European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) releases report showing the majority of the 5,730 products bought online and inspected as part of the REACH-EN-FORCE-8 project (REF-8 project) failed to conform to European Union (EU) chemical regulations.
The report was published on December 8, 2021. It details an EU-wide enforcement project conducted in 2020 to measure compliance with relevant regulations. The main pieces of legislation covered by the survey were:
- Regulation (EC) 1272/2008 ‘Classification, Labeling and Packaging of Substances and Mixtures’ (CLP Regulation):
- Whether the type of hazard on the label of a hazardous mixture is communicated to customers in online advertisements
- Whether customers are informed about the hazard class and/or the type of hazard category in hazardous substances
- Regulation (EC) 1907/2006 ‘Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals’ (REACH:
- Whether the latest version of the safety data sheet (SDS) is supplied/available with the hazardous substance or mixture for industrial/professional uses in the official language of the receiving member state or upon request
- Whether products/articles comply with specific entries under Annex XVII of REACH
- Regulation (EU) 528/2012 ‘Biocidal Products Regulation (BPR):
- Whether BPR duties are fulfilled, including whether the sale of the biocidal product (BP) was authorized or made available under transitional measures
Inspections were conducted by 28 members states in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland (BPR duties only). In total, 5,730 products were evaluated, breaking down as:
- Substances – 323 (6%)
- Mixtures – 4,631 (81%)
- Articles – 776 (13%)
Of these, 78% violated REACH restrictions, 77% were noncompliant with BPR Article 72 ‘Advertising’ and the illegal sale of biocides, and 75% breached advertising obligations under CLP Article 48 ‘Advertisement’. It should also be noted that 99% of the products containing carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic (CMR) substances (1,874 products) were noncompliant.
In total, enforcement authorities took over 5,000 actions, including:
- Removing the product offer from the website (BPR, 2,140 products, 53%)
- Bringing the information in the advertisement into compliance (928 products, 23%)
- Removing the non-compliant advertisement (278 products, 7%)
For more information, read SGS’s original SafeGuard 166/21.
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