Directive and the Dangerous Preparations Directive when it comes into force for substances on 1 December 2010 and 1 June 2015 for mixtures.

Companies will still be obliged to follow the existing directives during this transitional period.

These established directives were implemented in the UK under the Chemicals (Hazard Information and Packaging for Supply) Regulations, known as CHIP.

The CHIP regulations will be fully repealed in the UK, except for the provision to enforce, which will be used by the Health and Safety Executive to enforce the CLP.

Health and Safety Executive spokeswoman Jan Harris said that “in many respects” the regulation won’t change that much and explained that, except where classification changes occur, some things may need to be repackaged.

Popular Articles