ECHA Updates REACH-IT to Allow Submission of Notifications for Substances in Articles

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announced on April 13, 2011, that it has updated REACH-IT to allow the submission of notifications for substances in articles. Beginning June 1, 2011, companies must notify to ECHA substances present in articles they produce or import that were included on the substances of very high concern (SVHC) Candidate List before December 1, 2010, if both of the following conditions are met:

• The SVHC is present in those articles at a volume of >1 metric ton per manufacturer/importer per year; and
• The SVHC is present in those articles above a concentration of 0.1 percent weight by weight (w/w).

ECHA states that, to explain the actual submission process, it developed a new data submission manual for substances in articles. To facilitate the submission of the information required to complete a notification, ECHA is making available pre-filled substance datasets in IUCLID 5.3 format for all substances on the Candidate List. According to ECHA, these datasets contain information on substance identification, classification, and labeling and they can be downloaded from the Candidate List webpage. More information is available online.