Over the past years, Chemical Reaction worked as part of a wide alliance of environmental groups, medical associations, trade unions, consumer groups, women’s groups, international development organisations and progressive businesses. More than two hundred thousand citizens visited the Chemical Reaction website to obtain information about the REACH reform and how it could serve to better protect public health and the environment from hazardous chemicals. Thanks to all those who took action and wrote to their national governments, the EU Commission and Members of the European Parliament to defend strong, innovative legislation on chemicals.

The chemical industry did not manage to stop the REACH reform, but with the support notably of the German government and German Members of the European Parliament, they did build in a series of loopholes into REACH which, if unchecked, could be exploited in the coming years to keep very hazardous chemicals on the market even when safer alternatives are available. Only public scrutiny of the European Chemicals Agency, and of the legislative revision processes of REACH, can help prevent this. With your continued interest and support, REACH can grow strong.

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AT LAST! After nearly nine years of debate, the European Parliament and the European governments finally gave their stamp of approval to the new EU chemicals law, REACH. Approved in December 2006, REACH will cover approximately 30,000 of the 100,000 chemicals currently available on the European market, taking a first, modest step towards a new and safer approach to chemicals regulation. Among its strongest points, REACH will require companies to provide safety data for large volume chemicals that they produce or import into the EU, and companies will have to substitute chemicals that persist in the environment or build up in our bodies with safer alternatives whenever they are available.

For the first time, with the new REACH regime, the public has the right to obtain information about the presence of some very hazardous chemicals in consumer products. Until now companies could use almost any chemical they liked to manufacture their products without providing health and safety information. As a result, hazardous chemicals were only restricted from the market on a case-by-case basis, mainly in response to health and environmental scandals.

While there remains much to strengthen in the new law, REACH sets us in the right direction with the framework to provide the public with information about the health and environmental effects of chemicals (many of which are present in consumer products of everyday use) and to phase out the most hazardous substances if safer alternatives are available (the Substitution Principle).

REACH will come into force in June 2007, but it will take a long time before citizens reap the benefits of this new legislation. The process of providing safety data (registration) for chemicals will only be completed in eleven years. Moreover, many important decisions have been postponed for future revisions of the law. For example, the EU will wait six years before it decides whether or not to require the substitution for powerful hormone mimicking chemicals with safer alternatives.

Unfortunately, the legislation contains major loopholes. Concessions granted to the big chemicals industry may allow companies which import and manufacture chemicals in volumes below 10 tonnes per year - 60% of chemicals covered by REACH - from the requirement to provide any meaningful safety data.

Moreover, REACH will still allow many chemicals that can cause serious health problems, including cancer, birth defects and reproductive illnesses, to continue being used in manufacturing and consumer goods. Even if safer alternatives to those dangerous substances are available, many of these chemicals of very high concern will be allowed onto the market if producers claim that they can ‘adequately control’ them. The approach of adequate control – and safe thresholds - is flawed and premised on a risky gamble, given the unknown effects of chemicals in combination, on vulnerable hormone functions, and on the development of children from the earliest stages of life. Medical associations, consumer groups and innovative businesses across Europe had called for a legal requirement to substitute them with safer alternatives as the minimum necessary measure against hazardous chemicals.

The loopholes and provisions for self-regulation contained in the law leave REACH very vulnerable to further manipulation by the chemical industry. There remains plenty of room for the chemical industry to manoeuvre around the loopholes to keep hazardous substances on the market. The new EU Chemicals Agency in Helsinki will have to be closely monitored to ensure that REACH can deliver. Without the necessary support, hazardous chemicals will continue to contaminate wildlife, our homes and our bodies, and REACH will prove a failure.

This is why in the future we will need to keep careful watch over how the law is put into practice and to ensure that REACH delivers. You, as citizens and consumers, must make your voice heard and demand safe products and environment. Environmental and many other public interest organisations will continue to campaign for a toxic free future. Support an organisation in your country that works on chemicals…