HAZARDOUS MIXTURES: DO YOU KNOW THE NEW PRESCRIPTIONS ISSUED BY THE REGULATION (EU) 2017/542?

UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION AND EUROPEAN CENTRALIZED NOTIFICATION OF HAZARDOUS MIXURES FOR CONSUMERS, FOR PROFESSIONAL AND INDUSTRIAL USE

In order to make easy the trasmission of the information and the identification of hazardous mixtures by Poison Control Centers, the European Commission has issued the Regulation (EU) 1272/2008 (CLP) with the addition of the Attachment VIII.

With this modification are introduced new prescriptions that importers and downstream users have to adopt before of placing on the martket, among which the most important are:

• EUROPEAN PORTAL FOR NOTIFICATION TO POISON CONTROL CENTERS (PCN PORTAL):

The notifications must be made through a harmonized portal made available by European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), that will contain information about the mixtures classified like dangerous beacuse of their effects on health or their physical effects.

Compared to what is required for national notifications is required also the input of the complete composition of the mixture and the toxicological information reported in Section 11 of the Safety Data Sheet.

• UNIQUE FORMULA IDENTIFIER (UFI):

The notifiers must report for each dangerous mixture an alphanumeric code of 16 characters which must be affixed to the label to help the Poison Control Centers to identify the products quickly and unambiguously.

The code is generated using the generator of UFI available on the website of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).

The requests of the Regulation (EU) 2017/542 are applied to lots of hazardous mixtures placed on the marked strating from:

• 1 January 2020 for the hazardous mixtures destined for consumers;
• 1 January 2021 for the hazardous mixtures destined for professional use;
• 1 January 2024 for the hazardous mixtures destined for industrial use.

For the mixtures that have already been notified to the designated organisms in accordance with the Article 45 of the Regulation CLP and which are already available on the market, the new Regulation allows companies to adapt by 2025.

The situation is still in progress. Not all member states declared their intentions to connect to the new portal and recently the CARACAL (Competent Authorities for REACH and CPL) have unanimously approved the changes proposed by the European Commission including the slippage of the expiration date for the mixtures destined for consumers from 1 January 2020 to 1 January 2021.

We will keep you updated as soon as there will be new official communications from the Authorities. Department of Regulatory Affairs Dangerous Mixtures.

Dr. Silvia Busoli Badiale (Department Manager Hazardous Substances and Mixtures) doc@biobasiceurope.it

Dr. Alessandro Merisio (Department Hazardous Substances and Mixtures) labdoc@biobasiceurope.it