REACH welcomed
Yet shortly after the European Commission published its REACH REFIT review of the EU chemicals legislation, its conclusions were welcomed by some environmental groups.
ClientEarth a group of activist lawyers dedicated to environmental issues said it welcomed the main conclusion of the REACH REFIT, which reaffirms that the obligations this law created ten years ago are still considered necessary to protect humans and the environment against dangerous chemicals.
“Contrary to what is repeatedly claimed by industry lobbies, the report clearly concludes that REACH did not create ‘unnecessary burden.’ This sends a strong message to the market: it is time to invest in substituting dangerous chemicals with safer solutions, rather than spending more resources on complaining to institutions about the cost of regulation,” said ClientEarth lawyer Alice Bernard.
And she cautioned: “We are glad to see that the Commission acknowledged key shortcomings in the implementation of REACH. An important one is the fact that companies fail to comply with the registration obligations like updating their dossiers. However, the actions announced in the communication are too vague to reassure us that this lack of compliance will not be, again, a core issue in the next review in 2022.”
The German textile+fashion Confederation, t+m in Berlin and EURATEX have both drawn up position papers on the REACH-REFIT event, including proposed solutions.
We’ll have a deeper analysis of this situation in the next printed edition of Ecotextile News with views and comment from SME’s, the ECHA and NGO’s.
