ECHA has prioritised seven substances of very high concern (SVHCs) from the Candidate List and recommended that the European Commission add them to Authorisation List under REACH. All were chosen because they are hazardous, produced in high volumes and widely used, the agency said. This is the tenth such recommendation.

Among them are three siloxanes, which are produced at volumes of up to 1,000 or up to 10,000 tonnes/year. All are deemed to be harmful for the environment because they are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic and/or very persistent and very bioaccumulative:

The need to obtain REACH authorisation before using harmful chemicals “has sped up substitution and reduced risks to people’s health and the environment - at a reasonable cost”, according to a recent study by ECHA that was based on information from 2010-20.

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has revealed that about 2,900 registrations of 268 chemicals by UK-based manufacturers, importers and only representatives under REACH have now been revoked and become void, because a transfer from a UK- to a EU-based registrant was not started by the end of the transition period on 31 December 2020.

This equates to about 3% of all registrations and about 1% of all registered substances. Of these, about 60% were registered only for intermediate use, meaning that the market impact of their registration being revoked will be limited.

ECHA has announced that all REACH registrations submitted by UK-based manufacturers, importers and only representatives that have not gone through all the steps required to complete the registration, both by the registrant and the agency by 31 December, will not be processed further. This date marks the end of the transition period for the UK’s departure from the EU.

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has published two reports on the direct and indirect effects of REACH in driving the substitution of hazardous chemicals with safer alternatives. This was based on a survey of industry associations and over 80 companies, many of which had been affected by REACH processes.