on REACH PROFESSIONALS DISCUSS David Wright, Director General, UKLA REACH: A Trade Association Perspective
No one can argue against the principles of REACH. Embedded within the programme of the Regulation for Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals, is the key aim of protecting public health and the environment. However REACH has some significant shortcomings that not only set out to undermine its own principles but also work against the key aim of the regulation and the single market.
The consolidated version of the Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 which also established the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), uses a precautionary principle to place the onus of responsibility squarely on the shoulders of manufacturers and suppliers to prove that the chemicals and substances they place on the market do not adversely affect human health or the environment. In essence the regulation is saying that “your chemicals and mixtures are bad until you have proved they are not.” It is up to business to prove that chemicals and mixtures are safe, and not for the regulator to prove that they aren not.
Government and regulators usually work by gathering scientific evidence to assess the likely risk and then providing interventions that seek to mitigate the risk to the public or the environment. But this is not the way REACH works. The assumption that goods will stop flowing or be prevented from entering the European Union (EU) until a product is proven to be safe strikes at the heart of the key principle of the single market in allowing for the free movement of goods within and between borderless nation states.
If we follow the principle of good regulation as it
applies to other injurious activities or substances, such as tobacco or alcohol, then goods and services should be allowed to circulate freely within the EU until it can be proven by the regulator using scientific evidence that a chemical or substance is injurious to public health or the environment. Like tobacco or alcohol, only then should controls should be put in place to limit the risk to public health, such as age limits, and not just an outright ban on their use.
Secondly there is the issue of cost. Companies registering their products with ECHA face a bill that can easily run into hundreds of thousands of euros. For some companies importing a limited quantity of chemicals or mixtures into the EU, this is simply not economic. In the petrochemical sector the recent collapse in the oil price has put excessive strain on margins and profitability causing huge investment in refining and exploration in the North Sea, for example, to be put on hold. Where the marginal cost of production is $65 a barrel for crude oil recovery against a market price of $65 a barrel for Brent Crude, then it simply does not make sense to continue to invest in the sector for absolutely no return.
Similarly importing one tonne of a chemical or substance into the EU each year qualifies the importer for REACH registration. If the margin of the product does not at least equal the cost of supply, including REACH fees, then it simply does not make economic sense to continue to import it. In this case a company might offshore the product and produce it outside the EU, with any associated loss of jobs or investment in the single market, or export it to other countries from abroad thereby circumventing the regulation.
Continued on page 13 LUBE MAGAZINE NO.144 APRIL 2018 11
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