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ECHA publishes PFAS restriction proposal

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has published a proposed restriction of around 10,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on its website. Its scientific committees for Risk Assessment (RAC) and Socio-Economic Analysis (SEAC) will now start evaluating the proposal.

This followed three years of investigations by the national authorities of Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. In a report submitted to ECHA on 13 January, they concluded that the risks from PFAS are not adequately controlled and should therefore be restricted.

Risk management can begin for 300

ECHA’s has released the fourth report under its Integrated Regulatory Strategy, which aims to speed up data generation, identification of groups of substances of concern and regulatory action by integrating different regulatory processes into one coherent approach.

RAC: No change to glyphosate classification

The EU’s Risk Assessment Committee has assessed glyphosate’s hazardous properties against criteria in the Classification, Labelling & Packaging Regulation and concluded that its classification should not be changed. This is consistent with the proposal of the four member states currently assessing the substance and RAC’s own 2017 opinion.

EC publishes Restrictions Roadmap

The European Commission has published a Restrictions Roadmap under REACH, describing this as “an important step forward to provide detailed information on all ongoing work on future restrictions under the EU chemical legislation”.

Changes to REACH requirements

The European Commission has revised certain information requirements for registering chemicals under REACH. It advised companies to start preparing as the changes will start to apply in October. Further advice will be issued in 2H and changes will be made accordingly in Iuclid.

The main changes concern requirements and specific rules for the adaptation of:

* In vitro and in vivo studies, when further studies are needed based on mutagenicity concerns

ECHA proposes PFAS foam ban

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has brought forward a proposal to ban all per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in fire-fighting foams in the EU. A six-month consultation period with stakeholders will begin on 23 March.

This follows an investigation the agency carried out at the request of the European Commission into the strengths and weaknesses of five different options. It concluded that the risks posed by PFASs are currently not adequately controlled and that releases should be minimised.

New skin sensitisation guideline

ECHA has published advice on how to use the OECD guideline to REACH registrants on how to reliably combine different sources of non-animal data on skin sensitisation properties of their substances. This is the first guideline outlining how to use in silico tools like the QSAR Toolbox for this purpose. Mike Rasenberg, ECHA’s director for hazard assessment, described it as “an important milestone for advancing the use of alternative methods to assess chemical hazards”.

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