News

The packaging industry will undoubtedly be affected by new European legislation on the manufacture and use of chemicals, but a lack of information could mean that many firms will be caught off guard.

The Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (Reach) regulations were finally agreed by European authorities in December 2006, after almost five years of debate, and will come into force on 1 June.

As a result, manufacturers of chemicals in quantities greater than one tonne per year will be required to register, at a cost of between £5,000 and £500,000, and are likely to be subject to fines, pending the outcome of a public consultation, if they fail to do so.

However, Reach will not only affect chemicals producers. Firms that import chemicals from outside the EU, and end-users, such as packaging companies, also need to understand the regulations as they have implications for the availability and use of chemicals across the supply chain.

Designed to simplify the current legal framework – consisting of some 40 different pieces of legislation – Reach places the onus for data collection and risk assessment firmly on industry but, perhaps surprisingly for such extensive legislation, knowledge of the regulations is poor.

“Even among those who do know about it, there are varying degrees of awareness,” says Tim Jessel, the commercial director of ReachReady, a subsidiary of the Chemical Industries Association which advises companies on the regulations.

“But we expect this to improve because most manufacturers will, in some way, be affected by Reach.”
Packaging Federation chief executive Dick Searle says manufacturers in general are not really ready for Reach but, given the regulations’ complexity, that is not entirely unexpected.

By and large, packaging does not manufacture anything that would be directly covered by the legislation and the chemicals that the industry does use should have, in theory, already been covered.

“But there’s a lack of clarity as to how the regulations will be policed and what is actually covered,” adds Searle.

This is particularly true for recycled materials, which can contain contaminants that might not have been covered by Reach, even if the virgin material is.

Imported chemicals are another grey area. If packagers buy materials from within the EU, the Reach ‘duty’ on those materials should already have been paid. But non-EU products should be subject to the same criteria. Who will pay for that is still unclear.

“The reality is [as far as the details are concerned], we’ll have to wait and see what happens,” says Searle.

Lack of support
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) says the regulations provide “a good balance” between improving the protection of human health and the environment, and maintaining industrial competitiveness and innovation. It has also nominated the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) – and equivalent devolved institutions – as the competent authority in the UK.

The HSE has already set up a helpdesk to support businesses ahead of the regulations coming into force.
“The priority for all businesses at this early stage is to compile an inventory of which chemicals they use,” says HSE Reach policy advisor Tim Harris.

But British Plastics Federation director general Peter Davis says the government’s communication strategy for Reach is still inefficient, especially when it comes to smaller companies.

“It is surprising how unprepared many firms are,” says Davis. “And the consequence of that is that firms will be caught out when their customers ask them to provide information about their products.”

Davis is also concerned that the Reach regulations will cause some substances to disappear from the market because of the costs incurred registering specialised formulations that are only produced in small tonnages.

“One of our members produces some 20,000 individual formulations, and will clearly be affected by Reach,” he says.

This will have a knock-on effect on packaging manufacturers by reducing the range of materials available.

Although the impact on packaging is likely to be lower than for other industries, firms should start researching the implications of the regulations.

“It’s fair to say it is early for the industry to be looking at this,” says David Harrisson, president of Finat, the international association for self-adhesive labels. “But Reach is clearly going to have a major impact.”

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REACH AT A GLANCE
Reach comes into force on 1 June, but the registration of chemical safety will take over a decade, depending on the amount and type of substance used. An important deadline is 1 December 2008, which represents the end of a six-month ‘pre-registration’ period, designed to allow co-operation between potential registrants to share registration costs. End-users are also required to provide chemical safety reports for each substance used, and are likely to be subject to minor duties. Defra has launched a consultation on the implementation and enforcement of the regulations, which closes on 4 June, and companies are encouraged to use the opportunity to get their voice heard.