Liz Gyekye / packagingnews.co.uk

New EU System for Labelling Chemicals

According to the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (ECHA), both Directives will be repealed by 1 June 2015.

The legislation introduces throughout the EU a new system for classifying and labelling chemicals, based on the United Nations’ Globally Harmonised System (UN GHS).

CLP is about the hazards of chemical substances and mixtures and how to inform others about them. It is the task of industry to establish what are the hazards of substances and mixtures before these are placed on the market, and to classify them in line with the identified hazards, according to the ECHA.

Suppliers of chemical substances must label and package their substances in accordance with the new regulation.

In case a substance or a mixture is hazardous, it has to be labelled so that workers and consumers know about its effects before they handle it.

There are certain timelines for industry to classify and label their substances and mixtures in line with the CLP rules. Also, industry must notify hazardous substances and mixtures to a central inventory.

ECHA guidance documents have been developed with the participation of stakeholders from Industry, Member States and NGOs. The objective of these documents is to facilitate the implementation of REACH by describing good practice on how to fulfil the obligations.