Recyclers alerted to November Reach deadline

ERJ staff report (PRW)

Brussels -- EuPR, the European plastics recycling trade body, has warned its members they risk breaking EU law if they fail to pre-register under the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of CHemicals) legislation by the end of the month. With twice as many Reach pre-registrations from across European industry as expected, the online database software designed to collect the information has been creaking. Due to online delays, many companies are spending hours trying and failing to submit their pre-registration, according to EuPR.

Under new EU legislation, all companies which manufacture products containing chemical components must submit a list of these chemicals to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).

At the beginning of October, the European Commission ruled, as expected, that plastics recycling firms should be amongst the pre-registrants, and EuPR fears the flood of registrants in the coming days will test the Reach-IT software to its limit.

Antonino Furfani, EuPR project manager, said he hoped ECHA would be flexible, particularly if the expected deluge of last day applications are effectively excluded by Reach IT.

He joined the UK's Chemical Business Association (CBA) in urging ECHA to extend the timeframe for submissions.

The CBA has called for a six week extension to the pre-registration period.

“We hope ECHA will be gentle and extend the time frame, but the EC is quite bureaucratic so we fear they won't,” Furfani said.

For most companies which have chemicals in their manufactured products, the November 30 pre-registration deadline is the beginning of a protracted period of registration. But because plastics recyclers are using reclaimed materials, they only need to complete the pre-registration phase - provided they are able to do so by the deadline.

EuPR has a document, containing a list of chemicals used in each branch of plastics recycling, which is free to members, and for non-members costs between €300 and €1,500 depending on the size of the firm.

From PRW (A Crain publication)

Press release from EuPR