Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

Summary of the main legal requirements
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procedure. The European Parliament formally approved 
a fi nal text of REACH in December 2006, and it came 
into force on 1 June 2007.
c) Themes
The main themes of the REACH system are Registration, 
Evaluation, Authorization and restrictions, and informa-
tion exchange.
d) Registration
A requirement on industry to collect, collate and sub-
mit data to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) on 
the hazardous properties of all substances (except Poly-
mers and non-isolated intermediates) manufactured or 
imported into the EU in quantities above 1 tonne per 
year; and certain substances of high concern, such as 
carcinogenic, mutagenic and reproductive toxic sub-
stances (CMRs) will have to be authorized.
Chemicals will be registered in three phases accord-
ing to the tonnage of the substance:
➤
more than 1000 tonnes a year, or substances of high-
est concern, must be registered in the fi rst 3 years
➤
100–1000 tonnes a year must be registered in the 
fi rst 6 years
➤
1–100 tonnes a year must be registered in the fi rst 
11 years.
In addition, industry should prepare risk assessments and 
provide controls measures for using the substance safely 
to downstream users.
e) Evaluation
There are two types of evaluation:
➤
Dossier evaluation covers all substances manufac-
tured or imported into the EU over 100 tonnes per 
year. Member States are required to examine and 
agree any testing proposals put forward by industry 
as part of their registration package. Member States 
may also check that the dossiers are complete and 
compliant.
➤
Substance evaluation permits Member State author-
ities to consider whether industry need to obtain more 
information for the Chemical Safety Report (CSR).